The Black Swan, Henley-in-Arden 10/02/2012

The Black Swan in Henley-in-Arden is our local pub and we tend to go as a family frequently as it a very traditional pub with good drink and cheap and cheerful food. Just what a pub should be!

One afternoon me and my mum decided to go for lunch as we had nothing else to do. The lunch menu is very good and so reasonably priced!

I had a bacon brie and cranberry panni (one of my favourites) this was only £3.95 which I feel is so good for a lunch time snack. The panni was perfectly toasted and the brie was properly melted inside which is just how I like it! The salad garnish on the side of the plate was a nice touch as well. This was definitely a brilliant lunch time snack as it was really filling and yummy!

Mum had a stilton and cauliflower soup which she enjoyed. We also shared some battered prawns with a sweet chilli dip and a bowl of chips. The prawns were only £5.95 and the chips were £2.95 which I think is very cheap! The prawns were lovely, they are one of my favourite sorts of shell fish and especially when they are battered, they were so crispy and hot. The sweet chilli dip worked so well with the prawns as well, perfect! The chips were also really nice however I do prefer them crispier. 

This was a very good lunch that we both thoroughly enjoyed and is a perfect pub to go to for lunch or dinner!

The Laughing Buddha, Stratford 9/02/2012

I go to Stratford Upon Avon College and for one of my projects I had to do a review of a local restaurant on the radio at college. So I decided to do a review about The Laughing Buddha in Stratford town centre because it only a five minute walk from college and as it if a buffet I felt its a cheap and appropriate option for students.

As you walk in the restaurant it looks like a typical buffet style restaurant where all the food is laid out down the middle with seats and tables either side.

The waiter came over and took our drinks order which are quite expensive (typical of buffets)
I had a pineapple juice and the three girls I was with all had a glass of water.
The buffet is £6.95 each.

These are the starters I chose, the starter section had quite a big choice of all the usual chinese favourites. 

I had spring rolls, prawns toasts, wan tons and duck pancakes with cucumber, spring onion and hoi sin sauce. I covered the spring rolls, prawns toasts and wan tons in sweet and sour sauce as it is my favourite! They had a choice of sweet and sour, curry or soy sauce. The starters were nice, they are usually the best of a chinese meal for me! The duck however with the pancakes was very dry and didn't taste that fresh. The prawn toasts were really crunchy and were exactly how they should be! Overall a nice plate of starters.

I felt the starters were tastier than the main options however there was quite a big selection. I choose: sweet and sour chicken, chicken with bamboo shoots in black bean sauce, BBQ style crispy pork, ribs, egg fried rice and noodles. The food was nice but I do feel that £6.95 is quite expensive for a lunch time buffet when there are cheaper and better buffets around as I felt at the Laughing Buddha you could tell when eating the food that it had been left out a while and wasn't incredibly fresh. But I did enjoy it and tasted like traditional chinese cuisine and filled me up all afternoon!

BANK, Birmingham 30/01/2012

My friend, Jayne had been to BANK in Birmingham, Brindley Place before Christmas and had said how good it was so us and another friend, Sam decided to go before the end of January as Jayne had a £10 off voucher!

As you walk in to the restaurant you can see how modern and open plan it is. There is a separate restaurant section to the bar.

 Me & Jayne were waiting for Sam to arrive so we got a drink at the bar where they do loads of different cocktails to choose from I chose one that included, strawberry orange & vodka & it arrived in a Martini glass, it was gorgeous and you couldn't taste the vodka too much either which was good!

Sam then arrived so we sat down on a table for four which was laid out really nice and looked very sophisticated! 

 We had the table on the edge with the booth seats, the seats were very comfortable and I really liked the interior as this restaurant as the glass windows looked out onto Brindley Place. The waitress then came over to us to introduce herself and asked us if we wanted any more drinks. I just had a pineapple juice because I was driving but Jayne & Same had a large glass of Rose each. We were then given menus which were massive, a lot of choice which is always good!

The waitress then bought us over our drinks with a little wooden bowl of some freshly baked bread rolls and butter.

The bread was really crisp on the outside but soft on the inside, you could definitely tell this was fresh! I really liked having the bread at the start of the meal, its a good touch and I think all restaurants should do it! Especially as the waitress bought us two bowls.. very good!!!

After looking at the menu for a while me & Jayne decided to go for a sharing platter to start which was £15.95 which is very expensive for a starter but between two of us it wasn't too bad: 

Asian Plate for 2-goan fishcakes, spring rolls chilli squid, tempura prawns & malayan chicken skewers.

