Less Haste More Speed

Asia Lounge, 66 High St Bedford, MK40 1NT 01234 365366
 

 

Saturday, the day of champions. I think that’s what they call it, there were lots of cheers from the pub we were in so I’m guessing England must have won the Rugby (that’s what was on the big TV, I’m not a fan but I do notice stuff from time to time).

We were out tonight to celebrate the birthday of a good friend, the plan was to sink a few pints at the Kings Arms and then head over to the Asia Lounge for a slap up Indian. The table was booked well in advance for all 17 of us to everything was going to be all right. Or so we all thought.

You can’t fault the Asia Lounge for its décor, it’s very nicely done out and moodily lit which makes for a very relaxing atmosphere. We were all seated and our drinks order was taken, drinks arrived pretty quickly and the merriment began.

We were given plenty of time to peruse the menu and then the waiter came over and took our starters order, sadly this is where things started to go a little downhill. The order for the starters was taken and then another drinks order, again the drinks came pretty quickly. About 20minutes later the waiter returned and took our main course order (surely all ordering should have been done in one hit).

Then… the long, LONG wait. I should have checked the time but it must have been over 30 minutes before the starters even hit the table. I’m sure I had had 3 rums before food arrived and others had had either 2 or 3 pints.

For starters I’d ordered the soft shell crab: Wild catch blue swimmer soft shell crab, in chilli & garlic tempura batter served with homemade ginger, prune, and mango & fig marmalade. It was pretty amazing, the whole thing was also covered in chopped chilli’s which gave the whole dish a real kick! It really was excellent, the soft juicy crab and the crisp tempura batter worked really well and the chilli’s really set the whole thing off.

I asked around the table and it was a general thumbs up all round. I didn’t really have ask as there were plenty of near orgasmic moans and “Oh man, this is really good” half mumbled comments through full mouths of food to guess that everyone was in fact enjoying what had been laid before them.

After the starters even more drinks were ordered and then we waited…. And we waited… and we waited….

Eventually the main course arrived but, not all together. The main issue here is that there was no organisation, the waiter had a trolley full of food but no idea who had ordered what. He spent much time shouting out the names of dishes in the hope that the person who had ordered the dish all of those hours ago was still able to recall what they had wanted in the first place.

I’d ordered Lamb Rogan, Mushroom Rice and a Keema Nan. My Lamb Rogan turned up first, then about 5mins later I heard “Mushroom rice” being shouted.

“MINE!” I raise my hand as if I’m back in school.

The problem that we now have is that the actual portions sizes are not great, I think had they have come 40 mins before just after we had finished our starters then maybe there would have been enough but we had been waiting far too long and everyone was really hungry and what was now being put down in front of us really wasn’t enough to satisfy the most basic primal hunger needs that had so steady arisen over the long period of time between courses.

I dish up the rice and Rogan and tuck in thinking my Keema Nan can’t be too far behind. All of us who had ordered a kemma nan were thinking this, all but one of us was so very, very wrong.

Mr’s Belly managed to procure herself a keema naan (I wish I had agreed to share Nan’s now rather than flying solo). I was then served a keema nan (or at least that’s what they told me it was), which turned out to just be a nan, no keema, no way, no how just a nan then.

 The remaining keema nans actually turned up when everyone had finished their meal despite cancelling the order about halfway through the main course.

Obviously complaints were raised to the management about the service, the randomness of the serving and some of the dishes had been served cold. We were offered a free round of drinks but since we had been “lounging” now for 3 hours we refused the drinks, we just wanted to go, oh please let us go.

The manager came out and apologised for the bad service and that it had been:

A) The fact that there were so many of us (it was then pointed out that the restaurant was only half full with us in it anyway) Damn it, PLAN B!

A Tandoori oven that had “gone down” which had caused the issue with late food arrivals (are you sure you little tinker I think you’re telling porkies).

C) They just hadn’t prepared for such a large party despite knowing that a large booking was coming in to dine (I suspect that this one was more in line with the truth).

A member of the group asked if they could discount the bill by 25% and asked if that was ok, the manager told him “we’ll decide that” (cheeky git, what he was really saying here was “I will be the one to determine just how much the crap service you were given is worth”). When the bill arrived they had taken off 10% (so a 40minute wait between each course is worth 10%, 50 minutes is worth 15% and 1 hours is worth 20%) but a member of the group asked for a further 15% to be removed which after much toing and froing was agreed upon.

