Outings - Trip to Bath, dinner at Sotto Sotto

We went on a trip to Bath last week to see my bestie Heather and her other half Pete, we stayed the night and went for dinner at the most amazing italian restaurant called Sotto Sotto. It is the Bath number 1 on Trip Adviser at the moment, you need to book well in advance, but amazingly it is really reasonably priced! We shared 2 big garlic pizza breads to start, then we had a main course each, me and Heather shared a £20 bottle of wine, Pete had a pint and Jon had a soft drink and the bill only came to £65? Isn't that great for 4 people to have 2 courses and drinks! The quality of the food was really high, you could tell everything was made fresh and they used quality ingredients, they could have charged double and it still would have been worth it!

This was the simple garlic pizza bread

And we had a cheese and pesto pizza bread, which was so tasty

Me and Jon

Heather with her Pasta

Pete and his Pizza - oh and did I mention the restaurant is in the arches underground by the river! Bloody amazing venue, so cool.

Jon's super tasty Pizza

Heathers Cabonara was really tasty 

I had butternut squash and goats cheese cannelloni which was really rich and flavourful 

And this was our wine, which had a great crisp fresh taste to it.

My lovely friend and her BF

Before we met up with Heather and Pete we called into a really cute little Cafe called The Roscoff Deli and I had my first ever Cannoli! And I can tell you now, it was so delicious!! It was a pistachio and mint creme filled one, oh so good! Seriously!

  And this little lady made herself comfy on our bed when we were out! This is Tilly!

Review - Red Hot World Buffet Cardiff

A few weeks ago I was chosen as a Taste Maker for Cardiff's Red Hot World Buffet. What this means is that I will be attending events and courses at the restaurant for them, and reviewing my visits there. So this is my first post as a Red Hot Taste Maker. I have visited the venue about 5 times in the past and once for an event. So I know the general quality of food and what is usually on offer.

I went with the hubby on a week day lunch time after we had a meeting in Cardiff for a photo job. It is really great when you want a relatively quick lunch and are with a group of people or a fussy eater. I will eat most things, but Jon can sometimes be a bit fussy, so at least we know at Red Hot that we will both be able to find something we like, and something we fancy eating. With a huge selection of cuisine from Chinese, Italian and indian to British, American and Japanese you can pick and chose what you want, and can have a little bit of everything if you fancy it!

The service was very good. We had booked before hand (which I would always advise at any buffet type place) so were seated very quickly, on this lunch time it was fairly steady as the downstairs was almost full so we were seated upstairs. The staff are very attentive for clearing finished plates and refreshing drinks.

Here is what we had:

Jon isn't into the starters type things so goes straight for some Chinese and curry! At lunch time there is usually 2-3 different curry's along with 3-5 Chinese dishes, as well as all the side dishes. They are usually all pretty fresh and kept nice and warm in their lidded heated containers. 

 I like to mix it up a little! I adore Sushi so always make sure I get some, during lunch hour they usually have a few different California roll type ones! Then some really quite tasty goats cheese, spinach and tomato pizza, granted the pizza isn't always hot as it depends how long it had been out of the oven, but the pizza's are always tasty! Then I had a few salady bits! 

 This was the first time I tried the stir-fry station as in the past it has been busy in the evenings and I have been impatient, but during the day it is much quieter so I jumped in to try it out. You get your choice of noodles, meat, veggies and sauce, then you hand it over to the station chef and he whips it up into a tasty fresh stirfry, it was yummy!! I had egg noodles, chicken strips, loads of mushrooms, bean sprouts, peppers and bamboo shoots with sweet and sour sauce! And it only took a few minutes! 

I also had some breaded scallops, crab claw, spring roll and prawn crackers. Mini Chinese feast!

 Jon loves his desert so this is Carrot Cake, Passion Fruit Cheesecake and a strawberry mousse/sponge thing. The dessert counter is great fun, with lots of small portions of different desserts.

 I went with a mini chocolate mud pie (sadly the centre wasn't runny like it should have been), a walnut brownie and some toffee icecream with butterscotch sauce, their icecreams are really creamy and so yummy! Now if I am being picky this would be my one down point, I went to the ice-cream counter at 1:45pm, so not even half way through their lunch hour as their last sitting can be booked at 3:30, and asked for the mint choc chip ice cream (my fav) which was in the counter, only to be told they didn't have any!?!? When I said it was right there and pointed at it he told me there wasn't any left for the lunch time sitting! If it is right there in the freezer and is only 1:45 hours into a 4:30 hour lunch time sitting I should have been able to have it, either don't put it in the freezer, or put on more for your lunch sitting. But that was my only real down point.

