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HERE FOR WHAT'S ON IN NORWICH? Restaurant
reviews - from you the customers Three
course meals, lazy afternoons, the walks to the
The
Garden House two positive reviews
Norfolk Broads all hark back to a more genteel era,
when holidaying was as much about enjoyment as the
place. South African Mpho Mantjiu visited Norfolk.
There
we are, sitting near a fire place and the smell
of food wafting across the night air. I sit at the
first table, along with a couple of friends from
Johannesburg and a pair of foreign journalists who are
based in London, and the conversation is fast and
furious.
The
place is the Garden House Restaurant & Hotel.
It was nice to find a pleasant, visually appealing and
relatively unassuming (price-wise) hotel & restaurant
with a good English dishes. Some were entirely new to
me, and very impressive.
I am indebted to an English friend in South Africa who
recommended the restaurant.
The service was brilliant throughout the meal. The
restaurant is run by a family. The chief chef, Mrs
Jill Smart, is fantastically English and the food was
unusual and very good indeed.
Choosing a main course was difficult. There were all
kinds of things I had not come across before such as a
duck liver and mixed peppercorn parfait!
Main courses included fish dishes or interesting
things like risottos, tagliatelle with mushrooms and
other pasta dishes.
I fared better with my whole boneless trout baked with
rosemary, garlic, lemon and white wine which was not
overcooked and was liberally sprinkled with all the
above ingredients. It also came with wicked new
potatoes sautéed with garlic, chilli and coriander. We
then shared an apple strudel which, instead of being
rolled in pastry and sliced in the usual way, was
cooked in its own shortcrust pastry parcel. It was
terrific: tangy and chewy and moist and hot.
My friends had steak and fries, which was also jolly
good - just the sort of thing you want to bite into
hungrily when breakfast felt like two days ago and we
had walked for miles. It came with interesting bits of
salad leaves and a vast pile of delicious "baker
fries".
The foreign journalists ordered wild rice kedgeree
with smoked haddock, topped by a perfectly cooked
poached egg and wilted spinach with a red onion
marmalade. Again, smiles all round. A dish bursting
with enthusiasm and finesse, and it just simply
pleased at a very deep level.
With a bottle of water, a pint of lager, one espresso
coffee and service at 12.5 per cent, our bill came to
£21.50 each. I call that reasonable to the point of
distinction, and I look forward to next summer where
we intend to repeat the process sitting in the
restaurant's delightful garden.
Hi,
I was visiting Norwich from South Africa and was recommended by a friend to go to a place just outside the city itself, the Garden House Restaurant. So I went with three friends on a Friday evening.
It was fairly busy with about 20 other guests. It has a comfortable lounge where you can peruse the menu and the "daily specials" on a blackboard and have a pre-prandial drink. For a South African this is an unusual experience because at home you go straight to the table at even the best restaurants and so it was thoroughly appreciated.
Contrary to the country's reputation for poor food, the menu was an intoxicating mixture of traditional English fare. It included steak & kidney pie and lamb shanks in a red wine sauce and more exotic offerings such as spicy cajun chicken on an avocado salsa; and there was also fresh turbot (not a fish with which I was familiar) with fresh mussels and white wine sauce.
The maitre d' was a charming, if somewhat eccentric old man, who I later found out was the owner. His wife and son run the kitchen. We asked several times for things but he just looked blankly at us. We found out later he is deaf in one ear and did not intend to be rude. The waiting staff were young, chatty and very attentive.
We started with the mushroom rarebit, which was excellent and seemed to be a favourite judging by the number of other tables consuming it. My partner had smoked chicken with avocado and crispy bacon and the other couple had tempura prawns with a plum and chilly dip. We all agreed this was an excellent start.
For the main course I had the cajun chicken which was very tasty. My colleagues had the steak & kidney pie, turbot and pan-fried venison in red wine and mushroom sauce. We tried each others dishes and I have to say the steak and kidney was the best I have ever tasted. The turbot was also exquisite, although I had never tasted it before.
All the dishes were accompanied with copious amounts of vegetables, all cooked al dente, the way I personally prefer them. There were two versions of potatoes, boiled and cheesy.
By this stage we were very full. Only one of us managed a dessert and he had the Floating Island, a mixture of meringue, creme anglais and a spun sugar basket. It looked wonderful and tasted pretty yummy as well.
We had the house red wine, which was a very pleasant Merlot, although pricey for us South Africans. In the end we ate for £25 per head, which would have been a lot in Johannesburg, but my friends told me this was reasonable in England, particularly for the quality.
I can thoroughly recommend the food and will be returning next year to the Garden House.
Regards
Natasha Crawage
patrick@laslett.info