Royal Oak, Buckingham

A traditional pub in the centre of the village, it consists of two rooms at the front of the pub, and possibly another at the rear, although this were in darkness on a recent Tuesday evening visit. The lounge bar is the larger of the two rooms and has a traditional pub appearance with a carpeted floor, a good selection of tables and chairs, dark wood panelling on the lower part of the walls with rough plasterwork above, and a brick fire-place at one end. This housed a small wood burning stove, although it was not in use and looked as though it may have been more decorative than functional. Various horse brasses and pictures were dotted around, and a table in one corner housed a collection of Easter eggs, presumably these were raffle prizes. The bar counter had fairly lights strung up above it, and several jugs hanging from the ceiling. There was a plasma at the end of the bar but this was not in use. The public bar to the right was slightly smaller and in many ways cosier with plenty of wooden beams on the ceiling being an attractive feature. It was dominated by a pool table however, and there were also a couple of fruit machines and a plasma that was showing the cricket. This also had a brick fire-place, this time with a larger wood burning stove that was in use. The food menu was entirely Chinese, in fact the pub doubles as the village takeaway. This seems quite enterprising, maximising the use of the pub’s kitchen and presumably encouraging customers to have a pint whilst waiting for their order. To be honest, it’s not quite what I had in mind when I set out for a pub meal – had I wanted a Chinese takeaway I could have got one, but nonetheless any regulars would obviously know what’s on offer and could chose accordingly. The menu was extensive with various curry, chow mein and foo young dishes as is usually the case, and my Chicken Curry was a decent example of the genre and a generous portion for £6. In fact they were doing a “buy one, get one free” deal on curries that night, but unfortunately since I was away from home I don’t know what I would have done with the other one. Deserts were limited to banana fritters and such like as might be expected. Beers on tap were Doom Bar and Greene King IPA. The solitary cider on tap was Somersby from Carlsberg which is a new one on me, but not being a great fan of their lager I opted for one of a number of Weston’s ones that had pump clips displayed on the bar, but no actual pumps – presumably these were from a bag in box and consisted of Old Rosie, Bounds, 1st Quality, Pear and the fruity Twist. My 1st Quality was decent enough, but seemed expensive at £3.85 a pint.