Live ish food/trip report - Eating our way across land and (near) sea - the UK trip - August 2017

[4holibobs]

Hi everyone,

I'm not sure if this is going to be allowed, as it's a UK report...but I'm hoping it is as I've enjoyed reading back on my 2016 foodie report (in dining section of reports) so much.

We're about to embark on a 10 day road trip around the South of the UK this week and I wanted to re-create a similar log to look back on to my last food report from Orlando last year, which was also a 10 night trip (followed by a week cruising the Caribbean).

I'm hoping this is also going to be a great way to compare the price of (mainly) food/spends on a UK holiday compared to USA holiday as I know this is something that is talked about quite a lot on these boards.

This is a link to my USA food report is here if you wanted to read it to compare -

https://www.thedibb.co.uk/forums/sho...d.php?t=971015

So, this trip starts on Wednesday this week and we're visiting-

Weston-Super-Mare
Weymouth
Plymouth
Fowey
St Ives
Watergate Bay
Padstow

This trip was booked on NYE 2016, we're lucky enough to have been to the Canary and Balearic Islands this year, and are currently finalising plans for a Christmas Caribbean cruise too, so thankfully whilst the weather forecast isn't planned to be too good, we have already had some sunshine this year.

We've been to Cornwall before on a camping trip, it rained the whole time we were there and my hubby vowed never to return again, however, I feel there's so much of this country we haven't seen (and thankfully he agreed) so I'm excited to see more of our beautiful country.

Thankfully, we're not camping this time and have booked a mixture of Premier Inns, Airbnb's and a couple of luxury hotels.

I've called this a food/trip report as I'll most definitely be including our food but hope to include some picturesque shots along the way too.

Fingers crossed the report is allowed, Ill look forward to starting again on Wednesday!

[Loftus]

No reason why it shouldn't be allowed, it's in the General Trip Report forum after all.

I look forward to reading it.

[4holibobs]

Originally Posted by Loftus

No reason why it shouldn't be allowed, it's in the General Trip Report forum after all.

I look forward to reading it.

See more...

Brilliant! Thanks very much

[4holibobs]

We woke up really early this morning as DH went into work for a couple of hours and then took our car into the garage to have new tyres before our mammoth 10 night road trip.

We stopped off at our local shopping mall to pick up a few last minute bits whilst we were waiting for the car, and had breakfast in the food court.

Small breakfast 6 items for £3.99 and medium breakfast 8 items for 4.99... not bad... I'm hoping we'll be eating better breakfasts in the days to come but it filled a hole!

We put petrol in the car and I just remembered to take a quick photo of our current mileage as we set off, to compare where we are when we get back.

We arrived in Weston just after 3pm and checked into our Premier Inn. We've stayed here a few times before and have never had a bad stay.

It was grey and windy outside, but undeterred we set off for the seafront to blow away the cobwebs. It was just what we needed!

The holiday couldn't start properly without a 99 ice cream (which actually cost £1.80 - I wonder how long ago they were actually 99p?!). You could really taste the vanilla essence in the ice cream, I enjoyed it.

We headed back to the hotel for a hot cup of tea and a shower before our evening meal in the attached Beefeater tonight.

We purchased the meal deal when we booked the hotel, costing £24.99 and for that we have included a 2 course evening meal (either starter and main or main and dessert), a drink and breakfast tomorrow.

Here's the menu for you to see, the first photo shows what drinks were included in the deal and the extra cost of some of the items.

To drink, I had a J20 and DH ordered a lemonade which I had too. He doesn't like Carling or Stella the two beers on offer with the meal deal so ordered San Miguel paying for it.

We decided to have a main and dessert, but I saw another table get some chicken wings which looked really good, so to start, we shared 8 crispy chicken wings with BBQ sauce paying for them separately - they were really good!

DH chose mixed grill and I had chicken and ribs - these meals didn't incur any additional charges.

The food took quite some time to come out, but it was really delicious, in fact one of the nicest meals I've had in a long time. The ribs were tender, the BBQ sauce reminded me of America (weird, I know!) and the slaw was really very good.

We were stuffed, but managed to squeeze in an ice cream sundae... we both chose Rocky Road... mine without cream.

These were a bit disappointing, only 3 marshmallows which tasted a little stale... perhaps we were just too full.

