Pub serving up superb Yorkshire puddings in tiny village crowned Nottinghamshire's best roast dinner

A Sunday roast is one of the best meals of the week. There's something particularly comforting about it - a time to unwind after a busy week, not to rush, and to enjoy the company of your partner, or friends and family.

Nottinghamshire is bursting at the seams with Sunday dinner options if you want to eat out - from pubs and bars to restaurants, cafes, and garden centres - so diners really are spoilt for choice. A drive to a country pub which serves a hearty roast is an ideal way to spend a Sunday and it seems like Nottinghamshire Live readers agree.

When asked to vote for their favourite roast, three of the four finalists on the shortlist were in rural locations. The Royal Oak in Westwood came out top. The Durham Ox Inn in Orston was second, and the Dovecote Inn, in Laxton, third. Newcomer to the Sunday dinner scene, The Magic Garden - the only finalist in Nottingham the city centre - came fourth.

It feels like I've visited just about every Nottinghamshire village and town over the last 30-plus years for one story or another but Westwood has slipped through the net and I confess I'd never heard of it although I'm familiar with Eastwood and Underwood.

According to Google, Westwood was a small hamlet in the mid-1800s with a few cottages. It grew rapidly with houses and services for workers at a nearby pit and ironworks. Today it boasts a population of around 1,000 - Eastwood for comparison has round 18,000.

The village is easy enough to find - just a few minutes from junction 27 of the M1 and before we know it, we've driven through Westwood with a sign telling us we'd reached Jacksdale. A quick U-turn and we were back on track.

The Royal Oak is located in Palmerston Street, a side street off Main Road, slap bang in the middle of a row of houses with a car park at the rear. I make a mental note that this is definitely a pub to return to in summer as the view from the beer garden is just fields... and more fields as far as the eye can see.

If it wasn't for the signage, picnic benches out the front and the fact the front door is open on a chilly November day, you could almost mistake the building with its pale green window frames and red creeper climbing up the walls for a house.

As we head into the lounge we're instantly greeted and shown to our table. I silently congratulate myself for booking as by opening time at noon, it's so busy. As we're led through the restaurant the solid wood tables and high-backed chairs decorated with tree bark rings make quite the statement.

Our drinks order is taken straight away. The super efficiency is already giving me a good impression. The menu has four meat options - rump of beef, chicken, honey and mustard glazed gammon, and lamb shank plus a nut roast vegan offering.

With a choice of up to three meats, there's no need to settle for just one. Our table is next to the kitchen where we see the roasts flying out to all the surrounding tables, our mouths watering in anticipation.

We don't have too much longer to wait. Plates with meat, potatoes, stuffing and gigantic Yorkshire puddings arrive, followed by a bowl of vegetables, and the extras we have ordered - cauliflower cheese and pigs in blankets - and last but not least a jug of gravy.

It's not very often lamb appears as a Sunday roast, I guess it's down to the price, but I love it. The shank does not disappoint, with succulent chunks of meat falling off the bone - and it's the gift that keeps on giving as I turn it over to find even more. My husband's beef is tender and just as generous.

You might protest when I say I have only two beef-dripping roast potatoes but the size more than makes up for it and along with the creamy fluffy mash, my spud quota is fulfilled.

The stuffing and pigs in blankets - no complaints there. The bowl of veggies has plenty of variety with parsnips, carrots, cabbage, peas and French beans. It's not a Sunday roast without cauliflower cheese and between us we polish off the florets and lashings of mmm-inducing gooey cheddar.

The Yorkshire pudding is nothing short of a showstopper. The size, the taste, the texture, it's a 10/10 all round. Taking up a third of the plate, the edges are beautifully light and crisp and the base is gratifyingly squidgy.

The gravy is majestically rich, thick and delicious - so much so we accept the waitress' offer to have the remainder boxed up to take home. We also take our leftover meat and vegetables away, which make a quick lunch of cold cuts and bubble and squeak on Monday.

Our bill, which includes two pints of Pepsi and two cups of coffee, comes to just over £56 for nigh-on Sunday dinner perfection. The food was spot-on and service was very friendly and efficient from start to finish.

It would have been 100 per cent had the mint sauce been served in a pot rather those irritatingly difficult-to-open sachets. But that's just the tiniest niggle, we couldn't have asked for more.

The bill:

Pepsi £3.90 x2

Americano £3 x2

Lamb shank £24

Beef £16

Pigs in blankets £2.50

Cauliflower cheese £4