On a visit to a number of churches this afternoon I signed the visitors book and then realised it went all the way back to 1934. Not only that, but they’re still only half way through the book so at current rate it should last until the end of this century. I’m bemused, but pleased, that no harm has ever come to this book and it’s still in decent shape. Long may it continue……
This is the fourth week of our plan to eat at every food stall at Norwich market this year.
This is the menu for today’s dining at Norwich market, a range of meat and vegan dishes all clearly displayed and priced. This is one of those stalls where it’s easy to see what they’ve got available, which is much appreciated for me when I’m working out what to have. I did think that it was quite a wide selection given the small size of the unit that they have to work with.
There was only a brief wait for service at the counter and the server was polite and helpful. When I asked she mentioned that they did accept card payments, but they preferred cash so given that I decided to use my emergency cash supply if that’s what they preferred. At least there was a choice, although I must admit that I prefer to pay by card.
I went for the tarka dall which the menu stated came with a choice of rice or chapati, although I wasn’t offered that choice and was automatically given rice. This is much thinner than I’ve ever had tarka dall before and for my personal taste I think it needed some texture to it rather than being mostly liquid. I was offered coriander and chillies, both of which I accepted and the latter added some slight texture and spice to the whole arrangement. There probably could have been a greater depth of flavour as well and although I’m sure it was freshly made it didn’t have the richness of spice I would have ideally liked. The rice was cooked well, so that didn’t disappoint, with the portion size of the meal being reasonable and everything was at the appropriate hot temperature. I did consider adding on a chicken samosa, but they seem to only sell them in threes and I didn’t want that many.
And there’s Nathan’s vegetable biryani, which looked agreeable to me and he mentioned that it tasted very acceptable. The food was served promptly, near enough immediately for mine and Nathan’s was ready within around ninety seconds. There’s also a handy ledge, which was clean, to stand and eat at if required which proved useful for me to get started.
My food cost £6 which wasn’t unreasonable for a hot lunchtime snack, but I would have ideally liked something with more texture and a deeper level of flavours. I did like the taste of the meal and it was filling, so that’s all to the good. I wouldn’t be averse to visiting again though, perhaps next time going for the chicken biryani.
This is the second week of our plan to eat at every food stall at Norwich market this year.
I wasn’t saddened when we randomly drew out Ron’s fish and chips from our list so early, I’ve visited before and always been surprised and delighted with the value offered. As can be seen from the sign, it was established in 1953 and is run by the third generation of the family. I like a bit of heritage and it was also easy to see what they sell, it’s cod, chips and battered sausages.
The photo is better in my previous post about this chip stall, but this will have to do. I saw that there were just two small battered sausages left in the hot hold and so I thought in case Nathan wanted one I’d have both so he could have a freshly prepared option. I’m always selfless like that.
The service was friendly and the prices are very reasonable, it came to £2.90 for chips and two small battered sausages, which is I imagine going to be one of the cheaper prices that we pay during this culinary expedition over the next few months. And, I have to comment positively on this, they accept cards and that makes things just so much easier. They have put prices up, I think I’m right in saying, just twice in ten years and so that’s a real commitment to affordable food.
These photographs are terrible, not least as I had managed to make the camera lens greasy and so that’s my best effort of taking a photo of Nathan’s food. Note he’s gone for small fish and chips, but he’s always decadent like that but it’s useful to have middle class friends like him. Left to our devices, my friend James and I risk having a rather more louche approach to the whole matter of lunches. Ron’s has the slight disadvantage of not having its own seating area, so we hovered in a nearby row to eat the delightful offerings. Nathan would have preferred to have gone into the great outdoors area at the rear of the market, but there live trolls, pigeons and seagulls. Actually maybe not trolls, but it does feel wild and dangerous to me with these pterodactyl sized birds flapping about the area.
This much better photo, of only slightly eaten food, was taken by Nathan and I was impressed at this little culinary arrangement and suspect I might go back to Ron’s to try the fish. Keenly priced, freshly made and flaking away nicely, that’s a good piece of fish. The cost of the fish varies slightly depending on the size, but it’s usually around £2.80 to £3.20. Whether by design or not, Nathan wasn’t given a fork so he had to drop his middle class mannerisms to just treat it like a large fish finger eaten by hand. If required, salt and vinegar is provided, although sauces come at an extra cost, but that’s entirely reasonable given the low price of the food.