All in all the service was a bloody shambles, a real shambles. I don’t think I’ve ever seen such disorganised service before, it was like a train wreck but a really boring one that you didn’t want to look at as it took ages for the train to fall off the rails, slowly drag itself across the floor and then decide if it was going to explode of not. By the time it did most of the fuel had soaked in to the ground so the expected fireball was nothing more than a damp fart and a puff of smoke like a cheap firework on Bon-Fire night.

The food (which is the real shame of the whole tiresome affair) was bloody amazing! It was some of the best Indian food you could ever expect to have, the Rogan I had was rich and had just the right amount of zing to it. I tried my mates Garlic Chicken dish and that was beautiful. The chef they have is one talented bugger in the flavour department and that’s what makes the let-down of the serving staff that evening so disappointing.

An upsetting part of the evening though was the birthday boy feeling bad for bringing us all to the Lounge. Mate, it wasn’t your fault, no one knew what it would turn out like it did and you’re not to blame. Besides, I think you got over that feeling pretty quick by the way you were hammering down those whiskey shots in The Bear afterwards!

I think I’ll be inclined to try the Asia Lounge one more time but I think we’ll try going as a smaller group next time and see what happens with the service. I do recall going there when it had just opened and having a similar experience (there were only 4 of us that time) but the food is so good I’m really hoping on my 3rd visit (apparently it’s “the charm”, let’s bloody hope so) that they have sorted themselves out on the service side of things.

Oh, and make your portions bigger people.

I'm frickin' hungry!

The Bedford Belly on Tour: McDonners

McDoner's, 100 Carlton Street, Castleford WF10 1EE
 

I’ve been meaning to write this one up for a while but things have been quite busy these past few months that I never really got the chance.

There’s only one thing I’m going to be talking about here and it’s a kebab, this isn’t just any kebab this is the bastard king of ALL kebabs, it’s a frickin’ BEAST! So, what’s it called then?

This bad boy is known as: The Daddy Munch on Naan Kebab

What’s inside: Donner meat, char grilled chicken, 2 x seekh kebabs & diced lamb served on a tikka naan with salad & chilli sauce!

So, what’s the big deal?

This thing is a monster, I didn’t weigh it but you really do not expect the sheer weight of the thing. It really takes you by surprise when the delivery driver hands it over, you know that feeling where you’re handed something and you misjudge just how heavy it is? Well, it was one of those moment. It was like being passed over a new born baby.

The naan is huge and then you have the meat (now those of you that know me are well aware that I am a self-proclaimed meat activist. I encourage the consumption of meat and think those that do not eat meat should not be allowed any sort of meat substitute, there should be no fake sausages, chicken or bacon. They are ours, you don’t eat meat you leave it alone… I don’t eat fake vegetables now do I? I eat all vegetables And MEAT), man the meat, there’s loads of it! Loads of donner meat, stacks of chicken. You can see why this thing is so heavy and then with the huge salad on top of that and the lashings of chili sauce. I’m not kidding you this is a thing of beauty, but looks aren’t everything.

Taste: Everything here tastes great! The donner meat isn’t too greasy, the chicken has that charred edge to it and the lamb is tender and not at all fatty (which I expected it to be). The seekh kebabs melt in your mouth and the naan is a triumph A TRIUMPH I SAY! All that for £8.00. Frickin’ bargain, especially if you’ve just come back from a good old traditional British night of binge drinking. I do have to say though I struggled with this, I’m not sure if it was lunch that got in the way or something else but I am determined to finish it the next time this bad boy lands on my platter.

I’ve been told these guys do another meaty morsel called: The Tiger Kebab on Naan, it’s chicken tikka, BBQ chicken, donner meat, seekh & beef on a plain naan. It’s been recommended by the same friend who put me on the trail of the Daddy Munch so I know my sauce is good (yeah, I misspelt source on purpose, gotta have a food pun). It’s a dilemma though, I would quite like to try The Tiger but then I wouldn’t be eating the Daddy Munch.

What’s a man to do?

Close Your Pie Lids

The Five Bells, 101 High Street, Henlow, Beds, SG16 6AE 01462 811125
 

Another Sunday but this time there is a hint of freedom in the air. Baby Belly is taking a bottle these days and this allows for periods of absence. Not that we don’t love her of course but as any parent will know, sometimes you just need a little breather, oh and I also don’t mean we throw few bottles in her cot and go out for the day either. She is very much under the supervision of an adult. Yes, Today Baby Belly gets to spend some time with Grandma & Granddad while we GET TO GO TO THE PUB!

