Restaurant Review: The Oak, Smannell, Hampshire

A couple of weekends ago, a group of my friends and I visited The Oak in Smannell, a quaint Hampshire country pub with a warming atmosphere and delicious pub grub. Smannell is a small village in Hampshire just out side of a town called Andover and you are guaranteed beautiful field and forest views if you fancied a weekend dog walk - naturally followed by refuelling at a scrumptious eatery.
With prices averaging to around £6 for a starter and around £12-£15 for the main, they are very reasonable for a variety of food to choose from and pretty big portions.

For starter I had the lightly breaded whitebait with tartare sauce which is one of my favourite starters as long as it's cooked well and the produce is fresh. Liam had the deep fried calamari which I had a taste of and it was just delicious - perfectly cooked and not rubbery at all; Louise had the ham hock terrine from the specials menu and Harriet had baked camembert with a selection of items to dip like crusty bread and vegetables, and caramelised onion chutney.

Now as for the main, I have to reinforce the message that these potions are pretty delicious and big! I had the duck with country vegetables and mash - it was absolutely perfect. The duck was cooked to be tasty, pink and melt in your mouth which is exactly how I like it, and it came with a tangy red berry jus. Liam had a combo of ribs and chicken marinated Southern style - I again stole some of the ribs from him and they were pretty tasty, although I would like to have tasted more sauce and flavour on them. The burger at the pub is a pretty standard pub burger in a ciabatta which comes with chunky chips - great comfort food.

I really enjoyed our evening at The Oak in Smannell - cheap drinks, good food, excellent atmosphere so overall it's a big thumbs up!