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? 

My 30th birthday weekend

It was my birthday last weekend... I turned 30! Don't you just love it when your birthday falls on a Saturday? I enjoyed a whole weekend of lovely activities so I thought I'd blog about what I got up to.

My Friday evening started well when I got home from the gym and found Neil baking a summer fruits cake. An excellent start to every weekend! It was a total surprise so I found the whole thing very exciting.

We continued our weekend of indulgence later that evening with a couple of glasses of wine in the sunshine while we waited for dinner to cook (hence the R2D2 kitchen timer). I love sitting out in the garden on a quiet evening... it makes me feel relaxed, which is often a difficult feeling for me to achieve.

We tried Tesco Finest's 'two dine for £10' deal for the first time on Friday night and decided on potato wedges, beef and pulled pork pizza with salsa verde, and mango and passionfruit torte. All three options were amazing! 

I woke up early on Saturday morning to squeal excitedly and to open all my presents and cards. 30 or not, I'm like a child when it comes to my birthday. I'm planning to write a separate post on my fantastic presents so I'll save all those photos and descriptions for a later date. Taking the perfect photos of all my gifts before finding a home for them is definitely a #bloggerproblem and took me a good half an hour!

When I went downstairs later that morning after getting ready, Neil had a surprise waiting for me in the kitchen... our very own afternoon tea! He'd gone to loads of effort and made cheese & tomato and ham & mustard sandwiches, as well as the star feature of the homemade summer fruits cake. 

After eating the delicious sandwiches, scones and cake and drinking our fruity green tea, we hopped on a bus to Cardiff Bay for the afternoon. Cardiff Bay is one of my favourite local places to visit, particularly on a sunny day. We wandered around for a couple of hours to take in the sights, and I had a very decadent hot chocolate in Cadwaladers! 

We sat in the garden for half an hour after getting back from the bay, then I went to get ready for my surprise birthday evening meal. I decided to wear my Christmas sale dress from New Look for the first time, along with a couple of my new jewellery pieces (more on those in my upcoming 'birthday haul' post). 

I was very pleased when Neil drove me to Miller and Carter as it's one of my favourite restaurants and always feels like a special treat. We ordered the bread sharer to start then I had a tasty fillet steak with all the trimmings, washed down with a glass of Prosecco. Top marks! 

Neil had yet another surprise planned for me on Sunday afternoon... Llanerch Vineyard for Sunday lunch! The weather was beautiful so we were able to walk around the vineyard and soak up some sun after our massive meal. I had the butternut squash and ginger soup to start, roast sirloin for my main, and lemon posset for dessert. It's fair to say that the whole lot was spectacular and I can't wait until our next visit. We sat in the conservatory section of the restaurant, right next to the window, so we enjoyed a nice view with our lunch!

After we got back from Llanerch Vineyard, my in-laws came around for an hour to sit in the garden as it was such a sunny evening. It was lovely to relax in the sun and chat for a while about what we'd all been up to over the weekend. After they'd left, we finished off our day with a stunning evening walk to Penarth Pier. The beautiful views and the tranquil experience encouraged us to go for evening walks more often! 

I feel so fortunate to have had such a great birthday weekend (good planning, Neil), and I'm looking forward to going to visit my parents and friends in West Wales next week for part two of my 30th birthday celebrations. You definitely haven't seen the end of my birthday blog posts... watch this space! 

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!

New thing every week in 2015 #3

I'm now on my third post of my 'new thing every week in 2015' series (you can read the first post here and the second post here). It's such a great way of remembering what I got up to last year, and I would definitely recommend it for 2016 if you're up for it. We're only a few weeks in to the year (believe it or not) so there's still time for you to get involved.

So what new things did I get up to between 20 May and 29 July? Let's find out...

Week 21 (20-26 May) - Had Neil's family over for Sunday lunch.  

Week 22 (27 May - 2 June) - Got told my post was at risk of redundancy (it turned out ok in the end, as you'll see in week 27!).

Week 23 (3-9 June) - Went to Tony's in Penarth for my 29th birthday meal. 

Week 24 (10-16 June) - Went to a Spin class on a Saturday. 

Week 25 (17-23 June) - Went to a conference in Merthyr Tydfil's Cyfarthfa Castle.

Week 26 (24-30 June) - Ate out at Signor Valentino in Cardiff Bay.

Week 27 (1-6 July) - Became a manager... the events of week 22 meant I had the opportunity to apply for a newly-created Communications Manager post!

Week 28 (7-13 July) - Managed my organisation's communications strategy for the UK budget announcement.

Week 29 (14-22 July) - Drove to Southampton in my new car to celebrate my nephew's first birthday. 

