Displaying posts tagged with 'eating out'

The Restaurant Inspector begins tonight at 10pm on Channel 5. Following on from the success of The Hotel inspector, the series will follow a similar format with Fernando Peire, who is Director at world famous London restaurant The Ivy – a restaurant renowned for it’s good service – visiting six ailing restaurants and aiming to turn around their fortunes.

For more details and to view the trailer, click the ‘continue reading’ link below.

Continue reading “The Restaurant Inspector (Series 1)” …

Following on from our earlier article on unusual places to eat in London, here are four more great places to eat in London if you fancy something a little out of the ordinary…

• RootMaster restaurant. A vegan ‘on an actual bus’ eating experience – you don’t see many of these. The Rootmaster restaurant in Ely’s Yard, close to Brick Lane, really is a unique experience. An actual Routemaster (first in action in 1967), the restaurant has dining upstairs, and also does take away. A 100% organic and meat-free environment, it’s ethically right-on and healthy too. And you don’t have to ring the bell when you want to get off. [ Book a table at RootMaster ]
• Garlic and Shots. If you like Garlic, you’ll love Garlic and Shots – garlic is in everything from avocado garlic chicken to start, through main courses like garlic meatballs with creamed garlic sauce and garlic honey roasted ribs to desserts such as butter scotch garlic toffee cake. As for the shots, there are 101 different vodka shots (including some with garlic, naturally) to try so you’re probably best to get public transport home – but don’t worry, you’re bound to get a seat!
• Abracadabra Restaurant. The restaurant’s eclectic interior was designed by owner and self-confessed eccentric, Lord David West. Tired of ‘very, very boring’ restaurant interiors, he describes it as an ‘Alice in Wonderland for adults’ – the centre piece of which is a revolving table, designed by the owner to allow all twelve of the occupants enjoy the ‘best seat’ in the restaurant. The menu features the most expensive starter we’ve ever seen; the Black Caviar comes in at a wallet-busting £195, so probably best to ‘go dutch’ if you order this. Don’t worry though, almost all the other starters are the right side of a tenner.
• Inamo Restaurant. This pan-Asian restaurant in Soho offers diners an innovative way to order their dinner. Menus are projected onto the table where touch sensors allow users to navigate them as if using a touch-screen. The menu system doesn’t stop there though – you can change the images projected onto your table during dinner – and if you run out of things to talk about with your dining companion you can have an electronic game of battleships (or if it’s going really badly, use it to order a taxi!). [ Book a table at Inamo ]

If you know of any more unusual London restaurants (or somewhere a bit different to eat outside the capital), leave us a comment and we’ll include it in our next article.

In these days of ‘chain’ restaurant, and the ubiquitous ‘pizza and pasta’ or ‘standard pub fayre’ options (which are often exactly what you’re after), sometimes you might – in the words of Monty Python – feel that it’s time ‘for something completely different’. So – we thought we’d take a look at some of the more unusual restaurants in London.
Continue reading “Unusual places to eat in London (part 1)” …

Following on from our last blog post, we continued to speak to vegetarian restaurants from around the UK about National Vegetarian Week.

Continue reading “Some more great vegetarian restaurants” …

This week is the 18th annual National Vegetarian Week, running from Monday 24th to Sunday 30th. We’ve been busy adding some great veggie and vegan restaurants to our restaurant guide. Along the way, we spoke to a few of them asked them introduce their restaurant and tell us a little about how they are celebrating National Vegetarian Week…

Continue reading “Celebrating National Vegetarian Week at veggie restaurants” …

With around 3% of the population fully vegetarian, and a further 2% abstaining from some elements of the carnivorous spectrum (either just eating fish, or avoiding red meat), vegetarians represent a significant proportion of a modern restaurant’s trade. Whereas eating out as a vegetarian 20 years ago generally meant having a meal “without the meat” and exposing yourself to the relentless “Oh dear, I can’t see any tofu on the menu!” jokes, nowadays it is de rigueur for any self respecting restaurateur to have a decent vegetarian section on their menu, and at least a couple of veggie options on the specials board.

Continue reading “Eating out as a vegetarian” …

Few things are as likely to ruin a pleasant night out as the bill arriving and discovering that there is a mix of ‘tippers’ and ‘non-tippers’ in your midst. Attitudes to tipping vary around the world – in the US, it’s ‘the norm’ to tip at least 20%. This is true but many waiters and waitresses in the states earn minimal basic wages. In fact most earn under $3 per hour – that’s about £1.90. The bulk of their income comes from their tips and, when eating out, Americans will factor ‘the tip’ in. This said, many US waiters and waitresses do make a good living – probably earning more than their British counterparts who probably only earn the minimum wage (£4.83 for 18-21 year olds) and get less in tips.

People tend to have strong views either way and – due to the fact that it is a perennial conversation – clearly there is no ‘right’ answer. With this in mind, we thought we’d take a look at some of the arguments on either side of the fence, and put a few of the myths to bed…
Continue reading “To tip or not to tip?” …

It is a British diner’s worst nightmare. Going out to a restaurant ought to be one of life’s pleasures, plus it can be an expensive event and often the focus is on a special occasion or catching up with family or friends. In short: it’s not an experience that you want to be soured. So, if you’re chicken looks a bit pink, or your pasta’s definitely on the ‘not cooked’ side of al dente then it can leave you in a genuinely difficult position and dampen an evening’s enjoyment.

As Brits we know that our expectations can verge on the side of the neurotic, so perhaps the first thing to ask yourself is: ‘is it really an issue?’ If the restaurant is packed and you’ve had to wait 40 minutes for your starter then, if you’re having a glass of wine and catching up with friends: has it really detracted from your enjoyment of the evening? If you had to remind the waiter about your drinks, and they were genuinely apologetic for forgetting them, then is it just one of those things?

Continue reading “How to complain in a restaurant” …

“Go on, let’s take the kids!” A statement guaranteed to bring many parents out in a cold sweat… Spend the entire evening either chasing a toddler around, apologising to the next table, or angst ridden about what’s going to happen if “junior” wakes up – and you pay for the privilege…

But – many people would say – it doesn’t have to be that way. If you go for dinner on the continent then you expect to see children out with their parents and, when it gets too late, they’ll just fall asleep on a chair until Mum and Dad have finished their Carafe and it’s time to go home.

Continue reading “Eating in restaurants with children” …

We’ve added loads of new features to the site to make it more useful to people looking for restaurants and takeaways – but the one that we’re really exited about is online booking. It’s now possible to book a table online at over 2,000 restaurants on our website. The service is free and checks the availability of tables in realtime, so there is no confusion or waiting around for an answer (or waiting until the restaurant is open before you can call up and book!). We’ll also send you a confirmation email (or SMS if you prefer) so you’ve got the details to hand.

Even better, we’ll also show you any available special offers and discounts when you make your booking, so you can save some money as well as your time.

To find restaurants offering online booking, visit our restaurant guide, and find the area you are looking to book a table in, then choose ‘Online booking’ from the ‘Refine’ section. This will give you a list of all restaurants in the area where you can make a reservation online. As an example, here’s the list of Sheffield restaurants offering online booking.