Ok, it’s A pub and we’re not there to “booze out” just have a meal with some friends. The Five Bells is located in Henlow, a nice setting between Baldock & Bedford (a little past Hitchin and to the left). We arrive and head inside where some of our friends are waiting, we’re still waiting for a couple more, in total (including children… but not ours HA!) there will be 12 of us. So that’s a [pretty good taking right there for any pub or restaurant.

About 10mins after our official booking time we’re still waiting for the last of our friends to arrive, the (I think manager) comes over and starts getting a little huffy:

“Is everyone here then?”
“Not yet no”
“Well, I’ve got this tabled booked out at 3pm”

What I would have liked to have said was: “Oh, well in that case all 12 of us will just piss off and spend our money somewhere else then”

What was actually said was: “Oh, they’re just pulling up now”

This seemed to appease the sweaty pub beast and he grumbled off to, I presume get shirty with someone else (throughout our visit I saw him a few times waddling at speed around the pub getting grumpy with various members of staff).

So grumpy pub beast aside let’s get down to the eats.

I’m a greedy git so I did have a starter. My friend and I both wanted the haggis starter but they only had one left so he ordered that and I ordered the Japanese prawns which we shared. I’ve never had haggis before and was informed it was a bit like a spicy white pudding which sounded great to me. What we got though was more like deep fried stuffing balls, it tasted fine but it wasn’t at all what I was expecting to come. The Japanese prawns were pretty darn good too and came with a sweet chilli sauce, both came with fresh side salads. Portions were reasonable, not too big nor too small.

For mains most people went for the roast but the special board caught my eye with beef & Guinness pie. I love beef, I love Guinness and let’s be fair who in their right mind doesn’t love a pie? Who? Well, I do at least but what came, to me anyway wasn’t what I would call a pie.

A pie to me is filling wrapped head to toe in pastry, cooked in some kind of pie dish (yes obvious). Now what came can (and is) technically “a pie”, it was filling served in a dish with a pastry lid. To me, that IS NOT a pie, that is stew with a bit of pastry. How can this be possible? You wouldn’t get away with this when it comes to any other type of food. I can’t just spread some jam on a plate, throw a bit of bread on it and call it a sandwich. I can’t serve up a mince beef & tomato dish, pop a tortilla wrap on top and call it a burrito so why should anyone be allowed to call this a pie when clearly IT IS NOT A PIE!

Anyway, beside it not really being a pie it was good. The beef was tender, the sauce was finger licking goo (so sue me KFC) and the pastry LID (not pie casing) was flaky and tasted great.

As far as I am aware there were no complaints about the food, I know some were beaten by the portions but I wouldn’t have said they were too large. These people were obviously not hungry enough in my opinion, they need to sort themselves out and get hungry in future.

If you’re looking for some good food and don’t mind pies not actually being pies then by all means head on down to the Five Bells in Henlow, I don’t think you’ll be disappointed. If you want service with a smile then you might want to take a cut out of a smile with you that you can super glue to the sweaty pub beasts face (I would like to add that the serving staff were in fact very good and efficient and the girls at eth bar were friendly and cautious too).

Just in case you were wondering (and I wouldn’t want you to go away disappointed that I didn’t answer that one burning question you’ve had running around in that brain of yours) we did manage to eat and get out before the 3pm booking had even arrived!

Belly Logical

Pizzeria Chirico, 26-28 Mabel Road, Bedford, MK42 9JD, 01234 270214
Open: Wed – Sun 17:00 – 23:00

A week night... A night when really I shouldn't be thinking about pizza. Today
Is supposed to be one of my “diet days” but the coffee flowed today and then there was cake!
Well, since there's already been cake then I don’t suppose pizza is going to hurt any more than the cake has...

In fact I'm now ...convinced it will actually compliment the cake eating from earlier today.
And so, it may be done!

There is another reason to order pizza. Mrs Belly has been set free from the shackles of a dairy free diet! Those lactose free, tasteless, disgusting, cowless (much like most of the country’s current beef supply) chains lay broken and strewn across the floor, RUN! RUN TO THE DAIRY!!!

"Oh sweetheart that’s awesome. I know how much you’ve missed it so if you're allowed dairy then just for you I will sacrifice my diet day and order you in a full on cheese pizza...just for you."

