The low down on restaurants, street food markets and food festivals.
Usually I like to start restaurant reviews with a bit of background about the restaurant, its owners and chef, and a little of their collective story. But the Parkers Arms has been one of the UK’s Top 50 gastropubs for several years and many people have written many thousands of words on those topics already. ... Read more »
When Pete and I moved from London to a small village close to Abergavenny at the start of 2019, one of the cuisines we really missed was Turkish. In our old home in North Finchley, London we had easy access to several excellent Turkish restaurants which we visited often! After moving, although we enjoyed the ... Read more »
Parallel is the sibling restaurant to Pasture Cardiff, a high quality steak restaurant that opened in Cardiff 3 years ago, two years after owner Sam Elliott launched Pasture Bristol. Elliott introduced Parallel in March last year and the small plates restaurant opened to almost immediate praise from critics and customers alike. At a time when ... Read more »
The Retreat Farm Shop, Deli and Cafe has just opened in a beautifully converted chapel in Llanover. Its a new location, but not a new business – owners Simon and Amy previously ran The Gardener’s Kitchen (located in the former post office by the little hump-backed bridge in Llanellen). Their new site gives them a ... Read more »
By the time we finally made it to Clay’s Kitchen & Bar, the new location for what was previously Clay’s Hyderabadi Kitchen, a lot more people were aware of this absolute gem of a restaurant than ever before, thanks to national coverage in The Guardian, in the form of a review from critic Grace Dent. ... Read more »
The island of Islay is perhaps best known for its many whisky distilleries including Lagavulin, Laphroaig, Caol Ila, Kilchoman and Bruichladdich. Many of the fifty thousand or so visitors a year go for the whisky, a huge number of them during Islay’s annual whisky and music festival, Feis Isle. Pete and I have attended the ... Read more »
Last weekend we popped up to Brecon for their annual food festival inside the market hall. Lots of great vendors from whom we bought baklava, garlicky smoked bacon, a chocolate brownie featuring turkish delight, three jars of fruit curd in mango, passion fruit and orange flavours, a hunk of pancetta, and a punnet of fresh ... Read more »
Right next to Tottenham Court Road tube station, where the neighbourhoods of Holborn, Bloomsbury, Fitzrovia and Soho converge, and at the foot of the iconic Centre point building is the Arcade Food Hall, which opened in 2022. Upstairs within the food hall is Plaza Khao Gaeng, a Southern Thai khao gaeng (rice with curry) restaurant by ... Read more »
It’s been a while since I last went to Baozi Inn, Soho, not since we’d moved away from London four years ago. I took advantage of a recent London citybreak to visit the London Bridge branch, just a couple of minutes walk from ever-popular Borough Market. Our hotel was just round the corner from the ... Read more »
Having moved out of London to rural Wales four years ago, I miss the city’s incredible diversity and quality of restaurants enormously. But we visit family regularly, and each time I cherish the opportunity to eat out at old favourites and exciting newcomers. Often, I lean towards the cuisines of East and South East Asia ... Read more »
The Place of Onions, in old Lille. After last night’s rainstorm the intense sticky heat has broken and today is cool, breezy, fresh… I love it! A drop of… [more]
We went to Star Wars: Secrets of the Empire at The Void this morning, an amazing VR experience where we got to be Rebel Alliance members going undercover as… [more]