Eating in Conwy

After a few drinks in the pub Friday eve we got to bed so we could have a fairly early start. We got up Saturday morning and headed for the campsite showers and made a cuppa, wrapped up and headed to the bus stop for Conwy.

We arrived at the festival about midday and headed straight to get a beer and a prosecco. Then Phill had a chicken and chorizo paella and i had a seafood chowder with lovely little salted fish shaped crackers. Yummi.






The weather was quite nice, sunny but chilly.


After a few tastings and a mooch around we headed over to watch bryn williams and i brought a signed copy of his new book. We bumped into lyn and glynn at the waterfront before tucking into some cake, then more cake, then a mango chutney indian sausage roll, a few more drinks and then we watched the seafood demo about dressing a crab and mussels.






We tucked into some mussels before getting out of the drizzle by heading to The Castle Hotel for a couple of drinks, not before seeing some birds at the castle.





After a couple of beers ( one being £7, Phill can never say anything to me about the price of my wine in helter) and champagne we went to watch the art installation on a building, it was good.





I tucked into the largest hotdog whilst phill ate a massive bun of pulled pork and handmade chorizo.



We had a bit of a dance and a few drinks before getting the bus back to our very cosy camper. We settled down for the eve before needing to get up about 4am for a wee just outside, crouched in a anorak with the rain pooring!

The next morning was bright and after a couple of cups of tea and coffee, a freshen up and getting our stuff together we left the campsite to return to the festival. We brought some cured meats, beers, bread and other bits and had some more naughty things to eat and drink, including another yummy hotdog before heading back home in Rodders.











A fab weekend.

Location:Conwy Feast

Some pics

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Getting to know Rodders

Rodders may look great but he certainly isn't nimble on his feet!

It was lashing down and blowing a gale when we left chester on the motorway.
I had hoped that staying in the slow lane would make for an easy trip, but oh no... With every gust of wind Rodders drifted lanes and it was a rather stressful 55mph down the A55! I have never sat so quietly or driven with so much focus and concentration, I was a bit stressed and by the time we parked up at Platts Farm I was so relieved that the pub was a 2 minute walk away!


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In wet Wales

Hey
Its about 9am, Phill has just made me a cuppa and is tuning his ukulele of which I am sure the nearby campers are really appreciate of! We are in Rodders, a 41 yr old VW Camper on a campsite near Conwy for the food and drink festival for my birthday weekend. The Camper is great. The drive here was funny but I will let Phill tell you about that, i have never seen him concentrate so much or drive so quietly.

We are heading out to the festival soon once showered etc. we may not be seeing the world this time but we are ticking a litre or so off a large bucket list as we have always wanted to go away in a VW Camper and its fab.
Right, cuppa and shower.

Location:Conwy ish

Indian accent

Gem here....
And so the last night arrived. We had organised a three course tasting menu at this highly acclaimed restaurant, one of the top 100 in the world! Needless to say, the min we sat down we asked for the upscale menu and justified the extra cost and had a tasting 7 course with wine menu each!! It was our anniversary after all !

Wow!!! I loved every minute of this, this is when i know i am a foodie, i hate that phrase but it kinda serves its purpose!! I didn't think about calories and just enjoyed and loved every mouthful and couldn't care less!! However, i skyped my mum later and she agreed that in my dress i looked six months gone, i had to take it off whilst speaking to here as i was popping out of it. Yuck. It was worth it!


Phill here:
We had always hoped that this would be an excellent way to finish our trip as this restaurant is so highly rated, but this does put rather a lot of pressure on us to have a 'great night', luckily enough the chefs were on top form and we were treated to an exceptional meal. It was really well thought through and presented beautifully, this is the sort of fine dining level that more Indian restaurants in the UK should be aiming for.

First were a couple of Amuse Bouche in the form of a blue cheese naan and pumpkin and coconut soup with garlic crisp. And you could just tell that the rest of the meal was going to be great because if they can make a naan bread and shot of soup taste so good, then they must be able to do wonderful things with some more exciting ingredients.

Blue cheese naan



This was really really good, and is the kind of soup you hope to find in a pub on a snowy january sunday, infront of a roaring log fire.
Pumpkin and coconut soup with garlic crisp



Potato sphere chaat with white pea ragda



Shredded kolhapuri chicken salad with avocado koshimbir
Served with a glass of Tattinger champagne



Baked fish, amritsari masala butter, whitebait papad
Served with Villa Maria Sauvignon Blanc (from our honeymoon)



Meetha achaar chilean spare ribs, sundried mango, toasted kalonji seeds
Served with peter lehmann shiraz



Kulfi sorbet



Black pepper prawns, kundru bhaji, sago papad
Served with lamplighter chardonnay



Dal gosht
Served with piccini chianti reserva




Each of the mains came with Wasabi and cucumber raita, black dairy dal and the dal gosht came with a sticky duck glazed kulcha bread, the prawns came with a beechwood smoked bacon kulcha.

(I hada cheeky mushroom truffle kulcha as a bonus)

Glazed duck kulcha



Haji ali inspired sitaphal cream, ginger candy ice cream, warm doda burfi treacle tart.
Served with torres floralis muscatel oro catalunya

Location:The manor

Last day!

We woke up about 9ish and snoozed until our breakfast in bed about 10:30 which was lovely albeit the guy failed to understand Phill asking for butter at first!!! I am sure you will get the demo.
So, we had said that we would just chill out but instead we jumped on a auto rickshaw into the city and to the Lotus Temple......















Then we wandered around a market for a bit before buying some apples and bananas for a street girl who wanted money....i am not giving the mafia money so the fruit went to her belly!
We arrived back at The Manor in time for our massages which we had booked as part of our deal, but as there is only 1 masseuse then we have to take it in turns, which actually worked out quite well as i could pack our bags ready for the morning whilst Gem went in first, then Gem could catch up on some blogging whilst i had mine.

Location:Delhi

Sevilla a surprise treat

When we got back to the hotel we got ourselves a drink (Gem on the vino and i had a whisky sour) and whilst we were in the room Gem found our restaurant for that evening whilst looking through the Times best restaurants in Delhi guide, that was in our hotel room.

The very helpful concierge booked us a taxi, which was a real classic 50's style saloon car, and off we went to eat at a place called Sevilla at Claridges!!!

The styling of this place is wonderful, lots of little nooks and snugs so that you dont feel crammed in or overlooked by anyone, and there are really lovely canvas booths set apart over the small water feature that runs through the restaurant. The staff are impeccable, very efficient and quick without being overly fussy. And then the food came out.......WOW.
This is refined tapas that has been really well thought through and executed brilliantly. The highlights were the patatas bravas with the sauce piped inside the turned potato, the iberico ham croquetas and the Cordero lamp cutlets with honey aioli, Mum would go flipping bonkers over these!
Sometimes tapas can just be oil and garlic and not a lot else, but we were both really impressed at the balance of flavours and the subtlety of spice, it was definitely up there with some of the best tapas we have ever eaten.

Location:Delhi