And so, it may be done.

But where to go?

We had a menu come through the other day and it was a place I heard about but never ordered from so I thought we should give it a go. It's run by Italians and was recommended by an Italian friend of mine and in my world Italian recommendation + Italian food place = good eats.

Unfortunately (and I say this with not an ounce of truth in the word "unfortunately") the menu we had only displayed prices & listings for tray pizzas (approx. 30 x 18 inches… oh what a shame). Yes, there is the logical side to the argument which may say “well you could have just asked for the prices over the phone” and to this argument I say “Go **** yourself, I’m hungry!”

-cool as a cucumber

I (as you may well have guessed by now) did not ask how much regular pizzas were over the phone but I did do the next best thing however, and that was order a tray pizza AND a menu that contained the listings and prices for the regular sized pizzas (Belly logic WINS).

And so, it was done! Mwahahahahahahahahahaha.

It didn’t take long for the tray to come and we very quickly dug in. On first taste I wouldn't say there was anything special going on but with each bite the flavours really came alive. The tomato flavours became more and more intense and there was plenty of it too. The pepperoni was good quality and very tasty indeed but a little sparse (but I am a greedy bugger so perhaps there was enough for the average person). Plenty of good quality cheese, crispy base and cooked all the way through (I have had some trays in the past that have been sub-par on all fronts. The base is a Neapolitan style base which is thicker than more traditional pizza bases and the dough was nice and crispy on the bottom which helped. Had it have been any thicker then we may have been entering Andrea’s territory but then again the taste and quality of the dough far exceeds the crap that come out of Bedford’s oldest fast food shop.

All in all it was good quality eats and now we have the regular menu we’ll be trying them out again and I will report back when the deed has been done…. And it will be done!

In the meantime, if you have a family gathering or a bunch of drunk people round your house (I don’t mean this as in a home invasion of pissheads more invited guests that you have allowed in to your home despite their lack of sobriety) then you couldn't go wrong with a tray from Chirico.

Call In The Carvery!

The Tavistock, 117 Tavistock Street, Bedford, Beds, MK40 2SB 01234 219595

 

Ah, Sunday’s. Potential hangovers, long lay in’s, big old fried breakfast and home cooked Sunday lunch, bloody marvellous.

Back to reality: Oh Sunday, no lay in, changing a shitty nappy (I am well aware that food reviews don’t normally start with descriptions of someone elbow deep in little packets full of shit and piss as ...these things can tend to put some off of their food but in the cold light of life it happens), watching Cbeebies at 7:30am, no hangover, no breakfast, no home cooked Sunday roast…. But, there is hope.

TAVISTOCK CARVERY!

We knew it was going to happen of course, the table had been booked some days before. Do you hear that Toby? THE TABLE HAD BEEN BOOKED!!!!!!! We were guaranteed a table without the hassle of struggling to find somewhere to park only to get inside and find that there won’t be a table ready for at least two hours:

“Can we reserve one?”
“No you can’t”
“Then good day to you, I shall spend my money elsewhere… besides your roast is crap anyway so nah!”

Tavistock Street isn’t the prettiest road in the word and has got a pretty seedy reputation (well sex shops and brothels tend to do that for an area) and I’d been across the road in the Tasty Tuck looking over at it but not giving it a 2nd thought due to its location. I thought it was just another alcoholic’s hideaway, I couldn’t have been more wrong.

When you enter the pub you’ll see just how great it looks, very modern all round. It’s not too tightly packed either, yes it was busy but when you sat down you didn’t feel as though you had “guests” at your table.

We were seated reasonably quickly although there did seem to be a bit of a pile up as more and more people came in after us, we weren’t seen to our table immediately although several members of staff did look over to see the mountain of bodies now climbing on top of one another.

Once we were at our table though everything was just perfect. We got Baby Belly in to here high chair and although there were quite few folks in the pub the queue for the carvery wasn’t very long at all. There are other options on et menu but we knew why we were there, our eyes could see the meat glistening under the hot lamp, the roast spuds teasing us from afar, the Yorkshire pudding large and fluffy drawing us in… I gotta go, I gotta get up there!

ZOOM!

We’re in line! There were a few meats on offer, Turkey, Pork, Chicken & Gammon. You can either choose just one or have a little of each, I went for Beef and Gammon. The beef wasn’t daintily sliced either, there were some good bloody chunks being sliced of that bad boy. You’re given a Yorkshire and stuff and then left to your own devices when it comes to spuds & veg etc.