& Sam had the french onion soup which was £5.25.

Asian Plate Sharer

French Onion Soup

The Asian sharer platter was sooo nice, I had never tried the fish, Goan before so was interested to try the fishcakes, which were amazing. They had some thai spices included in them which gave them a lot of flavour and the coating was perfectly crisp! The tempura prawns are my favourite, I love prawns and especially tempura style, these were the perfect mixture of crunch and soft with the prawns cooked very well! I don't usually like squid but this squid was very good and the bed of salad it was on was so juicy and tasty, it had so many flavours running through it! The squid wasn't chewy as it usually is and was lightly breaded which gave it a nice touch! The duck spring rolls were my second favourite thing on the plate, I love duck and these were really crunchy and the filling was just perfect. The chicken malayan skewers were quite spicy (probably too spicy for me!) but they were a nice touch to a very very good starter!!
Sam said her french onion soup was very good too! Although it had a gruyere cheese toast on top which she wasn't keen on as she doesn't eat cheese.

So far so good...
The service was quite slow however our mains took about 25 minutes to arrive once our starters had been taken away, which did annoy me slightly because I like about 10 minutes between my starter and main. However when our mains did come they looked really good! All three of us went for: 8oz Fillet Steak which are served with roast tomato, mushrooms, hand cut chips and a choice of sauce. I chose the mushroom and tarragon sauce. Ive never had fillet steak before so this was a good opportunity to try it! The fillet steak was £23.50 which is expensive but fillet steak is an expensive cut of meat!

The steak came on a massive plate with mushroom, tomato, the steak, the sauce and the chips came in a separate bowl on the side. The chips were just as I like them, really thick and crispy! The sauce was so nice, I don't usually like mushrooms but this sauce was so tasty! The fillet steak was so succulent and juicy, I ordered it medium rare and it was cooked perfectly! All three of us enjoyed our steaks very much!

We then decided to have desert, this was going to be an expensive meal! Me & Jayne decided to share two deserts, Chocolate Brownies with vanilla ice cream, which was £6.50 and Malteser ice cream which was £5.50. 

The brownie was a bit of a disappointment due to the nuts in it, the chocolate was nice and the vanilla ice cream was really tasty and I really like ice vanilla ice cream when the seeds are visible and present. The Malteser ice cream was delicious, it was a rich vanilla ice cream with malteser chunks. It was lovely and a good twist on normal vanilla ice cream! The biscotti was a different alternative to a normal wafer you get in ice cream however me and Jayne wasn't a fan of this due to the fact it tasted quite nutty! 

Jayne ordered an after dinner cocktail which is a very unusual one! Which is called, Expresso Martini made with vodka, kaluha (Mexican coffee flavoured rum) and expresso. 

Jayne loved this drink however me & Sam don't like coffee so for us it was a no no! But it is a really unusual cocktail and one  I haven't heard of before! 

Overall I really enjoyed BANK but the bill was very expensive as it came to £160 for all three of us, which is very pricey! But I did throughly enjoy it and would return again! 

Horse & Jockey 23/01/2012

Me & two friends from work, Rachel & Faith decided to go for a cheap meal tonight for a chat and gossip! But we wanted somewhere cheap due to lack of money! I researched on the internet and found a cheap pub in Wythall, Birmingham called: The Horse & Jockey.

We went around 7pm, we drove in and you could tell from the outside it was a pretty cheap pub! The exterior wasn't brilliant. We walked inside and the interior was just the same, it looked a bit out dated with old fashioned carpets. It was actually quite quiet in there which surprised me! We choose our seats, sat down and looked over the menu. The menu did have a lot of choice which was good and they did an offer of two meal for £10 that had a choice of around 10 meals. However seeing as there was 3 of us, my 2 friends went for this offer and I decided to go for something else. They chose a chicken burger and a beef burger. It took me a while to decide what I wanted seeing as the menu was massive! But in the end I went for the Seafood Platter. We had to order at the bar, which again annoys me, I prefer waitress service however the food is such a reasonable price that you can't really complain! I just had a blackcurrant cordial with water with was only 40p, what a bargain! The service was actually quite slow which was surprising for how quiet it was in there, it took about 30 minutes for our food to arrive which is unusual at cheaper restaurants. 

 As you can by the picture, the food isn't laid out brilliantly! The chips are kind of just dumped onto the plate. However I did like the fact that it came with tartar sauce however the peas and chips could have been warmer and I felt the chips were a bit soggy! I also liked the fact that the different sorts of fish came in a little bucket separate from the rest of the food! That was a cute touch.