Moving onto the food, if I can be picky and go on about my personal taste (which I feel it’s fair to do on a blog post I’m writing) I do prefer a slightly firmer chip exterior. But, the portion size was generous for medium chips and they tasted of a decent quality and were cooked well. As for the sausage, the batter had a richness of flavour and they were evenly coated in the batter so there weren’t lots of bald spots. I do though prefer a meaty butcher’s sausage, which is actually the reason I defected to Lucy’s a while ago. There’s nothing wrong with these sausages, but they’re the processed type and they don’t have the same depth of taste. But that’s more all just a personal preference thing, there was nothing wrong with the food here and I wouldn’t want to give the impression that I was at all disappointed.
All told, this feels like a really professionally run unit, they’re friendly, the service is prompt and there’s a consistency so that customers know what they’ll get. They’re made an effort to keep prices low, without cutting back elsewhere, and this feels like one of the stalls that is the backbone of Norwich market. Definitely recommended.
This is the first week of our plan to eat at every food stall at Norwich market this year.
Our first randomly drawn location was China Wok who have a double unit at the market with their buffet counter on the left and then a handy ledge on the right from where to eat from. I must admit to being slightly confused at first as there are two sets of options here, but in essence there’s either the choice of going for the rice or noodle base and adding three toppings, or just selecting one dish from the menu and then picking a side with that.
The market is always bustling at lunchtimes, people winding their way through the rows and trying to dodge the pigeons which are getting ever braver. Fortunately, the seagulls are still too frightened to enter the inner sanctum of the market and long may that continue. First impressions were though positive here, it had a steady trade and they seemed to be loyal customers who knew what they were doing.
Nathan went first as he was particularly hungry and ordered sweet & sour chicken with noodles and they offered him an extra meat dish, so he went for the salt & pepper chicken as well. I then started to wonder whether I was getting the concept right, so slightly tentatively ordered my rice and salt & pepper chicken from the upbeat staff member. I wasn’t offered anything else, which threw me slightly as I had started to feel my options were quite dry and I had been eyeing up some of the chicken in black bean sauce. However, the staff member was enthusiastically loading up my tray with salt & pepper chicken and that didn’t seem a bad thing, especially as she was trying to cram in as much as she reasonably could and what customer would baulk at that? That meant no great loss, I just ended up with a lot more of the same thing, but as that’s what I ordered it would be hard to complain about that. And indeed, I don’t think think that the staff member would have been at all concerned at whatever a customer wanted within their tray, it had that nicely informal feel.
It came to £6.50 which seemed reasonable given the cost of other hot meals in fast food venues in and around the market, although as with many other locations there’s been a bit of a price rise here over recent months. One limitation that I feel the need to comment on is that they don’t accept cards, just cash. I fully accept that there’s right to do as they choose, but I don’t generally carry cash (I was prepared for the purposes of these visits, I’m not a heathen) and so just as my own personal preference it’s unlikely that I’d ever return here just because I’d have to take some time to find a cash machine. That might only take five or ten minutes depending on the queue, but in that time I would have made a decision to go to Lucy’s as I’m a creature of habit. Given how many people I know take the same approach (with wanting to pay by card, not being obsessed with chips, battered sausage and scraps from Lucy’s), I assume that this venue is already busy enough and they don’t need the hassle which is understandable. Ultimately, if a venue is taking all the money it needs and maintaining a strong customer base, I fully respect their decision not to go after new trade if things are going absolutely find as they are.
There’s Nathan’s selection of noodles, sweet & sour chicken and salt & pepper chicken. I recall he felt that it was entirely agreeable, although he came to the conclusion before ordering that it was easier to eat noodles than rice. I’d also like to note that paper napkins are provided, always handy. We also had this standing space to ourselves, so I could concentrate on listening to Nathan’s witty and charming conversation rather than feeling barged out of the way by people nearby.
And my rice and salt & pepper chicken. It wasn’t as dry as I had briefly feared after ordering, the rice seemed freshly made and so had a fluffy and moist feel to it. The chicken was served as a large portion and I liked the taste, although there was minimal evidence of the pepper, just the salt although that wasn’t overpowering. The chicken was perhaps just a little firm rather than tender, but not to the point of being problematic and the exterior was crunchy, but I did think more pepper would have worked well here. All very acceptable though, filling and tasty comfort food is something that a market stall should be getting right, as they did here.