The selection of food during the lunch sitting is about half of what you would get in the evening, but as lunch is £8.49 during the week compared to £13.99 during the evening, it is to be expected and pretty typical of buffet style restaurants. The food itself is always tasty, it may not be top quality, but is really good for the price point and for this style of restaurant.

So there you have my first review as a Red Hot Taste Maker. Has anyone else been to a Red Hot Buffet somewhere else in the country? What do you think of it? Actually what do people think of buffet restaurants in general?

Event - Red Hot World Buffet Chef's Table

I was really lucky to have been invited to the Red Hot Buffet Chef's Table PR Event in the Cardiff a few weeks ago, where me and Jon got treated to a rather awesome 7 course banquet dinner. The event was to get some feedback on the restaurant and get the word out about the upcoming changes with brand. They will still be a buffet restaurant but they will be expanding and pushing their tailor made sections. You will be able to customise more of your food, and have such made exactly to your specification. This change will be made over the next year, so keep your eyes out for it at your local Red Hot Buffet.

So here is all the yummy food we had. With me being unable to eat spice and Jon disliking fish, we managed to eat everything between the 2 of us, lol, which is quite a common thing for us!

 Their new signature Red Hot Buffet Cocktail. I can't remember all the ingredients but it included fresh plum, archers, cointreau, grenadine and a few other things. It was really yummy, not to alcoholic tasting, but quite sweet.  

 SUCHI!!!!! You know I love it, so sushi was awesome! Nothing special but pretty good.

 This was Indian Street Food - I have no idea what was in it, but it was a fried patty type thing, topped with crispy shredded veg, raita and mango chutney. It had a little too much spice for me so I only had a few mouthfuls, but Jon loved it lots so finished both off. As did all the other dinner guests

 The fish course was a Risotto - This was mine which had prawns in it, and Jon had the veggie one but it was full of mushrooms, so I ate his too! They were both really good, lots of flavour and really well cooked.

 The meat course was Teppanyaki Beef Stir Fry in Chinese sauce. This smelt amazing!! Of soy and something sweet. Sadly again this was way too spicy for me as it had been made with chilli oil but again Jon found it really yummy so wolfed down both portions of it. Everyone on the table said it was really yummy and quite unusual as it had mandarines in it, but crispy noodles on top. Wish I could have eaten it as the smell was so good! 

We had a nice little Lemon-cello pallet cleanser after all the aromatic and spiced food.  

We had 2 lots of dessert: A yummy mini pancake stack which was lovely, 2 fluffy mini pancakes topped with a vanilla whipped cream, fruit sauce and fruit and white chocolate flakes! Devine!

Then this little dessert trio which included a chocolate brownie, creme brûlée and passionfruit cheesecake. They were all really great, and as they were tiny portions you didn't feel too stuffed to eat them.  

Overall the experience was great. We had visited there a few times before but never had food as quite as good as this, we tend to use it as a convenience restaurant if we are going to the cinema and don't have much time, we wouldn't have gone there for a really good meal. But if this is the calibre of food they will be serving when they make the change over to more bespoke dishes then I think we may be using it more often.

Has anyone else been to a Red Hot Buffet restaurant? What did you think of it?

Review - Bill's Restaurant, Cardiff

My parents, Jon and I went to try out one of the new-ish restaurants in Cardiff a few weeks ago. Bill's! It's kind of an unusual restaurant, without any specific cuisine type, but the food is all really yummy. It is quite a quirky place, with mismatched tables and chairs dotted all around and fun stuff hanging and displayed all over the place. And there was a really great friendly atmosphere in there, it seemed to be full of lots of parties of friends all having a really great time.

So I thought you all might like to see what we had to eat

Bill's Fizz a yummy sparkling wine cocktail, with raspberries

Mum's Tiger Prawn and Avocado Cocktail, she said it was very good, but could have done with a few more prawns

My duck liver terrine with seriously yummy chutney - it was so good, I would go back just to have that again

 Mum had a posh fish finger sandwich, which was made with fresh battered cod fingers or home baked bread and crispy chips. She really enjoyed it

 I chose the halloumi cheese and houmous burger with their crispy fries. It was really yummy! It is meant to be made with sweet chilli but I had it without as it is too spicy for me and it was really tasty. 

 Dad and Jon both had these zesty chicken skewers which they both said was very good.

Apart from our wonky table which we had to jack up with drinks mats the place is lovely and the service was really good too. It isn't cheap sadly, but it isn't really expensive either, I think it all came to about £20 a head for the 4 of us, that was for 2 starters 4 mains, coffee and a round of drinks - so not too bad really. If you want to find out more about Bill's or see if there is one in your area check out their website.

Have you tried a Bill's? What do you think about it?

Been to any other nice new restaurants recently?