I grabbed myself some roast spuds, mash, red cabbage and carrots. I would like to make special mention of the red cabbage, it was pretty amazing stuff. I’m not sure if they’d done it with balsamic vinegar but it tasted as though it had been. Everything else was really goo too, spuds were crispy out & fluffy in, meat was perfectly cooked and you couldn’t fault the mash or other veg. I’m not a massive fan of gravy but I was informed that it was good also very good.

 If I had to compare this to Toby then Tavistock Carvery wins hands down, in fact I will even go as far to say that compared to the Tavistock Carvery eating a Toby is like sucking shit out of an old boot (I really mean that… although I have never actually sucked shit out of an old boot but you get my point).

We needed some hot water to warm a bottle for Baby Belly, it came almost instantly. Apart from the hiccup at the door the service here was fast and friendly. I don’t think anything was particularly overpriced either, everything seemed pretty reasonable.

I’ll definitely be going back there again and I think I need to take a few friends with me next time and introduce them to it. Seriously, if you’re in Bedford and you want a really good roast then you’re not going to go wrong with The Tavistock Carvery. If possible book ahead first but it is well worth a visit.

Hats Off To Mr Nose

Chef Beijing, 52-54 Ram Yard Town Centre, Bedford MK40 3NU
 

HELLO!

Did you miss me?

Yes, there has been a massive gap since my last entry but there is also now a massive gap between my belly and my jeans!

My weight was getting a bit beyond me, when you have satellites in orbit around your waist you kind of know that although you’re “cosmic” you’re just not “cosmic” in the right way.

 A lot has happened in the time between, Mrs Belly has dropped the sprog and so we now have a 5 week old daughter “Baby Belly” to contend with, it’s hell! A new level of hell that they never warn you about at the hospital or anti-natal classes. “Enjoy them while they’re small” they say, “you’ll miss all this when they’re older” they say. Well quite frankly as much as I love the little bundle of belly I’m really not going to miss waking up just to plunge my hands in to a shitty nappy at 3am!

Anyway, I digress.

The trouble with humans is that they tend to stay with the familiar, we all have our favourites and we tend to stick with them. Luckily we have variables in our life or “friends” as we commonly call them. Luckily for sake of variety they too also have their own favourites and from here the story goes…

A couple of weeks back we made our first trip out to a variables friend’s house with baby belly in tow. A simple night in of watching a movie and ordering some take away. As most of you should know I’ve been a pretty big fan of Lee’s Chinese take away down Castle Road but sadly they do not deliver. With that in mind another visiting friend, I shall call him “Mr Nose” suggested CHEF BEIJING. Now I’d heard of it and even seen the restaurant but I’d always been warned that it was a very expensive place to eat so have always avoided it….

Turns out it’s pretty good on price, I think they may do Thai food too which in all fairness is always a little OTT in pricing so perhaps that’s where the large price tag comment came from.

So how do we test this bad boy out? Well the answer is simple, order your favourites (see we all have them) and so I did.

Sweet & Sour Chicken Balls
Mushroom fried Rice
Pancake Roll

The delivery came in reasonable time, under 45 minutes and you can get delivery for orders over £12. I think my meal came to just over a tenner, in some places it can be as much as £14 so better than most IMO.

But how was the food?

In a word… AWESOME!

Really, really good food. The batter on the sweet & sour chicken balls was crispy, the chicken had no pink it (something I find with a lot of Chinese places). There wasn’t too much oil retained in the batter either so my mouth wasn’t greased up like George Michael coming out of a public convenience. You also got quite a few and they weren’t dinky either, I’ve seen that a lot of places have been reducing the size of their (forgive me) balls recently but these guys have (forgive me) massive balls for you to stuff in your mouth (yeah, I went there .

The rice was fluffy and really packed with flavour, something else I’ve noticed is that a lot of places seemed to add the mushrooms in after so the only mushroomy taste is in the mushroom itself and not in eth rice, well here they’re cooked right in there.

The pancakes rolls were huge too! And there were two of them, really packed in and again the wrapping didn’t lose any of its crispness.

All in all I think I have found my new favourite Chinese take away, obviously like all places you need to give it a few goes just to make sure but I can honestly say that I haven’t enjoyed a Chinese meal like that in a long time. Perhaps it’s because I’ve been “out of the game” so to speak but just writing this up is making me eager for more.