I did like the separate eating area, there are a limited number of locations on the market which are able to offer this, but it does make matters much more convenient. Nathan has reminded me that the Garnet, the pub by the market, allows food to be brought in at lunchtimes and so that’s a possibility in future as well. It was clean and tidy at the stall, with everything ordered and seemingly well managed. All in all, I thought that this was a suitably positive first week of visiting all the stalls and the staff were all most welcoming.
In my latest series, since I’m in Norwich more this year, my friend Nathan and I have set about visiting every one of the food stalls on Norwich market. Doing around one a week, this will take around six months to complete and we’re drawing the locations at random to ensure we don’t visit all our favourites first (well, in my case, just going to Lucy’s). And I’ll be continuing to go to Lucy’s with my friend James a couple of times a week, as I don’t want them to lose out on our loyal custom. *NB, since Week 10, James has been accompanying me to these market stall visits, selflessly missing out on his chips…..
I’ve taken the list below from the official Norwich market web-site, I’m aware it’s just a little out of date, so I’ll make changes below as we go along. Given that this list is fluid and changing, if a venue isn’t open when the official market web-site says it should be, then I’ll check the stall itself for any reasons for closure, then check their social media and if there’s no explanation I’ll assume it has permanently closed. I’ll link in the individual posts below throughout the year.
I’m not going to use scores as it’s too subjective and these market traders are working hard in difficult economic times, so it feels wrong to start trying to give marks. Just a few remarks in the most positive way that I feel appropriate, all with the hope of encouraging more people to try and the food and drink available at the market. Also, it’s not a market stall, but it is right on its boundary and that’s Brick Pizza.
A Taste of Punjab (Week 4)
And Eat It (Week 18)
Bodega (Week 15)
Bread Source (Week 27)
Bun Box (Week 16)
Chimneys (Week 3) [now closed]
China Wok (Week 1)
Churros for the People (Week 7)
Cocina Mia (Week 12)
Coral Bay (Week 20)
Deb’s (Week 17)
Delight (Week 9)
Falafel and Friends (Week 25)
Feast (Permanently closed)
Go Crepes (Week 29)
Henry’s Hog Roast (Week 5)
Indian Feast (Week 13)
Italian Street Food (Week 24)
Jacket Spuds & More (Week 14)
Lucy’s Chips (Week 22)
Lucy’s Fish and Chips (Week 26)
Meat and Co (Permanently closed)
Norwich Fresh (Week 10)
Reggie’s (Week 19)
Ron’s Fish and Chips (Week 2)
Ruby’s (Week 6)
Taste of Shanghai (Week 8)
Tasty House South East Asian Street Food Emporium (Week 21)
Thai Bubble (Week 23)
The All Electric Banger Stop (Week 11)
Walsingham Farm Shop (Week 28)
Firstly, my apologies that I wasn’t intending to write up the day that Nathan I spent visiting all the Good Beer Guide pubs in Great Yarmouth and Lowestoft. This means that I didn’t burden myself with taking many photos, so my extensive readership of two will just have to use their imagination a bit more than usual. I am slowly, but very surely, visiting every pub in the Good Beer Guide which is an impossible project but that doesn’t stop me. This pub in Great Yarmouth (94 Blackfriars’ Road, NR30 3BZ) is just a little out of the way, so credit once again to the Good Beer Guide for listing this venue.
Let me start by writing up-front that this is a very good pub and I was absolutely unable to fault it. The warmth of the welcome, the engagement from who I am guessing is the landlord, the range of the beers and the inviting nature of the environment. This is going to be one of those feel good posts where just everything went well. As a pre-cursor to the below, the landlord mentioned to us that he had just written a blog post that day about the beer Nathan ordered, so for some extra context have a read of https://www.blackfriarstavern.co.uk/the-story-of-the-starry-night-stout-and-the-three-wise-men/. That web-site is a work of art on its own with the width of their offering being clearly evident.