The fish included: breaded scampi, battered prawns and battered haddock. Prawns and haddock are two of my favourites so I really enjoyed these! The scampi was also really nice. Overall this main was average, it was editable but I wouldn't rush back! It was good for £8 because the portion was huge and I couldn't finish I would rate the food 4/10.

However we decided to have a desert because the desert menu looked very good! There was so many choices it was hard to decide which one we wanted! We decided on one of the sundaes to share between all three of us. Lucky we did share as well...

It was MASSIVE! It was vanilla ice cream, wafers, chocolate chip cookies, flakes, profiteroles, chocolate sponge, strawberry ice cream topped with caramel sauce all included in one bowl! The desert definitely made up for the average main meal, it was so yummy! Full of tasty things (hate to think how many calories this had!!) The crunchy cookies gave the soft ice cream a nice unusual touch! It was full of different textures and flavours and every mouthful had a different surprise! We actually struggled to finish this desert even with three of us there, a good bargain for £7.25 I felt!

Nando's Shirley 19/01/2012

I go to Nando's on a regular basis, usually once every two weeks! It is a favourite of mine because it is reasonably priced and the food is genuinely really good! I went with a friend, Rachel to the Nando's in Shirley for a late lunch. I either go to the one in Shirley or the one in Solihull but I shall firstly review/describe the food and service in Nando's at the Shirley branch.

Nando's do few starters but I usually just go straight onto mains because Nando's is very filling! When you walk into Nando's in Shirley, the restaurant is very spacious and bright with a nice atmosphere. It is usually very busy in there which is a good sign! However we went for a late lunch around 2-3pm which meant the restaurant wasn't too busy, just a few tables in. The waitress then shows you to your seats, we had a table of two in a booth near the bar where you order which is a good location because we were close to where you order seeing as Nando's isn't waitress service, which is one let down of this restaurant! I prefer places where the waitresses take the order at the table. You are then given a menu each, the menu is fun and has a lot of choice, they only do chicken and a couple of vegetarian options though so not a good choice if your not a chicken fan! They do different sizes of chicken, chicken burgers and wraps. You firstly decide what you want from the menu I usually go for a burger or 1/2 a chicken depending on how hungry I am! You then have to decide how spicy you want your chicken because they cover the chicken in a peri-peri sauce. The choices go from plain to extra hot (for the very brave!!) I have mine mango and lime because it has a slight kick but still has a lot of flavour!

  Once you've decided what you want to eat you have to chose side orders to go with your chicken, you can either have 1 side or 2 regular sides or just 1 of their 'fino' sides. I do really like Nando's however I do feel that they could have a lot more choices for the side orders, I think they should have jacket potato, peas or beans as an option as a side.

You then go and order at the bar once you've decided, they also do a good range of different drinks both soft and alcoholic. The best option I feel is the refillable soft drink, you get a choice of either, coke, diet coke, orange fanta or sprite.You get given an empty glass when you order and you can go and help yourself to your own drink from the dispenser machine and can keep refilling it as much as you like, which I think is a brilliant touch due to the fact that Nando's can make you very thirsty and is a really good price at £2.25 for unlimited drinks!

On this particular occasion I went for the Chicken Breast Filler Burger with sweet potato mash. Our food came within 10 minutes of ordering, definitely quick service which I really like especially as I was really hungry! The service is usually very good and the restaurant is really clean and immaculate. They do a lot of choices and I feel this is the perfect restaurant for a cheap lunch or dinner!

Nando's sweet potato mash is my favourite side! Its gorgeous, so creamy and has no lumps! It is quite simple, just sweet potato with some butter and cream and salt, however I feel that this simplicity of the mash is actually what makes it so tasty! The burger comes in ciabatta roll with some lettuce and tomato. The lettuce is always really fresh and crunchy which contrasts well with the spicy chicken! The burger isn't particularly big but is perfect if you want a small lunch. I was full up after this lunch! This is very reasonably priced for £10.65 with the refillable drink. I will be reviewing the Nando's in Solihull soon.

Trip to London: The Berkeley Hotel & The Hard Rock Cafe 13/01/2012

 For Christmas I wanted to do something different for me and my friend, Jayne. I wanted us to do afternoon tea somewhere other than the Ritz so I researched on the internet & came across The Berkeley Hotel, a five star Hotel in Knightsbridge. I read up about the afternoon tea called, Pret-A-Portea and realised they do champagne (because neither of us like tea!!|) sandwiches and cakes & the cakes are all shaped in fashion items such as, dresses, bags and shoes! Perfect for two 19 year old girlie girls!! We took the train into Knightsbridge and turned up at The Berkeley Hotel which was very impressive from the outside!