Week 30 (23-29 July) - Went to Penarth's Bar 44 for Sunday lunch. 

These ten weeks were a bit of an emotional rollercoaster but everything worked out in the end. I apparently ate my way through the stress, according to some of these entries... look out for the next instalment over the weekend! 

Restaurant review: Llanerch Vineyard

It was my husband's 30th birthday in March and I wanted to take him somewhere special for his birthday meal. After several hours of googling and trip-advisoring (trip-advisoring should definitely become an official verb), I decided to treat him to Sunday lunch at Llanerch Vineyard.

Llanerch Vineyard is situated in Hensol in the Vale of Glamorgan, just off junction 34 of the M4. I'd never been there myself but I'd heard colleagues raving about it, and the reviews on Trip Advisor speak for themselves. I emailed the restaurant to book a table for Sunday 1st March and to order a gift voucher for a three course Sunday lunch for two. I thought it would be nicer to pay beforehand and to give Neil a voucher rather than paying on the day, particularly as he probably wouldn't let me pay for it all myself if I paid on the day! The restaurant staff were really helpful and made the whole booking experience very easy. Now all I had to do was keep the location a secret.

On 1st March, we got into my car and I drove to Hensol. Although Neil kept trying to guess where we were going for the entire journey, I knew he hadn't heard of Llanerch Vineyard so I was pretty confident that none of his guesses would be correct. I put some effort into my appearance for the occasion... definitely the best bun I've ever achieved!

The weather was unfortunately quite dull and dreary, but this didn't dampen the appearance of Llanerch Vineyard at all. The restaurant's surrounding areas were beautiful and I could have taken photos of all the different nooks and crannies for hours. However, I only took a few as I was hungry and didn't want to annoy Neil on his birthday with my incessant photographing. Also, as the scenery outside the restaurant itself was so lovely, I couldn't wait to see what the interior was like. 

The interior of the Cariad Bistro & Restaurant didn't disappoint. It was charmingly rustic but with a modern and fresh twist, and it felt like the perfect place for a nice Sunday lunch. We were shown to our table by a friendly waitress and were greeted by a daffodil on our table to mark St David's Day. 

I ordered the soup of the day to start, then the roast sirloin of beef Sunday roast for my main. I'm a massive fan of Sunday dinner and have had some excellent examples in my time, so this meal had a lot to live up to. My soup arrived promptly with a nice bread roll... 

The soup of the day was carrot and coriander and it was very tasty. I've always liked tinned carrot and coriander soup, but obviously this was ten times better. The roll (Swansea bread, apparently) was also delicious. I usually prefer white bread with soup but this roll was the perfect accompaniment. A good start! I cleared my bowl and sat back to wait for my main course. 

Wow. Just wow. The plate looked a lot prettier before I loaded my cauliflower cheese and vegetables on to it, but still... wow! Massive yorkshire pudding, honeyed roast parsnips, roast potatoes, sprouts, carrots, green beans, cauliflower cheese and the most succulent beef I've ever had. The meal was topped with a lovely rich gravy. I ate every scrap and absolutely loved every  bit of it. Neil doesn't like cauliflower cheese so I had a double helping of that which was a bonus. I also love a good honeyed parsnip and these were roasted just the way I like them. Neil asked for lamb as his meat of choice and said it was the best lamb he's ever had. Top marks from both of us for the main course! I was far too full for dessert, but we had a voucher for a three course meal so we obviously had to finish the meal off in style. 

I ordered the white chocolate and apricot cheesecake with butterscotch cream for my dessert... possibly the most decadent dessert I've ever had. And yes, I include my Italian holidays in that statement which makes it even more impressive. I didn't even know if I liked butterscotch but the little dollop of cream with cocoa dusting was just heavenly. The base was very thick and buttery and the filling itself was so rich and indulgent with just the right amount of apricot flavouring. Absolutely beautiful. I'm also a big fan of round desserts (no idea why) so this bowled me over on all counts. 

The rain cleared up while we were eating so we went outside for a wander after finishing our food. The vineyard itself is just a few metres from the restaurant, and there's a seating area outside ready for the warmer weather. Such a pretty setting for a Sunday lunch! I definitely want to go back during the summer so that we can have a longer walk around the vineyard. 

The restaurant at Llanerch Vineyard definitely lived up to all its hype. Every aspect of our three course meal was delicious and it really felt like an indulgent treat. I paid £45 for the voucher for two which is very reasonable considering both the quality and the quantity of the food. The service was excellent and the views were beautiful, even if the weather wasn't perfect on the day we visited. 

Have you ever visited Llanerch Vineyard? What did you think? We'll definitely be back!  

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!