Our bill came to just under £18 (so £68)- excellent value for money and we haven't even had breakfast yet! I'd thoroughly recommend getting the meal deal if you're staying someone out of town slightly or if the restaurant attached is Beefeater (sometimes they are different chains).

That's day one done... this night was a late addition to our plans and I'm glad we added it.

Tomorrow we are heading down to Weymouth for 2 nights, somewhere neither of us have been before.

Until then

[4holibobs]

I always enjoy staying at Premier Inn as the beds are so comfy! The room suddenly became a furnace in the early hours of the morning, but the hotel must be used to complaints of this as there was a large stainless steel fan we put on which cooled the room down.

We went down for breakfast at 8.45am - this was included as part of our £24.99 meal deal, the cost of breakfast alone (full English) is £8.99.

Here's the menu -

We ordered our hot breakfast after helping ourselves to tea, orange juice and orange and mango smoothies. By the time we made our toast our hot breakfast arrived.

I nearly forgot to take a photo, so apologies for the already eaten breakfast -

Our breakfast was really good, everything tastes great, was hot and the waitress came over to check if we wanted any more of anything during the course of our meal.

Great food and excellent service!

We were moving into Weymouth today, but I'd sussed out Clarks Outlet Village in Street only 45 minutes away with some of my favourite shops so the plan was to stop there en route.

The combination of summer sales and outlet prices meant we picked up some real bargains, for example I picked up an Autumn / Winter jacket from Next reduced from £115 to £14 and a work dress for just £3!

We stopped for a quick bite to eat at a Cornish Pasty shop. DH had a traditional pastie and a tea and I had a croissant and a water juice and it came to just under £10.

It was nice to stop and take the weight off our feet.

We set off around 1pm from Street and the sat nav took us on A roads all the way to Weymouth.

We're staying on the Premier Inn seafront for 2 nights.

After we had checked in, we headed to the beach. The part near our hotel is pebbly, but a short walk along and it's beautifully sandy.

If it wasn't so windy we could have been anywhere in the world, it was lovely.

We took a train ride, strolled along the marina and down the High Street.

We stopped for a quick drink - J20 and a pint - with a gorgeous view!

After exploring further we decided to grab an early(ish) tea. Before our trip, we made a note of the most popular eateries on trip advisor and one in Weymouth was The George so we decided to try it.

Here's the menu -

We both decided on the fish and chips as we'd seen someone have them and they looked delicious and we figured as we were so close to the sea the fish should be amazing.

The fish was really good, hot and tasty, but the chips were only luke warm. Still we ate it and enjoyed it.

With room for dessert, we chose hot chocolate brownie and vanilla ice cream to share.

The brownie was really good, very rich and just right for two to share.

Our bill came to just under £40... not bad value at all.

As we were waking back to the seafront from the High Street, we came across lots of beggars, and drunk males (not teens or stag do's) staggering around going up to people asking for money. It made me feel uneasy and as soon as we could get off the High Street we did. As we walking along the seafront a woman approached me spluttering words at me... she looked quite frightening really staring at me... I think I must attract these kind of people... but it's kind of put me off being out in Weymouth any later than now.

We've come back to the hotel now, I'm going to have a lovely long soak in the bath and a drink or too before heading for bed.

We've seen an open top bus so we may try that tomorrow.

Until then...

[4holibobs]

It's a Brewers Fayre attached to our Premier Inn at Weymouth... they seem the poorer cousin to the Beefeater attached to the Premier Inn at Weston.

We purchased the £8.99 breakfast for both today and tomorrow to save hunting around town for somewhere to eat.

It was a buffet breakfast this morning, but it was too busy to take photos (sorry!).

Here's my breakfast...

It was fine, probably not as good as it being brought fresh to your table like yesterday but no real complaints.

We decided to catch the local bus today and take in the views of the Jurassic Coast.

We caught the X53 from the bus station at Weymouth and these were the stops...

We bought two return tickets to Lyme Regis which cost £17.

We stopped on right until Lyme Regis which took 1 hour 50 minutes. We were really pleasantly surprised by Lyme Regis, the beach was packed with people, it was very picturesque and there was a lovely little High Street with some decent shops too.

