Sunday lunch at the Vale Resort

My parents-in-law bought us a voucher for Sunday lunch at the Vale Resort for our third wedding anniversary, and we finally booked to go last Sunday. We decided it would be good to double it up as a belated anniversary celebration and a Valentine's lunch!

It was a very cold day so I got wrapped up in my coat, hat and scarf. I only had to walk for about 20 seconds to get from the car park to the hotel, but I love any excuse to put on all my winter layers. However, I must admit that I didn't realise just how black my outfit was until I looked at this photo after we got home.

We were given the menu to have a look at as soon as we were seated in the Vale Grill. As we had a specific Sunday Lunch voucher, the menu was nice and simple with five options for each course. Our voucher was for a 2 course dinner, but we could also add a third course for £3 each if we wanted to. We knew the portions would be very generous and nothing grabbed our attention on the starter menu, so we decided we'd go for mains and desserts rather than going for the full three courses. 

For our mains, we both ordered the Roasted Sirloin of Welsh Beef. I tend to choose chicken whenever we eat out and I'm not a big fan of pork loin, so the beef was the obvious option for me. The main was made up of a few slices of beef (obviously), roast potatoes, a big Yorkshire pudding, green beans, mangetout, broccoli, roasted carrots and parsnips, cauliflower cheese, and gravy. 

Just look at the size of this! The green vegetables, roasted vegetables and cauliflower cheese were served in separate dishes so that we could help ourselves, and it's fair to say that we had a very generous helping of everything. Neil doesn't like cauliflower cheese and I love it, so that was an excellent plus for me as it was one of my favourite parts of the meal! The beef was cooked just right, and the roasted root vegetables and the roast potatoes in particular were excellent. I'm not ashamed to admit that I completely cleared my plate... in fact, I'd have been very ashamed if I hadn't. 

We'd already decided what we wanted for dessert before taking another look at the menu - pistachio panna cotta! I love panna cotta, whatever the flavour, and it's always a nice light option after such a big main meal. 

This dessert was exquisite, and I'm not just talking about the pretty presentation. Every aspect of this dish was absolutely delicious, even the little accompanying wafer. The toasted marshmallows were a stroke of genius and perfectly complemented the pistachios. Chocolate would never make it into my top five choices when it comes to ice cream flavours so I thought that might let the dish down for me, but this particular chocolate ice cream was lovely. 

At the end of the meal, we had a bill of £4.30 for our two pints of diet Coke. I was expecting them to be at least £3 each, so that was a pleasant surprise! If we'd have paid for our meal, it would have been £17.95 each. I think this is pretty good value when you take the quality and quantity of the food, and the quality of the resort itself, into account. 

I can definitely confirm that we'd be happy to visit the Vale Resort for Sunday lunch again. Have you ever been to the Vale for a meal? What did you think? 

Valentine's Day 2016

Although we don't particularly believe in celebrating Valentine's Day, we don't need much of an excuse to go for a nice meal. So, as Valentine's Day conveniently fell on a Sunday this year, we decided to go to The Captain's Wife for their special Valentine's lunch.

I thought it was the perfect occasion to wear my anniversary necklace with my new high-necked top from New Look... I haven't included a photo of my face as I was in the clutches of a horrible cold and no one needs to see that!

As it was such a sunny day, we decided to walk to the pub rather than take the car. It's only two miles or so away from our house so it's a perfectly manageable distance when the weather is nice, and we passed some beautifully Instagrammable views on our way there. We also thought we'd feel (slightly) less guilty about the volume of food we were guaranteed to eat if we burnt off a few calories first.

We'd booked our table for 1:30pm and got shown to our seats straight away. The pub was really busy, as always, but the order for our starters and mains got taken fairly quickly. I went for the tomato soup to start... you can't go wrong with traditional soup and bread!

The soup was very tasty, and our main meals came to the table just as we finished our starters. We both went for the Vintage Sunday Roast Platter which included rump steak, turkey breast and pork loin, as well as all the usual roast dinner trimmings. Although we weren't given the extra gravy promised in the menu which was disappointing, the meal itself was delicious. The parsnips, steak and stuffing were my particular favourites! 

I was full to the brim after my main meal and probably shouldn't have eaten any more. However, dessert was included in the Valentine's lunch offer so I obviously had to go through with it. Our waitress also took half an hour to remember to take our dessert orders which meant I had a bit of time to prepare myself! I chose the apple crumble with custard and it was pretty spectacular. I'm not a big fan of custard and would have preferred an accompaniment of vanilla ice cream, but the crumble was nice enough (and filling enough!) on its own. 

Although the service was pretty disappointing and put us off from visiting again any time soon, we still had a lovely time and both thought the food itself was great. We got wrapped up again and left for our walk home... cue more breathtaking views!

We blitzed a few boring chores when we got home because we're very romantic like that, then we settled in for the night with a bottle of Prosecco and some exciting holiday shopping on the laptop (equally exciting blog post to follow on that). We definitely didn't need any more food for the rest of the day!

