DINING OUT: The Bread and Pullet delivers savoury satisfaction by the plateload

Big flavour on a small plate - the Bread and Pullet is a star in the Northampton dining scene.

There was a time in the UK where most people's onlly experience of tapas would have been a visit to a homogenised, yet completely acceptable, Spanish restaurant by the name of La Tasca.

But modern day eateries are dishing up far more than patatas bravas and chorizo on a small plate nowadays.

And here in Northampton, diners have been blessed with a trinity of real gems in recent years, all aimed at those comfortable with sharing.

You don't have to order the vegetables... but you would be missing out if you didn't.

With Foodies Rocks and Nuovo covered in the Dining Out pages over the past night, it only seems right this week to celebrate the final part of the town's three-pronged attack on big dishes.

In fact Bread and Pullet, nestled in a slim dinner between an adult shop and a chippie in Wellingborough Road, might just be the best of the lot.

We head to the venue on a Friday night where it appears that word is already out, as the tiny restaurant is packed.

While Foodies Rocks in Derngate offers a tasty twist on street food, Nuovo presents impressive Italian Cicchetti, the Bread and Pullet offers something both deeply familiar and radically different.

Traditional English fair is the order of the day here, but the way the dishes are presented makes the menu read as a sort of gastropub 'best of' where diners can do away with any accompanying side of limp steamed vegetables.

And the format works.

We order a real mix of, mainly meaty, dishes from the black pudding scotched egg, to garlic prawns and the coronation chicken.

For variety, we add the creamed cabbage and bacon with griddled asparagus among others.

it's good, seasonal stuff, delivered in what seemed like five minutes from the open kitchen at the far end.

While we started out fully intending to scoff the dishes we ordered, the temptation to reach over and try a friend's is too great and, In fact, the fillet steak in a Bovril (yes Bovril) hollandaise is the surprise pick of the bunch.

There are a couple of downsides to the Bread and Pullet. The seating is a little cramped and the feel of the place isn't quite what you would describe as high-end, but come on.

The days of neatly folded napkins and 35 pieces of immaculately polished cutlery are dead. This is 2017.

If you want a meal out that delivers all killer and no filler - the Bread and Pullet ticks all the boxes.