We decided to have lunch in Lyme Regis before catching the bus onto our next location and stopped in a pub called the Cobb Arms near the boatyard.

DH had the seafood tagliatelle (not shown on the menu), which had cod, prawns and mussles in it. I had a jacket potato with cheese and beans. We both had a pint of lime and lemonade.

The meals were really good and plentiful, and the bill came to just under £30.

We didn't have to wait long until our bus came, our next stop was West Bay, which is where ITV's Broadchurch was filmed.

Unfortunately it started drizzling as we got off the bus and it was very windy, but I'm glad we stopped off at West Bay as I loved Broadchurch and would have regretted not seeing the infamous beach.

There was a lovely little pizza bar/cafe on the beach called the Watch House where we stopped for cake and drinks.

I had a piece of Victoria Sandwich with a blood orange sanpellegrino and DH had a carrot cake muffin and a tea.

Our afternoon treat came to £9.90. DH said it was the best carrot cake he'd ever had!

The pizzas looked really good, thin and crispy with lots of topping... the area with the pizza oven was cool. I'd thoroughly recommend a pit stop in West Bay and this cafe if you're in the area.

We caught the bus back to Weymouth and got back to the hotel around 5.30pm.

I'm glad we saw Lyme Regis and West Bay and thought the bus service for £17 for us both was excellent.

The plan tonight was to eat in the Brewers Wharf attached to the hotel. We headed down around 7.30pm and were told it would be 30 minutes for a table. We initially decided to wait but it soon became apparent that the restaurant resembled a crèche and wasn't somewhere we wanted to eat.

We took the car out and headed just 5 minutes along the coast when we found a Harvester. We haven't eaten in a Harvester for a few years so decided to give it a go if they had any tables.

Our luck was in, they had a table and the food and service was actually really good.

We both had a lime and lemonade again. DH had the chicken stack and I had half chicken and ribs with mash. We both took advantage of the free salad bar.

Excuse the amount of Red Devil sauce on the salad..!

Our meals were good, no complaints at all. I decided I still had room for dessert, here's the menu -

I had the sundae best with butterscotch sauce, it was really good!

Our bill came to just £34 - a real bargain... I've been pleasantly surprised about the price of the food so far, granted we haven't yet eaten in any 5* restaurants, but we've had good food and service at great prices.

This was the view from the terrace at the Harvester this evening...

I'm glad we stopped off at Weymouth as it's somewhere I've always wanted to see, but it's not somewhere I'd race back to.

Our next stop tomorrow for two nights is Plymouth.

Until then

[4holibobs]

The day started with breakfast at the poor cousin as I fondly called it, aka the Brewers Wharf.

We slept in a little today so didn't go down to breakfast until just before 9am. The restaurant was packed, we were sat in the family area.

The waitress asked if we'd like porridge, I said yes as fancied something different from a cooked breakfast this morning. She asked if we wanted scrambled, poached eggs or an omelette making, when we replied no, she said good and walked off! It really tickled us as we're sure the good was meant to be said inside her head only and not really come out her mouth.

Anyway, for breakfast I had porridge with honey and 2 croissants. The porridge didn't look all too appetising when it came but it was actually quite nice albeit it could have been warmer.

We set off for Plymouth with the sat nav taking us along mostly A roads, picking up for M5 for a very short distance and then A roads again. There was some stunning scenery on the way.

This is our last two nights in Premier Inn before moving onto Airbnb's and hotels.

We arrived in Plymouth around 12.30pm so too early to check in. We parked the car (£5 per night) on the Premier Inn car park and headed for the Barbican area.

The sun was shining, and the Barbican was bustling, it was really lovely.

We came across a restaurant called Quay 33 which was on my list of places to try in Plymouth from my trip advisor research. We were lucky to get a table for two.

Apologies for the rotated menu photo I'm not sure how to flip it!

We both chose the steak chilli, I had a Diet Coke and DH had a beer.

The restaurant was very busy with just servers, but the service was top notch, they weee very efficient.

Our meals didn't take too long to come out and I have to say the food was delicious and plentiful.

I have to say I can see why this place is ranked in the top 10 of restaurants in Plymouth out of almost 600... food and service were both great. The bill came to just £28, DH left £35 as he felt that's what the meal was worth.