How did you spend your Valentine's Day? Hope you all had a good Sunday, whether you believe in celebrating Valentine's Day or not!

Restaurant review: The Captain's Wife

The Captain's Wife is more of a pub than a restaurant, but I didn't want to disrupt the title of my series! Just humour me...

We visited The Captain's Wife back in November to celebrate our three month wedding anniversary. I'd never been there before but I'd heard lots of good things (particularly about their portion sizes) so I was pretty excited. We decided a few hours before lunchtime that we'd like to give it a go, so we simply went online and booked a table there and then. Hassle-free!

The Captain's Wife is situated in a little village a mile or so from our house so I'm not sure why we've never thought to visit it before. It was a gloriously sunny day which really showed off the restaurant's beautiful surroundings, and I could have stood outside taking photos for hours. However, I love my food too much for this to be a realistic possibility. Ever.

I'd been yearning for a roast dinner for weeks so I opted for their Sunday roast with turkey. This was my first roast dinner since the wedding so my levels of anticipation were very high, and I was absolutely famished (as usual). We didn't have to wait too long for our food even though the restaurant was fairly busy, and the dinner was rather impressive when it arrived...

I was lovingly gazing at the parsnips and roast potatoes so I didn't even notice that there were no vegetables on my plate. They came along in a separate dish which I then added topsy-turvily to my plate, but I made sure I took the 'before' picture as my presentation skills aren't very good when it comes to food!

It was a proper mountain of food but I valiantly ate every morsel, as I'm sure you'd expect from me by now. The roast potatoes were particularly good, as well as the yorkshire pudding. Parsnips are my favourite vegetable in the world so I heartily enjoyed those too. You just can't beat a massive roast dinner!

You'd have thought we couldn't even consider ordering dessert after eating this lot... you thought wrong. I ordered the peanut butter and chocolate cheesecake without thinking twice as the description in the menu was simply salivating. 

Our desserts did take a while to appear from the kitchen but I didn't mind too much when I saw mine. Just look at that sugary chocolatey pile of goodness! I took a photo halfway through to show all the different layers... so tasty. There was a huge layer of cream on the top and a generous helping of chocolate sauce around the edges, as well as a beautiful chocolate base. I'm not even a huge fan of peanut butter when it comes out of a jar, but the layer of peanut butter on the top and the cheesecake mixture itself were just amazing. I (obviously) ate every bit of this course too. 

Needless to say, we'll definitely be back in The Captain's Wife soon. The location is perfect for us and the food was so reasonable considering the sheer volume of it. It was also exquisite! The atmosphere was very homely and family-friendly, and it was just a lovely experience all round with friendly staff and beautiful views from the rustic windows. It also has a seating area outside if you fancied a drink in the sun. This place is just perfect for anniversary meals, birthday occasions or just a normal sunny Sunday. Or a rainy Sunday, but your external photos won't look so nice!  

Have you ever been to The Captain's Wife? Did you also manage two courses...? Let me know what you thought! 

Cardiff Food and Drink Festival 2014

I blogged about the Cardiff Food and Drink Festival last year, and this year's event was just as enjoyable. We visited on the Sunday this year and Cardiff Bay was flooded with glorious sunshine (and hoards of people) all afternoon.

We were ravenous by the time we arrived so decided to find some lunch straight away. I went for the healthiest lunch option I could find... a savoury crépe! I have got a wedding dress to fit into, after all. I went for the Popeye option which was filled with spinach, red onion and ricotta. 

I did think the crépe should have been a bit fuller as I paid £5.50 for it. It did taste lovely though so I won't complain too much. I've also never tried a savoury crépe before so it's something to tick off my list. 

After finishing our lunch, we wandered around the various stalls to try a few free samples and comment extensively on all the tantalising smells. We suffered from a great deal of food and drink envy in the process as we couldn't physically try/buy EVERYTHING. 

One of our favourite stalls was the Chocolate Brownie Company... we just had to sample some of these beauties! Neil bought a selection of strawberry, orange and caramel brownies and they were amazing. 

A visit to a food festival wouldn't be complete without an ice cream... actually, for me, a visit to pretty much anywhere isn't complete without an ice cream. After hearing lots of positive stories about the legendary Sub Zero ice cream at last year's food festival, we decided to try it for ourselves this year. I went for the Caramel Crunch and the Strawberry and can confirm that it lived up to the hype! Definitely the best ice cream I've had for a long time. 

I enjoyed trying lots of free samples of the various jams and chutneys on offer, even though I had no intention of buying any of them at those prices. So much garlicky goodness! I was fascinated by the copious garlic displays... I'm not entirely sure why. I must really love garlic. 

Last but not least, I mustn't forget to mention the many many cheese stands. I used to think I didn't like any type of cheese apart from a very mild Cheddar but I've now (thankfully) been convinced otherwise. There's a whole world of cheese out there! This new-found enthusiasm for cheese resulted in me trying a few wacky flavours at the food festival. I'm a changed woman, clearly. Actually, I refused to pay these prices too so I probably haven't changed that much. 

