Category: Norwich

This was the final Christmas lunch of 2021 for James and I, at Orford Plaice which is a chip shop we’ve managed to walk by several hundred times and never quite gone in.

It’s larger inside than I expected, there’s a downstairs eating area and there are a number of tables on the ground floor. The service was friendly and helpful, although we got their last pot of gravy (not something that we really ever buy, although it’s a personal favourite of mine with chips).

Having chips on a proper plate is a bit decadent for us, or “it’s like being in a Wimpy” as James put it. The food was brought over after a few minutes, at which point they remembered they hadn’t prepared the gravy, but that didn’t take much longer. Our meal was chips alongside battered pigs in blankets. The chips were fine, complemented nicely by the gravy, although I thought that the pigs in blankets were a little generic and not really very interesting. Having written that though, I did like the battering of them, primarily as I like nearly anything that has been battered, it just adds taste and texture. The portion size was also reasonable, with everything at the appropriate hot temperature, although the plate itself was cold.

Price-wise, this is somewhere between Grosvenor and Lucy’s, with the surroundings being reasonably comfortable. There’s meant to be a masks-on inside policy, but it was ignored by some and not questioned, but I’m not going to burden myself with getting concerned about that. I think I still prefer Lucy’s, their butchers sausages are a nice little treat. This venue has won some awards, which I’m slightly surprised about, but we’ve decided to revisit in the new year to test some more of their menu out. No point coming to any snap verdicts about the food quality….

In an attempt to work through some of the restaurants in Norwich that I’ve neglected to visit over the last couple of years, my friend James and I popped to Dhaba at Fifteen last night. I wasn’t entirely surprised and delighted by Spice Valley last week, but this one came recommended. The welcome was immediate and helpful and we were asked to provide track and trace details. I’ve lost track now of what the actual rules are, but I thought the restaurant was being careful which is always good.

The menu which I thought was well laid out. There are the traditional Anglo-Indian dishes shoved at the bottom, so they’re there as a choice but the restaurant isn’t going to shout about them. There were numerous really quite innovative dishes there that I haven’t experienced before as well as plenty of vegetarian options.

The restaurant is perhaps a little plain its decoration, but it was clean and comfortable. It got much busier during the evening, with a number of smaller groups coming in. The restaurant also seemed to be doing a decent amount of takeaways and deliveries, so it seems a popular location.

I’m always disappointed at any Indian restaurant that doesn’t offer my drink of choice, namely mango lassi. They had it here and it was thick, slightly sweet and very delicious. I approved.

This is much better from the chutneys and the staff member explained what they were. There was a minced carrot almost like coleslaw (I clearly wasn’t listening when they told me exactly what it was called) and a mint raita which both had a depth of flavour and some care put into them. I’m going to have to e-mail the restaurant so they can tell me exactly what these were.

[I have e-mailed them and they promptly replied saying that, from left to right, they were a sweet carrot & onion chutney, mint raita and spicy mango chutney.]

I went for the Kolkatta Kasundi Chicken which is a mustard based curry, something that I’ve never had before. I was suitably surprised and delighted by the arrangement, the chicken was tender and moist with flavour from the sauce, the curry itself had a strong mustard taste without being over-powering and it was served as a generous portion. James had gone for the Peshwari Chicken Pasanda which he thought was equally good, with a similar flavour of almond running through the curry. The rice was fluffy and as expected, with everything being at the appropriate hot temperature.

The service was always polite and engaging, but without being overbearing or fake. The staff seemed keen to help, which was evident in the way they were offering other customers the option to change dishes to suit their tastes or to make starters into mains. Although the restaurant was getting busy, we were never rushed or hurried, so the environment was comfortable. The prices were perhaps a little towards the higher end of the scale, although the quality justified that.

The reviews for the restaurant are generally very positive, although I’m bemused by the negative review that complained about the large pieces of chicken. I’m not entirely sure that this is a negative for a restaurant, but there we go….. I’d say that this is one of the best Indian restaurants that I’ve been to in Norfolk, suitably decadent and I think I’ll likely come back here. All very lovely.

Having been away from Norwich for a while, I’ve started to get a little behind with visiting some of the more popular places that have opened up in recent months. This is FupBurger who are located the Dog House pub in Norwich, although they seem to now be so dominant here that they might as well just change the name of the pub. We arrived at 17:30, but the venue was full by 18:00 and they were turning customers, all of whom were looking for food, away.

The drinks menu where the prices are towards the higher end of the scale. The beer options are credible, but broadly not particularly interesting to me.

The concept is primarily that of burgers, but there are a range of other options there as well such as nachos and loaded fries. The meat is locally sourced and provided by Clarkes Butchers in Hevingham and is is positive to know the origins of the food. FupBurger also have another set-up similar to this, at the Harbour Inn in Lowestoft.

The staff in the pub were all friendly, with a welcoming greeting and engaging table service offered. There’s quite a fast turnover of tables here, but we were never rushed during our time here, even when they were turning customers away because they were so busy.

The Mangolicious from the Laine Brew Co in Brighton, which was a fruity beer which tasted of mango, although it wasn’t particularly rich or decadent.

And the main event, I ordered the double burger with a side of fries. The fries were heavily salted, even for my quite liberal needs (can salt tastes be liberal?) but tasted fine. The burger was meaty and this was quite decadent, rich and tasting of a good quality. The cheese was ideal for me, just processed slices of American cheese rather than some overpowering cheese sauce which wrecked the whole thing. There was plenty of burger sauce, something I also liked, although their recipe for that is secret but it’s mayonnaise based. The bacon was crispy rather than fatty and the brioche roll was fresh, with the whole arrangement being the sort of burger that I like.