We were then taken inside, the reception was gorgeous, really bright with lovely purple flowers! The room where the afternoon tea is taken place is called, The Caramel Room. It was really spacious, with very comfortable chairs. Perfect for a relaxed afternoon of afternoon champagne, sandwiches and cakes!

The Reception

The Caramel Room

We were then taken to our table, a table for two with gorgeous place settings on the table, striped side plates, cutlery, rolled up napkins and my name on a place card!

 The waitress then came over with the menu which was a really nice green colour, with a lovely pattern on the front. as you opened up the menu all the different sandwiches and cakes were described inside.

 The menu described all the different types of afternoon tea you could choose from we choose the: Couture Champagne Pret-A-Portea which includes a glass of, Billecart-Salmon Rosé, Laurent Perrier Ultra Brut. Which was £54.50 a head. We read the menu and the descriptions of mouth watering selection of miniature savoury snacks, taster spoons, canapés, sandwiches and cakes. They all sounded amazing! The waitress bought us over our glass of champagne firstly with our sandwiches. 

The sandwiches included:

A beef, pepper and lettuce wrap

A smoked salmon sandwich on brown bread

Coronation chicken sandwich on tomato bread

Cucumber & cream cheese sandwich on tomato bread

& 

Egg mayonnaise mixture on miniature roll

We had two lots of sandwiches because they were so gorgeous and you can keep ordering as much as you like of each thing for no extra price!! They cut the crusts off which I really liked because I'm not keen on crusts on bread, the layer of the filling in each sandwich was perfect, there wasn't too much filling or too less! The beef, pepper and lettuce wrap was my favourite, the beef was succulent and juicy and blended really well with the crunchy pepper and lettuce. The smoked salmon sandwich was lovely, perfect layer of salmon on thinly buttered brown bread, the coronation chicken was probably my least favourite but the tomato bread was so nice, an unusual touch but it really worked! I don't like tomatoes usually but I thought this bread was really good! The cucumber sandwich on tomato bread was a good twist on a classic sandwich, cucumber sandwiches tend to be slightly boring however this one was very yummy! Lastly the egg mayonnaise roll was average in my opinion, the roll was lovely and crunchy but I find egg mayonnaise slightly strong in flavour and this one was no exception! However the sandwiches were all lovely and we enjoyed trying different flavours and they did fill us up!

The waitress then bought out our three tiered cake stand, this was amazing! The top two levels were filled with gorgeous looking cakes, designed beautifully and the bottom level was filled with four different taster spoons of canapés. 

We started off trying the bottom tier because it was the savoury items. The shot glass had vegetable soup in it with peanuts on top, we did try this but neither of us liked the soup, it had a nice flavour but it was cold.. I like my soup really hot! The canapés were all very interesting they included:

Crusted tuna with plum jam

Spiced duck with chilli fig compote

&

Vegetarian option of coriander and fennel

The duck was both of our favourite canapé, the texture was really unusual as it was like jelly but the taste was so rich and tasty and the sauce covered it was chilli fig compote which was a perfect mixture of sweet and savoury! The tuna was also really nice, it was mixed with plum sauce which gave it a really good sweet bite. We were not very keen on the vegetarian one, it was quite flavourless as I'm not keen on coriander and it had a weird dry texture.

We then started on the bit we had waiting for... THE CAKES!! We were so excited to try them! The waitress bought us over a board that had pictures of the dresses, bags and shoes that the cakes and biscuits were designed from. They included, Dolce & Gabbana, Valentino and Mui Mui.

We started by trying the top tier which had two shot glasses of mouse on it and two biscuits. The mouse on the left was a: Lanvin show-stopping cassis  bavarios dress with creme de mure jelly topped with signature folded meringue. This was my favourite out of the two mousses as cassis is one my favourite flavours as it blackcurrant! I found this really refreshing and smooth! The second shot glass on the right was a: Bottega Veneta colour blocking pink and gold pear mouse and clementine cremeuz coat with matching macaroon button. I wasn't as keen on this mouse to be honest, I found the mouse had hardly any flavour and I couldn't taste any pear or clementine in it at all! However the macaroon on top was very tasty! 