We walked into the City Centre taking in the sights after lunch. It's PRIDE weekend in Plymouth so here were lots of people walking around with rainbow flags, faces painted and some amazing fashion.

We checked into the hotel late afternoon and had a snooze for an hour or so before having a soak... it was lovely to relax for a while (we have done nearly 15k steps today!).

Tonight we headed back to the Barbican, we passsed a few homeless people but they were approaching people like in Weymouth.

We'd passed a Greek restaurant earlier today called Meze Grill that we decided we wanted to try.

Again we were really lucky to get a table as the restaurant became really full with people who had pre- booked.

The decor was lovely, the tiles were beautiful. They played a mixture of Greek and English music. The ambience was really lovely.

Here's the menu -

I had a strawberry daiquiri and DH had a San Miguel.

To start I had hummus and DH had the Greek meatballs (keftedes)... I had food envy, the meatballs were amazing! Although my hummus was very good too.

For mains, DH had the kleftiko which came with Greek salad and I had chicken slouvaki with a side of pitta bread.

This was the meal of the holiday so far it was absolutely incredible! Everything was cooked to perfection, tasted great and once again the service was really very good.

The bill came to less than £60 too- great value for what we had.

I've really enjoyed Plymouth so far. Tomorrow we plan on visiting the Hoe and maybe the aquarium.

We haven't booked into the restaurant (table table) for breakfast, we're planning on have a lie in and maybe catching brunch somewhere.

Until then

[4holibobs]

It's not a very exciting food day today, we're both feeling food-ed out today.

We woke up late so didn't leave the hotel until nearly 10.30am.

We headed for Boston Tea Party which is a place I've wanted to try for a while.

We sat down, and I even took a photo of the menu (see below), then a couple with two huge dogs came inside and sat down next to us. The smell from one of th dogs was too overpowering, we knew we wouldn't enjoy our breakfast if we stayed there so we moved on.

There was another cafe we'd seen on our travels we though we'd try but could see dogs in there too so decided to give it a miss. I'm sure if you're a dog owner, it's fabulous being able to take your dog out and stop for a coffee or breakfast, but I personally don't think they should be allowed inside these kind of eateries. Anyway, I'm sure they survive enough without my custom, but just my opinion.

We decided to have a Cornish pasty to take away and then have an early lunch.

One medium pastie, one large and a water was £7. The pasties were super hot and burnt our mouths... they were really good.

We headed on around to Plymouth Hoe for a walk, it was really lovely, sun shining and not too windy. It's a lovely area to sit and people watch.

Next we headed on down to the shopping area, with a quick pit stop inMcDonalds for the toilet and a drink (latte and strawberry lemonade) - just under £4.

We did some shopping then headed back towards the hotel and a tea I'd seen called the Stable for lunch. DH said he fancied a pie and I'd seen this place advertise pizzas and pies.

This place also specialised in cider, although we had a lemonade and a local lager.

DH ordered the steak pie and I had a chicken pizza with red onion added on.

The food didn't take too long to come out, and here it is -

DH was really disappointed with his pie, he ate the potatoes and the filling but that was it. It was quite hollow with hardly any filling, and he said it wasn't that tasty either (he said he'd had better fillings from Greggs steak bake!). However, I really enjoyed my pizza, I loved how thin it was and I ate almost all of it.

DH paid our bill, just under £30 and we left with DH saying he wouldn't be back anytime soon!

We dropped our bags off at the hotel, had a quick cup of tea and headed out to Stoke Beach in Noss Mayo about 30 minutes from where we are staying.

Some of th drive involved windy country lanes, some barely wide enough for one car let alone two, but when we were almost at the beach we came across the most beautiful sight...

We continued on to the beach and it can only be described as a hidden gem, it was absolutely stunning. It's quite some walk both there and back from the car park, and wouldn't be suitable for the elderly or impaired but if you're in the area and want a spot that could rival anywhere in the world, this is it!

The photo I took just of the beach won't upload, so here's one from the net -

We returned back to the hotel and had a soak in the bath whilst contemplating what we wanted for tea. Neither of us fancied heading to a restaurant, DH said he wished there was a Sweet Tomatoes near by as he wanted something light with salad.