The pricing isn’t cheap, especially with the 10% service charge automatically added, but the surroundings are clean, the staff are friendly, it’s all on-trend and the food was of a very good quality. The burgers are also very Instagrammable, especially for those who order the Quad burger, and some of the popularity of the restaurant has been driven by their social media engagement. I don’t know if they’ll be able to keep the novelty factor up, but that the quality is high, they’ve got a good chance of remaining relevant and popular. Given all that, I was glad to visit this restaurant and I can see why it has become so busy over recent months.

I used to visit the White Lion on Oak Street in Norwich regularly and indeed had my 40th birthday get together there as well. However, in recent years, the bright lights of the Artichoke, Plasterers, Leopard and King’s Head have shone brighter, and they’re also much nearer to where I live, so I haven’t visited much.

And here’s one of my favourite photos, Andrew and Susan enjoying themselves, with an eight year old looking Nathan serving behind the bar. Hopefully he won’t read this before we go to the pub tonight…..

Anyway, I went back at the weekend as it was the Legstretchers Christmas party. This is the very exciting long-distance walking group of Norfolk Ramblers that I brought back to life in 2016, but I retired a couple of months ago and Maria and Stephen have now taken it over. Maria had a marvellous idea to host the Christmas party at the White Lion, so I felt the need to go along.

The food and drinks menu….

Back in the day, the White Lion was a cider pub and probably the best in Norwich, an award it frequently won from CAMRA. I had the Black Prince Porter from Bexley Brewery and the Kaiser from Welbeck Abbey Brewery, which were both well-kept, but they weren’t the most exciting and there was a limited depth of flavour from either. The keg selection of beers at the White Lion is quite weak, but at least they’ve got a number of real ales available.

The burger, which was sufficiently meaty and tasted of a decent quality, with the wedges being cooked perfectly. I didn’t quite work out what the slightly hard lumps on the burger were, but the coleslaw was very moreish. A number of our group was eating and everyone seemed happy with their food, with the portion of nachos looking very generous.

After we had listened to Richard sneezing, this was my attempt to teach everyone the rules of bar billiards after the meal……

On the service, well, that was excellent. The member of staff behind the bar was engaging, friendly and personable, so the welcome felt authentic and genuine. Indeed, all of the staff members were warm and hospitable, there’s a really good team working here and they were a great credit to the pub. This feels like a really well-run pub and I suspect that someone new to the area who wanted to meet new friends would have some success here, a key measure of a venue in my eyes.

If I’m being honest, the beer selection isn’t quite decadent enough to tempt me away from my usual haunts. However, what they had was well-kept and the pub is offering one of the best welcomes that I’ve had this year, so that’s all really positive. I’m sure that I shall visit again, perhaps on a more regular basis to recent months. I’ve never had the Sunday lunch here, either because I’ve been walking or out of the country, but it’s well reviewed and I will get the chance to try it one day…..

I missed this Gaia art installation by a couple of days when it was in Hull a few weeks ago, so I was pleased to see that it was coming to St. Peter Mancroft Church in central Norwich. The installation is designed by Luke Jerram to encourage people to think about environmental issues and also our place on the planet.

The earth gently revolves and there’s some background music as well to support the whole arrangement.

The installation certainly brought lots of visitors to the church and apparently it was popular with families last week during Half Term. There was a friendly team of volunteers at the entrance to the church who were giving Gaia bookmarks out and welcoming people, which I thought was rather lovely. I also saw the church’s shop doing a brisk trade in various different items such as Christmas cards, so it seems to have been a worthwhile project for them.

There are a few similar installations to allow for multiple events, but there’s a list of where Gaia is going to be in the future at https://my-earth.org/tour-dates/ and it’s at Keele for three weeks this month, which I can imagine will look suitably exciting in the chapel. This is all free of charge for visitors and I liked the whole air of optimism behind the project, which seemed evident in the friendliness and warmth of the volunteers. An uplifting experience I’d say.

As the sign handily indicates, I booked a table for four people to go to Redwells, located in railway arches between the village of Trowse and the decadent offices of Norfolk County Council. It’s good to support a local brewery, although I’ve rather lost track of their financial issues, staffing changes and the like that have been reported in the local press.

The entrance would be slightly more impressive without the cars, but the signage is pretty clear to guide customers in.

This is a working brewery, with the brew tap type arrangement open on Fridays to Sundays.

The beer choices were all from Redwell, with no guest options available. I can’t say that there was anything sensationally good and there were a limited number of different beer styles available, but the West Coast Pale was definitely above average and I’d willingly have that again.

There were two food options, the pizzas which I think are always here, along with the rotating extra food option from Namaste which is a local vegetarian Indian restaurant that I quite like. I’m not sure how financially useful these pop-up arrangements are for companies such as Namaste as Redwells wasn’t that busy, but I suppose it’s good advertising and decent promotion for them.

I went with the Indian option, although I know from past experience that the pizza options really are beautifully decadent too.

I decided to go for the Maharaja Combo Meal, with a samosa, chilli cauliflower gobi, chana masala and rice. I have to say that it was really rather lovely, even the cauliflower tasted decent. A richness of flavours and a reminder that vegetarian food can be absolutely delicious.

And here’s the brewery set-up at the rear. There’s plenty of inside seating, although it’s best to book this in advance, with outside seating as well during the warmer months of the year. Beer ordering was either at the bar or using the app, and although the others in our group went to the bar, I was quite content using the app and not having to walk anywhere.

In an ideal world there would have been a decadent dark beer for me, but the environment was clean, the service was always polite, the company was charming (especially mine) and I enjoyed the food. A rather lovely experience and I’ll keep a little eye out for whatever food outlets will be making an appearance here.