We then tried the biscuits on the top tier, the dress was a: Burberry Prorsum stylish black and white double breasted chocolate biscuit with snow white vanilla icing. This biscuit was really yummy, it was really crunchy but soft on the inside. The icing was really creamy and had a lovely strong taste of vanilla! Such a clever design for a biscuit with all the little details that were so realistic! 

The second biscuit was a: Mui Mui winter spice glittery high heeled shoe biscuit. This was really yummy! I preferred this to the coat biscuit because the icing had a lovely sweet flavour to it! I loved the edible glitter on it as well, such a lovely touch! The biscuit was the perfect mixture of crunchy and soft!

We started with the orange cake on the second tier which was a: Sonia Rykiel striped chestnut cream and almond sponge cake dress complete with trendy metallic sparkles. This was unusual but nice, I didn't think I was going to enjoy this cake due to the nuts in it but you couldn't tell, which was good! It was really creamy and yummy! Definitely a surprise in a bite!

We then tried the next cake that was shaped like a gorgeous red handbag! Jill Sander pomegranate and grenadine mousse dress topped with colourful chocolate flower pattern. The icing on top was lovely and the chocolate flavour was inspiring, I loved the pattern on top as it was really girlie and pretty! The pomegranate and grenadine mousse was really refreshing however I could not taste any pomegranate! 

We then tried the hand bag shaped cake, which was a lovely deep red colour. Valentino orange and ginger clutch cake closed with oversized chocolate bow. This cake was actually really nice which was unexpected because I' am not very keen on ginger as a flavour, however the orange with it made it taste very flavoursome and was probably one of my favourite cakes! The chocolate bow on the front was really tasty also!

We then tried the chocolate one the, Stella McCartney must-have polka dot sponge cake dress. This was a chocolate sponge cake with buttercream in the middle, this one of my favourite out of them all! It was a perfect mixture of chocolate and cream and the sponge wasn't dry at all compared to a lot of chocolate sponge cakes. The icing on top had crunchy bits in it which gave the icing an exciting mix of smooth and crunchy! Overall I really nice little cake, we ordered another one of these each!!

This was a twist on a classic favourite, the chocolate eclair! Dolce & Gabbana signature gold starred chocolate éclair dress filled with hazelnut cream. This was different compared to a normal eclair, because the middle was hazlenut cream which was a different touch and it was quite nice. I found the pastry quite dry though! However the icing was really chocolately and the white stars on top were really yummy!

Overall this was an amazing day!! The whole afternoon tea experience was amazing and the fashion designs were a brilliant twist on normal cakes and the sandwiches were amazing. This was a brilliant day and would recommend it to anyone for a special occasion!! 

The Hard Rock Cafe...

After The Berkeley Hotel we did a bit of shopping in Oxford Street then we were going to eat at a very famous restaurant called,  Le Relais de Venise in Oxford Street however the que was down the street and the wait was over an hour! So we decided to jump in a cab and went to The Hard Rock Cafe on Park Lane. This is always a good favourite of mine! | like the atmosphere and interior in there with all rockstars and famous singers pictures on the walls.

We sat down and looked through the menu that had a lot of choices, I could have eaten everything on the menu! However we weren't that hungry from our massive lunch so I decided to go for the lasagne because its not too filling.

The portion size was massive! I felt the presentation wasn't that great, but I suppose it is hard to make lasagne look good on a plate, seeing as it a fairly messy meal! The pasta is in four different big tubes with the meat filled inside them which is a lovely twist on a normal lasagne which is in strips, there was also breadcrumbs on top of each tube which gave the lasagne a good crunch! The tomato sauce was really good, not too sharp but with a sweetness to it! The cheese sauce on top was really creamy and I felt like there was a right amount of cheese it in because creamy cheese sauces can usually be quite over powering, however there could have been more sauce on it than there was! Overall I lovely dinner, but I think it could be cheaper than £15.

We then decided to have desert, we both went for the creme brûlée because the Hard Rock's creme brûlée is supposed to be the best around, my friends have recommended it so I thought I best give it a try!

The creme brûlée came in a shot glass which is a cute touch, however it means you don't get a lot of desert in it! This is a very interesting creme brûlée compared to any other I've ever tried due to the fact it is hot, which is a nice touch and I preferred it hot to cold! It is a pastry cream mouse topped with a sugar brûlée crust. The topping was very crunchy and you could hear the crack as you put the spoon into it. The cream was really yummy and you could really taste the vanilla! Overall a good desert for £4.99 and a good twist on the classic creme brûlée!