I went for the Recessive Red from the reliable Mr Winter’s and this was a well kept quite punchy 6% red ale. There were two darker beers with Nathan going for the Starry Night Stout from Tindall Brewing and checking through his Untappd he was happy with it and its smoothness. He probably told me at the time, but I doubt I was listening. We were on one of our random days out with occasional shots (it’s a long story, but we should probably be supervised by a responsible adult if I’m being honest), which is why there’s a delicious shot sitting next to my real ale. I don’t actually want to focus on the beer choice for too long, but it was excellent for a venue of this size with five real ales and an extensive Belgian beer selection. And the pub wasn’t just offering beers, the landlord was positively enthusing about them. This is a landlord that cares about his beer.
The reason that I don’t want to linger on the beer is that this wasn’t the highlight of the visit, and in many ways, it shouldn’t be. The star of the show was the friendly landlord, engaging and welcoming. He also didn’t demur about our random shot and just slightly odd behaviour, he positively embraced it and so no criticisms there. There were plenty of board games and Nathan rushed over with chess as he’s from a chess winning family. Privately I suspect that’s as he didn’t want to play monopoly for four hours which is what I would have ended up doing. Although he quite rightly mentioned that it would have been no hardship staying here for several hours. Incidentally, he won at chess, but I like letting him win as it cheers him up.
There’s also a very decent refurbishment that has gone on here, it’s traditional but yet on-trend which is a hard thing to achieve. There’s nothing formulaic about this pub, it’s laid-back, it’s slightly quirky and it does the welcoming thing well. I’ve mentioned before that one of the key measures of a pub is that someone coming in on their own, perhaps new to the area, feels like it’s a venue they’re part of and a community to which they feel they can join. I absolutely got that feeling here, this is absolutely right to be in the Good Beer Guide, it’s glorious. Anyone coming to Great Yarmouth who likes pubs should pop in and linger here for some time.
This is the third week of our plan to eat at every food stall at Norwich market this year.
Now that I’m safely back from Lisbon, Nathan and I can return to our schedule of weekly visits to food outlets at Norwich market which we select randomly. Nathan didn’t ask me to add this, but if he looks tired it’s because he very kindly picked me up from Luton Airport early this morning so he’s a little sleep deprived now. But he’s young, he’ll cope.
I’m very much a creature of habit, so having options thrust upon us requires an element of experimentation and a voyage of discovery. Here’s the first menu board and I wasn’t entirely sure what to expect from the whole concept.
And the second board.
There’s a helpful explanation of what the food is on another board and the fresh preparation is something that they take seriously. They’re often served in Prague where they’re also known as Trdelník, with the ice cream option being a more recent innovation. The chimneys are made by wrapping dough around a stick which is then grilled and then the toppings added.
The service was warm, engaging and personable. It took a little short of ten minutes for the food to be prepared, but that’s much better than having something rushed out. The guy serving is just one of those people that you want to will on to do well, he’s clearly passionate and proud of what he’s doing. We were the only two customers at the stand and I wonder how many visitors he gets, but he absolutely deserves to be busy given his personable nature.
Nathan scares me sometimes….
I went for the same as Nathan as I thought he went for the best option, the large freshly baked chimney with pistachios and peanuts. We went for the traditional option of not having ice cream in it, as we’re very health conscious. The portion size is substantial and this was about as much as I would have been able to manage, with Nathan debating taking some of it to work as an afternoon snack.
A generous portion of Nutella was provided inside of the chimney, which was easier to eat then it might look. It was tasty with the nuts adding texture and the Nutella extra flavour, with the dough itself being light and fluffy. The food cost £5 (and they accept cards, which is very handy) and although it’s not the sort of food that I’d usually think of ordering, it was tasty and the freshly made element was a bonus. The strongest element was the service, which felt authentic and genuine. Another market stall that I’d recommend for a little (or large) lunchtime snack.
I use the word ‘adventure’ in the title of this post, but I accept that I hardly went on a solo trip walking through the Amazon or something. Although on the 32nd day away, I was getting a little tired and thinking that it had been an adventure of sorts. But, I’ll tidy up my random thoughts about the trip in a final post. I had a £10 fare to get from London Liverpool Street to Norwich and was able to board first so I had a choice of seats.
I went for the seat on the right, pleased that Greater Anglia weren’t running the bloody Stansted Express services without tables on this journey. The power worked so that was a relief and the conductor came stomping through the train on numerous occasions always looking she was heading to an emergency at the other end. To be fair, she probably was.
