THE landlord of a pub in Piddington is hoping to attract more diners to his pub with a revamped menu.

Wayne Mitchell took over The Dashwood Arms in 2010 and is hoping he can boost his number of customers with a restaurant style menu, as well as serving bar food.

My friend, Lara and I went along after visiting the festive fayre in West Wycombe.

It was the same night the monthly comedy club was running and we even had the delight of watching a Mummers Play performed in the pub.

This meant there was a great atmosphere and lots going on.

The pub has a large bar with a lounge area and then tables laid out for the food side of things. Wayne is also a bit of an artist and his art work adorns the walls.

They have just welcomed a new chef to their team called Ben Churchman who has drawn up a new menu with about five or six dishes on the starters and mains.

I went for the Panko breaded king prawns with a sweet chilli dip (£6.95) off the new menu for starters.

There were six large prawns in a good crispy batter, which were served on a well dressed bed of salad leaves. Lara had the Baked Camembert with apple compote and crispy bread croutes (£6.95).

It wasn't marked as a sharing starter but you certainly could share it. The Camembert was creamy and had a nice touch of rosemary. The apple worked surprisingly well with the melted cheese.

As well at the thin discs of bread croutes there was also a hunk of fresh bread.

Other starters included soup of the day, which was butternut squash, liver pate and goat's cheese.

For the mains I went for the Dashwood Burger (£12.45) off the bar menu.

It was a thick 8oz home made beef burger with Montgomery jack cheese, bacon, Cajun mayo, lettuce, tomato and chips.

I was a huge fan of the crispy and fluffy chips and was surprised to hear they were bought in.

Wayne told me they did do home made chips but when they sourced these- they found that not even home made beat them.

The burger was very thick- personally I prefer a thinner patty- and the bacon could have been crispier, for my liking.

The cheese was a nice touch as was the Cajun mayo, which added a nice smoky flavour.

Lara went for a dish from the restaurant menu- Crab meat linguine with pan fried red snapper fillet (£14.45). It was a bad choice for Lara as after the rather rich starter- this was a very rich main.

The linguine was covered in a thick,creamy sauce and the brown crab meat tasted quite strong.

The red snapper fillet placed on top did not marry particularly well with the rest of the dish but was good by itself.

And there was an added cheese disc on top, which didn't go well either.

I think the various levels of the dish worked well by themselves but not together.

Other dishes on the restaurant menu were risotto, steak, salmon and chicken ballotine.

But the meal ended extremely well with a delightful brownie, served with ice cream and a fruit coulis (£4.95).

The brownie was soft, yet not too rich, and I polished it off in moments.

Lara had the Lemon cheesecake and berry compote (£4.95). It was presented very well and the biscuit base was good. The lemon flavour could have been stronger but it was still tasty.

Other desserts included sticky toffee pudding, spotted dick and apple and cinnamon crumble.

The pub also do live music every Saturday night- tonight Southside will be performing songs from the 60s and on December 21 The Sultans on Swings will be playing.

I admire Wayne and his manager, Steve Ferguson, who are really working hard to make this village pub work.

They want it to be a social place, but they also want to offer good food.

The start and end of the meal were really good- I felt the mains could have been better- but as the menu has only just been launched this could be something which will improve with time.

The amount of work going into the pub shows how much they care and I hope the new menu will attract new customers to the pub. Go to www.thedashwoodarms.com