We ended up heading out and stumbled across a Tesco express so we picked up a picnic which came to just under £18. We've eaten the sandwiches, salads and some of th crisps already as well as the fruit and yoghurt. It was nice to have something light and picky and to eat with our pyjamas on sat on the bed watching tv!

We're off to Fowey tomorrow, until then

[4holibobs]

We checked out of our last Premier Inn of the trip and headed for the Barbican Leisure Complex and to Frankie and Bennys for breakfast.

There were only 3 other families in the restaurant, with two more coming in when we were there.

I haven't been there for breakfast before but I've seen a few of my friends tag themselves there on Facebook for breakfast so I was curious to see what it was like.

We ordered two large orange juices, two breakfast teas and two traditional breakfasts (mine with no bacon and extra sausage) and two portions of toast.

The large drinks were huge!

The plates were cold and the beans only lukewarm, but the rest of the breakfast was hot and quite tasty.

The bill came to £25.30 - we didn't try breakfast at table table at the Premier Inn but this would have cost £17.98 in comparison.

We were heading to Fowey today but as we couldn't check into our hotel until 3pm we decided to head to a couple of places on my must see list. The first being Mevagissey.

We parked just outside the centre -£3 for two hours, it seemed everyone else was also parking there, it was packed they were making a roaring trade.

It was really picturesque, but it was raining so it put a bit of a dampener on things (no pun intended!).

Next up we headed for Charlestown. We struggled to park here initially and ended up around 10 minutes up the road.

The rain stopped for us, and we spent a nice hour of so here. I'd seen a coffee shop recommended on a blog (roses and rolltops) called short and strong so when we came across it we decided to give it a try.

I had sanpellegrino and a piece of coffee and walnut cake and DH had a latte and a piece of bakewell cake. It came to just under £10.

Charlestown was a lovely little stop, some of Poldark was filmed there (not that we watch it). Well worth a visit if you're in the area!

We headed towards Fowey now stopping at Polkerris Bay, we'll actually a field where you could park all day for 2 hours and then a 5-10 minute walk down a dirt track to the beach.

Another great find, hardly anyone on the beach and although it was grey and cloudy there were people on the beach in their swimming costumes and in the sea.

We headed to our hotel, the Old Quay House Hotel Inn Fowey around 4pm. If you've never been before the road in the centre is one way, very windy and with not much pavement space full of pedestrians.

I'd read on trip advisor the parking for the hotel was around 10 minute walk away so I called ahead this morning to find out where it was. I was told to pull up outside the hotel to off load our luggage then they would give us a parking permit. Trying to pull up outside the hotel was a challenge, remember this was a narrow one way street, we held up quite a bit of traffic off loading our luggage and waiting for the hotel staff to show us where to park. We parked up with no issue, it was around a 10 minute walk, however, Fowey is beautiful so we didn't mind the walk, and the hotel is absolutely worth it.

When we checked in, our luggage has already been taken to our (upgraded room).

We had an estuary view, queen size bed, complimentary tea/coffee (nespresso machine with pods), white company toiletries, rain jackets in the wardrobe to borrow, dvds and books to use and bath robes. It's a beautiful hotel. We've enjoyed our Premier Inn stays but this feels well worth the extra money we have paid to stay here!

We wondered around Fowey just as the shops were closing and it was quietening down.

We decided to come back to the hotel for a soak before getting ready for tea tonight.

We headed out just before 8pm only a few doors down the road to Sam's.

We were told there would be a 40 minute wait, we ordered our food (at their request) then headed upstairs to the cocktail lounge.

DH had 2 pints whilst we were waiting and I had a Fowey sunrise mocktail.

I ordered the cheeseburger and DH had the samburger deluxe.

We waited 50 minutes for our table, but the drinks and ambience helped they were playing really good music from all eras, a little bit like Hard Rock Cafe so the time flew by.

When we sat down the food didn't take long to come.

The food was really good, the coleslaw was the best I've ever tasted.

We were too full for dessert today. Our bill came to £34.20, however we left £40 as DH had another half a pint which wasn't on the bill.

If you're in this area, I'd thoroughly recommend Sam's.

We're looking forward to a good nights sleep and a yummy Cornish breakfast tomorrow morning before spendinng some time in Fowey and then heading to St Ives.

Until then