“Mr Nose”, thank you for this truly wonderful gift you have bestowed upon me and Chef Beijing…

I’ll be seeing you at the weekend you cheeky little so & so!

 

*Since this review there has been a major shakeup at Chef Beijing, mainly due to being caught using illegal workers. I'm not sure if there has been a change in management but my last couple of orders from here has been less than satisfactory which is a shame as you can see in my review I really did enjoy my initial meal.

Pack Your Trunk And Say Goodbye To The Circus

The Elephant, 118-120 Bedford Road. Kempston. Bedfordshire. MK42 8BG

Since the days of its conception and then through the days of its initial opening and on-going presence I’d always wondered what The Elephant was actually like. I remember that when it first opened it was impossible to get a booking at all, every time I passed by the place was heaving, that was a couple of years ago now and thankfully The Elephant is still around and even better we’d managed to get a bloody booking HAZZARRR!

The building is quite a nice sight in itself, what used to be a grotty hole is now an awesome looking place with a cool elephant drawn on to the side the building (thank god they didn’t call it “The Cock” and some nice wooden flowerbeds surrounding a small outside seating area.

Another bonus about this place is that it seems to have destroyed the Chinese take-away that was a few doors down, I can’t recall its name but I only went there the once and it was proper shitty! Mrs Belly had Chow Mein and there were burnt, manky bits of old egg in there as if they never cleaned the wok, sweet N’ sour chicken balls were pretty much frozen chicken nuggets. Dirty, dirty place!

The Elephant is a far cry from “the shit hole down the road” and rightly so, when you walk in you’re greeted to low lighting and a nice red interior. Lights that emulate candles are balanced on small shelves on the wall giving off a very pleasant atmosphere.

Mrs Belly and I were running late so we met all of our friends there, we sat down at our table (a rather large round table with a lazy Susan *or “bitch” as I call it*) and perused the menu. There’s quite a bit to choose from both Chinese and Thai food too (which neither of us were expecting).

I’d heard that the place was ok but a bit pricey, well to be fair some of the prices were on the high side and I did end up going for the cheapest dishes on the menu but that was because I had no idea of quality or portion size so didn’t want to go mental splashing eth cash when I may end up with a big bag of bollocks (not literally btw).

I ended up ordering the crispy duck pancake rolls to start and the stir fried mussels for mains with a portion of Jasmine rice as a side. The duck rolls came to the table, three rolls cut in half and placed on the plate like towers of deliciousness, enticing, inviting… If you can’t quite tell where I’m going with this I suggest you take some sort of IQ test as you’re obviously a bit of a jelly brain! The duck rolls were fantastic, I’ve had crispy duck at various places in the past but nothing as good as this.

The pancake roll was perfectly crispy while the duck was tender & juicy, I drizzled the hoi sin sauce over the rolls and they come alive even more.

A couple of JD & cokes to “cleanse” the pallet (ok, to help me get pissed) later and the main course came. The rice was enough for two and I did end up sharing it with Mrs Belly, the mussels were pretty damn good too. They came covered in a green pepper & black bean sauce and in fear of sounding like the long faced woman form that Sex/City thing “they were to die for” (I hate that phrase so please forgive me, I’ll smack myself now and bow my head in shame). If you’re not a fishy person then STAY AWAY FROM SEAFOOD! If, like me you’re quite partial to the salty shellfish then you really can’t go wrong with this order.

Just so I mention the rice… it was nice. One more time “the rice was nice”.

I think between myself and Mrs Belly our bill came to about £40 - £45 including the drinks.

Luckily I got to try some of my chums’ dishes too. Just so we’re all on the same page I did not (DID NOT) steal food from their plate, it was kindly donated freely by their own hand.

Mr B handed me some of his soft shell crab – excellent

MR & Mrs A passed over their Thai King Prawns with Mixed Vegetables + a Thai fish cake – also excellent

I cannot fault the food, it is in fact one of the best Chinese meals I’ve had in a long time, yes some of the prices are a little high but you’re paying for quality food and the service was also brilliant. The waiting staff were very friendly, helpful and chatty too, they made you feel comfortable and welcome (not something to often get these days).

If you fancy treating yourself and your pals then seriously get your ass to The Elephant, and if you can’t get in then Blue Ginger is right next door so you’ve always got a backup plan my friend!