A super roast and fantastic service at The Elm Tree Inn, Elm

After enjoying excellent meals in The Wheel Inn at Wisbech St Mary and The Barn in Terrington St John, my wife and I continued our unofficial quest to find Fenland’s best Sunday roast this weekend when we visited The Elm Tree Inn, in the village of Elm.

We only decided in the early afternoon that we wanted to eat out and, having scanned TripAdvisor and seen some lovely things posted about this country pub, I gave them a call and they managed to fit us in at 3pm.

A shave, a shower, a change of clothes and a quick drive down the A1101 and we arrived in the pub’s car park.

As we made our way into the pub, we were straight away impressed with the look of the place. It’s quite obviously an old building, but it has a modern, airy feel inside.

We were greeted by a very smiley, friendly staff member - Elizabet - who served us all afternoon and was a real credit to the establishment.

When seated in the spacious, modern dining area, we chose drinks, and I had a pint of Stella Artois (£5.20) while Josi had a large Pinot Grigio (£7.95).

The main menu is served as well as the roast choices, and there were a number of starters available, with the prices ranging from £5.25 for marinated mixed olives to £9.50 for crispy squid. But, having seen the good portion sizes on the plates of others, we decided to go straight for our roasts.

There were roast beef, pork loin and turkey options, or you could even have some of each. There was also a nut roast (£17.50), which I went for, while Josi chose the beef (£20.95).

Both were served with roast potatoes, Yorkshire pudding, cauliflower cheese, sage and onion stuffing, and garden vegetables. Josi’s came with pigs in blankets too, with a pot of gravy, and mine with an onion jus.

For those of you not familiar with nut roasts, they are different everywhere you go and this one was particularly flavoursome, with the addition of sweetcorn and peppers something different.

Other mains on the Sunday menu were homemade beef burger, scampi and chips, five bean chilli and barbecue chicken.

We both left a little, partly because we were full and partly because we’d seen the dessert menu!

If ever there’s sticky toffee pudding on the menu, then Josi has it, and this one (£8.50) was particularly nice, she said, served with salted caramel sauce, vanilla ice cream, strawberries and blueberries.

I chose the apple, forest fruit and Biscoff crumble (£8.50), which came with vegan vanilla ice cream and can only be described as heaven in a bowl.

Crème brûlée, tiramisu cheesecake, chocolate brownie, Eton mess, cheese and biscuits, ice creams and sorbets were the other options.

This meal was definitely up there with the other two roasts we’ve had recently, with Josi saying it’s the best she’s had this year and already planning a return with some of her girlfriends.

Ratings (out of five):

Food: Very tasty, fresh and plentiful. ****

Drink: Can’t go wrong with Stella and Pinot - plenty of other choices too. ****

Decor: Attractive and modern. ****

Staff: Our waitress was lovely, and the others seemed happy and helpful too. *****

Price: The total bill for two mains, two desserts, two lagers and a large wine was £73.80, which we thought reasonable.