Biscuits I had acquired from somewhere that I found in my bag along with my refilled water bottle.
And that was that, safely back in Norwich. I must admit that I’ve rushed through the last few days of this trip to finally get this trip written up for posterity, but I’m pleased to say that other than for one more post with general thoughts of the trip, that completes this write-up. Yay!
Part of my Streets of Norwich project…. [Updated in November 2023]
One of the reasons I started doing this long-winded thing of walking around every street in Norwich is that I hoped to notice some things that I hadn’t really seen before. I’ve found all manner of things I didn’t know existed, including plaques, streets and historic buildings. And, although I’ve been by it hundreds of times, I’ve never noticed Stamp Office Yard located off of St. Andrew’s Street (it’s the one in the centre of the above map, so to the left of the S of St. Andrew’s Street).
The street takes its name from a business that operated here in the eighteenth century, which stamped official documents. Although in the map above, from 1885, there were plenty of buildings in the yard, it’s all been opened up now at the rear and is mostly car parking. The building to the right hand-side of the Stamp Office Yard is St. Andrew’s House, and when that was extended in the 1970s there were plenty of medieval pottery finds.
At the 1921 census, there were two households reported as living on the street. In the first property there were six members of the Sabberton family, Frank William (aged 56), Emily (aged 59), Stanley (aged 22), Hilda (aged 25), Emily Ellen (aged 19) and Winifred (aged 16). Frank William Sabberton worked as an engineer at a clothing manufacturer, whilst Emily was noted to be working at home duties. Stanley was an engineer at Sabberton Brothers Engineers at Palace Plain, Hilda was a shorthand typist at Boulton & Paul, Emily was a clerk at Mann Egerton Cars on Prince of Wales Road, whilst Winifred was a shorthand typist at Singer Sewing who were at 16 Calvert Street in the city. In the other household was husband and wife Reginald Arthur Sabberton and Amelia Sabberton, aged 28 and 34. Reginald worked as a motor engineer for Goffs at Aylsham Road.
Part of my Streets of Norwich project…. [updated in October 2023]
Willow Lane connects St. Giles Street to Cow Hill, a looping road that is shaped by the St. Giles’s Church site. The lane takes its name from the willow trees which were once on the south side in the seventeenth century, with the Mayor of Norwich being responsible for checking them. Despite this being a relatively short road, there are nine listed buildings along it.
This is the St. Giles Street end of the road, the building on the right (which is 53 St. Giles Street) is the side of Ellis Second Hand Books and then the building behind is 1 Willow Lane, an early nineteenth-century residential property which was sold in 2019.
The next building along is a former Catholic church which was built in 1827 by JT Patience, which was then turned into a Catholic school. The building is now used by Rogers & Norton solicitors and George Plunkett has a photo of when the building was still used as a school.
Looking back towards St. Giles Street, the former church is on the left behind the fence.
What looks like a Georgian building on the left, the entrance to the former church site is now on the right of this photo.
The series of buildings on the left-hand side are early nineteenth-century residential buildings, which remain as houses. The white building on the right-hand side is number 9, also known as Willow Lane House, an eighteenth-century residential building that has been converted into offices.
The brick building on the right is 15 Willow Lane and is a seventeenth-century residential building that was extended in the nineteenth century. It was also the home of Francis Blomefield (1705-1752) who was a local historian who wrote the ‘History of Norfolk’. The building was used as a boarding house in 1939, so the register gives an interesting look at its occupants. There were:
Mary and Stanley Page (boarding house owner and husband was a hairdresser)
Barbara Dash (assistant in grocer’s shop)
Alice Nicholls (billiards room attendant)
Sarah Barber (private nurse)
Jacob Black (steel bender)
Mary Black (unpaid domestic duties, wife of Jacob)
Elizabeth Ledleve (boot and shoe branding).
There were also two other people on the register where the record remains closed, so it’s possible that they’re still alive.
Looking back the street from the Cow Hill end. The street feels very Georgian and unchanged, and there’s also the hidden property that was once the George Borrow museum, where the author lived between 1816 and 1824. However, this now has more in common with Cow Hill, so more on that in another post.
Norfolk Pubs also suggests that there might have been a licensed premises called the Cellar House located along the street in the early nineteenth century.
