Brunch at The Lounge, North Road, Bedminster, Bristol

The Lounge, has become a regular feature for slightly-hungover sunday brunches during my visits to Bristol, (particularly because it seems to be the only place in Bedminster which meets R's requirement of serving hash browns with their cooked breakfasts).  This 'Lounge' is the original, more have sprung up since 2002, has a very chilled-out independent feel to it. 

Breakfast, lunch and dinner are all good here, so it is always packed.  Strangely though, it was uncharacteristally quiet on a late sunday morning, making service attentive and speedy.

Orange juice is freshly squeezed and delicious.  Breakfast options consist of a full english option, a veggie version, a healty museli option, an eggs benedict version and perhaps most intriguingly, something called 'an egg and bacon stack' - eggy bread served with bacon and...maple syrup! 

How could I resist?

Cake of the Day: Joanna's Casino Cake

We all know that Joanna's talents in the kitchen are impressive and far-ranging, given her previous life as a chef.

However, by all accounts, Jo completed excelled herself with this amazing birthday cake for Rachael, perfectly themed to match our murder mystery evening.

The attention to detail was astounding - edible handmade dice, not-so-edible shiny coins and of course the champagne candle.

Tastewise, the cake was fantastic.  Squidgy and chocolatey without being overly heavy, it was moist and delicious.

Should you be lucky enough to live in the Bristol area, and desire an extra-special cake for a special occasion, Joanna may well be willing to create one for you at a very reasonable price.  Leave a comment through the blog!

Cake of the Day, The Butterleigh Inn's Butterleigh Brownie

The highlight of my brief trip to Devon was this warm and deeply chocolately brownie at The Butterleigh Inn in the delightful village of Butterleigh (near Cullompton).  It had a spongy consistency, rather than feeling heavy and dense, and served with clotted cream it was heavenly. 

I had it instead of lunch!

A Proposito, Weena 505, 3013 AL Rotterdam, Netherlands

This Italian eatery just outside Rotterdam Centraal station, is a bit of an institution. I’ve only ever visited on weeknights and it has always been packed throughout the evening. The glass exteriors give it a slightly sophisticated air after dark, but on this summer evening, we were bathed in heat and light, giving it quite a different atmosphere. The wine glasses are the largest I have ever encountered. You can’t help but enjoy wine in these glasses, which resemble goldfish bowls on the thinniest stems imaginable.

Forget printed menus, large double-sided chalkboards are presented to each table on request. Antipasti, meat, fish, pasta and risotto feature, and non-Dutch/Italian speakers always have fun trying to translate each ingredient listed.

Requesting an unspecified selection of the antipasti was a wonderful decision! A phenomenal array of wonderful looking food arrived – buffalo mozzarella, pecorino cheese, parma ham, salami, sun dried tomatoes, rocket salad, roasted red peppers, very ripe melon, roast courgette – each one full of flavour. The bruschetta was far better and more imaginative (and to my taste) than any I’d sampled in the UK, with garlic, basil and red chilli added to the tomato.

The foccacia was the wonderful really fluffy stuff, joyfully warm and drizzled in olive oil.

 Portion sizes are huge. I barely had room for a main course, but managed to regain some appetite given the deliciousness of my spaghetti, which boasted capers, olives, garlic and sausage meatballs in a tomato sauce.

Service, whilst usually very good, was umm...interesting on this latest visit. Our nonchalant waiter couldn’t see the problem in only taking 4 of the 5 drinks orders of our party. He could however see a big problem with serving parmesan to the person who’d ordered pasta with scallops. When she asked him for it he took on the gravest of tones and said “it is very difficult for me to help you… fish and cheese…No.” And then he flounced off. (Needless to say we stole the cheese grater when his back was turned and helped ourselves).


Service aside, the food quality, the portion (and wine glass size), variety and flavour here are truly excellent and I’d strongly recommend a visit should you ever be in Rotterdam!

The Bounty, Cockmarsh, Bourne End

Accessible only by boat or on foot, The Bounty was one of those pubs that I had heard plenty of great things about, but I hadn’t managed to ever visit. It was a warm and sunny day, perfect for our walk from Marlow. With its beautiful riverside location, I expected the place to be heaving with people, but whilst it was certainly busy, we were delighted to find plenty of outdoor tables available as we approached.

The Bounty manages to be quirky without being pretentious – there’s a skull proudly displayed by the bar, which as well as booze, sells greeting cards, Curly Wurlys and ginger beer (on tap). As well as a lovely range of bar snacks and a hot food menu, there was a cake of the day (my kind of place!) and ice cream also on sale.

