"Surely there can't be anywhere left that you haven't eaten?" is a question regularly asked of Matt and Cat. And, the geographically-minded of readers may have noticed that, within a five mile radius of Ryde, the choices are becoming fewer as more eateries are crossed off the list. Hence the recent excursions to Bembridge, Nettlestone and Sandown.

One dark evening, in the search for somewhere new, Matt and Cat pointed the Catmobile in a westerly direction and decided not to stop until a new place emerged in the glare of the headlamps. That place turned out to be the Crown Inn, Shorwell; the journey saw Matt and Cat waving as they passed already visited establishments in Ryde, Binstead, Wootton Bridge and Newport. What a lot of eating out!

Drawing the iron horse to a whinnying halt in the capacious pub car park, M and C entered the cosy pub. With its low ceilings and intimate lighting and nooks, The Crown, Shorwell retains an olde worlde pub feel. However, this doesn't mean that the pub is stuck in the dark ages; a lovely garden with weeping willows offers a stream-side al fresco dining experience to the gentle quacking of the resident ducks.

Review continues:

On a drizzly evening like the one when Matt and Cat visited, unless you are a determined smoker, you might be more comfortable inside the pub. On entering, they patrolled the entire venue and, because the place is arranged around a central bar, ended back where they started from and chose a table by the door.

Pork steak

In a cunning marketing move, the first thing that you see when you enter the pub is the specials board and M and C made their choices from the tempting array. However, in the interests of good manners and their readers, M and C took some time to see what was on offer in the regular menu before ordering chicken supreme with rosemary, lemon and white wine sauce, and pork steak with apple and cider sauce. Other delights included duck breast, plenty of seafood dishes, pub favourites, such as burgers, steaks and pasta; the day's vegetarian special was three bean and vegetable chilli with rice.

Chicken supreme

At first glance, the pork and chicken dinners looked pretty similar, with their creamy sauces, pale meats and tomato and parsley garnish. Their tastes were quite different though. The pork was delightfully lean and the sauce was sublime; the apple was neither too sweet nor too bitter and the cider gave it a great tang. Both meals were accompanied by chunky chips and one plate of seasonal vegetables to share.

The well-presented chicken supreme turned out to be both breasts of a roasted chicken, the skin of which had been seasoned to make it nice and crunchy, not flabby as chicken skin can sometimes be. The rosemary sauce was an interesting variation on chicken supreme's usual coriander, and was soon mopped up by the thick-cut chips.

As usual, Matt and Cat were unable to squeeze in a pudding, although the strawberry pavlova looked very tempting. Where do they get strawberries from this time of year? And where was the duck sourced from? On their exit from the pub, Matt and Cat noticed that the stream seemed strangely quackless...