I'm already researching other food festivals to visit and am looking forward to next year's Cardiff instalment! Did you go to the food festival this year? What was your favourite stall?

Idyllic Images #22

Sunny Sunday walk in Penarth

Restaurant review: Shampan

Shampan is a little Indian restaurant on the main high street in Cowbridge. I'd never heard of it as I never have any reason to go to Cowbridge,  but myself and Neil were invited there for food for his friend's birthday last weekend. I'm now busy wondering why I'd never heard of this place before!

The restaurant was easy to find (a 20 minute drive from Penarth), and there was plenty of parking available opposite the restaurant. We were 15 minutes early but were still seated at our table within five minutes of our arrival. The restaurant had a lovely homely atmosphere and decor. It managed to effectively combine rustic with modern and had some really unusual features like colourful patterned umbrellas hanging upside down from the ceiling... it sounds weird, but it worked.

The table was booked for 15 people, so as the restaurant is quite narrow they split our group up into 3 tables at the back of the restaurant. As soon as we sat down, we saw the leaflets which described the amazing 'Sunday Banquet'. Poppadum, dips, starter, main course, veg side, rice and naan bread for £8.50 per person. Surely it was too good to be true?

We thought there must surely be some restrictions on what starters and main courses we could order... there had to be a catch somewhere. We double checked with the waitress when she came to take our order, and she confirmed that we could order any starter, any main course and any veg side! Considering that some of the main courses are £7.50 by themselves, this is a fantastic deal. You do have to pay an extra 30p if you want a fancy naan bread rather than a plain one, but I'd be very surprised if anyone had any gripes about paying an extra 30p after partaking in such a great deal. I opted for the onion bhaji, vegetable balti, saag aloo, pilau rice and a plain naan bread. 

When all the food arrived, it really did look like a banqueting table. I apologise in advance for the poor quality of some of these photos, I didn't want to use the flash as no one else was photographing their food! Blogger problems...

Poppadum and dips... possibly my favourite part of any Indian meal!

Giant onion bhajis... 

My vegetable balti. My mouth is watering just thinking about this!

Saag Aloo

Very bright pilau rice!

The best naan bread I've ever eaten in my entire life

Midway through my main meal!

You might expect the food to be a bit ropey if you're only paying £8.50 for all those courses. Not at Shampan! Everything was cooked exquisitely and I didn't have the slightest complaint about any of the dishes. I've eaten many onion bhajis in various different places, and I can confirm that these bhajis were among the best I've tasted along with the legendary bhajis at Red Hot World Buffet. And they were MASSIVE. Moving on to the main, the vegetable balti was really delicious and unlike any balti I've tasted before. It had a very pleasant kick to it and I was gutted that I couldn't manage to eat the whole lot. It was also packed full of vegetables rather than just throwing in a few peas and half a potato. To top it all off, as I've mentioned above, the naan bread was without a doubt the best one I've ever had. I hate it when naan breads have been overcooked and have hard burnt bits everywhere, so I was very chuffed (do people still use 'chuffed'?) with this one. The Saag Aloo was also lovely, but unfortunately I couldn't eat much of it as I physically couldn't fit any more food in to my stomach. 

We all agreed around the table that the food was scrumptious and that there was actually too much food for most of us. The veg side was probably a bit unnecessary, but we all still felt the need to order one. Even though there were 15 of us and a lot of people in the other areas of the restaurant, we got served very quickly. As Neil said, it was like a conveyor belt of food. My favourite kind of conveyor belt. The staff were accommodating and were very patient while taking our massive food order. They also gave each table a separate bill rather than giving us a massive bill between the 15 of us. This made things slightly less complicated when we tried to work out the cost of everyone's drinks!

Even though I honestly felt as if I was going to burst, I couldn't resist eating the little chocolate which came with the bill. There's always room for chocolate.

Have you ever visited Shampan? Were you also bowled over by the Sunday banquet? I can't wait to go back!

Sundays were made for walking

I love a good walk. My boyfriend and I always try to make time for a walk around Penarth on a Sunday afternoon... partly to walk off some of the copious amounts of food we've eaten over the weekend, partly to get some fresh air and partly to look at posh houses I wish I lived in. Last Sunday was no exception, despite the freezing temperatures and slippery bits of snow which were still hanging around suspiciously waiting to catch me out. None of them have succeeded (yet). Here are some photos from our walk:

Totally wasn't ready for this photo to be taken, which is why I'm pulling a silly face. Please note, I'm wearing my new jeans from Sunday's post. 

I was actually ready for this one, but am still pulling a silly face. I like to call this my 'photo face'. When will I learn to smile for photos without looking ridiculous?

I want this house.

And this one.

Where do other people like to go for their walks? And do other people have a 'photo face' which makes them look ridiculous, or is it really just me?