The sign above the entrance to the pub welcomes punters to ‘The People’s Republic of Cockmarsh’ where “the laws of common sense apply”, and upon walking into the pub, my immediate reaction was that I’d walked into some other land. There was a queue at the bar but the bar staff were lovely and the wait didn’t seem to matter, as there was plenty to look at inside.

Given the heat of the day I drank lashings of firey ginger beer through a pink straw (I wanted to make the most of finding somewhere that served it on tap), but on the beer front there were some local Rebellion Brewery offerings (the fresh and hoppy Rebellion Blonde was sampled) and a fantastically named ‘Grumpy Cow’. The cider option was the extremely potent scrumpy, Old Rosie. D commented on the good condition of the beer which was at the optimal temperature.

The food is simple but brilliant.

Cheesy chips are great, but The Bounty goes one better and offers…STILTON CHIPS! Utterly utterly divine chunky chips covered with slabs of melting Stilton. The simple things taste the best. Other food sampled included an old school but still lovely bacon toastie, and a ham Ploughmans. Portion sizes were more than generous. The home cooked ham was clearly of good quality and there was plenty of pickle. Quavers were served on the side!

The outdoor area stretched out on either side of the pub, with a children’s play area (complete with Big Scary Tree) on the opposite side to where we were. Truly a place with something for everyone, I can’t wait to visit again.

The Artichoke, 162 Yarmouth Rd, Broome, Norfolk NR35 2NZ

As expected we were waiting outside The Artichoke before it opened at 12 noon (in keeping with D’s Mum’s pride in punctuality). And for good reason. This is a very popular pub. My second visit, I was looking forward to both the food and the drink. A regular entrant of the Good Beer Guide, it won Norfolk’s CAMRA pub of the year in 2009. Once the home of Crowfoot Brewery (a very long time ago), it truly boasts a great selection of drink –D likes the choice of real ales (they always have 4 on the hand pumps, 4 on gravity in the tap room, and my personal favourite, there are always three fruit beers on draught!) I’m always filled with excitement when I find fruity Belgian beers on offer!

I also love the look of the whisky bar, with around 70 varieties of malt whisky, decorated with pump clips and mugs hanging from the ceiling. The drink list is handwritten and presented above the bar, along with a note (consider it an old-school ‘status update’) about one of the regulars ‘Terry,’ and his new tow bar. It’s a cosy, welcoming place, with a real fire in the corner in the wintertime. The staff are exceptionally friendly, treating us like old friends (which D’s family almost are), and the bar seemed to fill up almost immediately after opening time.

My first beer was my favourite, ‘Kriek’ (Belgian Cherry beer), served in half pints only (due to the 6% potency), in an authentic Belgian Beer glass.

The menu is simple and traditional, with a daily changing specials board. We took our seats in the original restaurant area (a bit more atmospheric than the newer conservatory dining area in my opinion – and closer to the bar), and the huge portions of food arrived. Scampi and chips for D’s Mum and Gran, Plaice and Chips for D, and a Chicken and Mushroom Pie and chips for me (healthy wasn’t really a theme of the afternoon, as you can tell).

D’s plaice was “hoooge” (as the Norfolk folk would say), extending a long way underneath the peas and chips on his plate.

My pie was divine. Very generous on the filling, with large meaty chunks of chicken, ham and mushroom, topped with a slim rectangle of rich short-crust pastry, served with greens, carrots and wonderful crispy chips.

D’s Mum is a scampi expert, sampling all the pub scampi and chips, in the local area, and she rates The Artichoke as having consistently the best of the lot. Again, portions were large, with D benefiting from extra chips from his Gran.

Stuffed, I was somehow talked into sampling another Belgian beer. This time I opted for raspberry (Bacchus Frambozen), which I found less sweet and slightly less enjoyable than my initial Kriek. D went for the third available fruit beer, Peach (Timmermans Peche). This was a little too beery for my liking but it had a subtle peachy aroma and taste.

I really was going to decline dessert, having eaten far too large a lunch to manage the delicious sounding but hefty options of crumbles, sticky toffee puddings or bread and butter pudding. D opted for his favourite, Summer Fruit Pudding whilst his Gran went for banana fritters. D’s mum’s choice of Maple and Walnut ice-cream was my downfall though, and I found myself helpless to resist ordering such a magnificent sounding dessert from local ice-cream maker Parravani.

I was not disappointed – deliciously nutty and maple-y sweet, it felt luxurious and light at the same time.

We finished everything. Everything ordered that been wonderful. I’d more than happily visit a third time – highly recommended for both food and drink!

Cake of the Day: D's Birthday Cake

This is D's favourite cake of all time - a joint effort between his gran and his mum, the simplicity is what makes this cake great.  A plain sponge, with home grown strawberries and raspberries, inside (with lashings of cream), and on top, I throughly enjoyed sampling this one.