Tuesday 25 September 2007

In which I become a restaurant critic

I don't normally eat out in Hay, but this weekend my sister and her husband - and gorgeous two year old son James - came to visit, and we ate out every night.
The first choice was The Three Tuns. I recently ate there with my young man, and greatly enjoyed the food. We had the tagliatelli, and Mark had some sort of Asian meat loaf as a starter which he said was very nice, too.
Not being used to going out with small children in tow, I wasn't sure what the reaction would be, but they welcomed James with open arms. James was extremely well behaved, too (which must have helped). We had the steak, and it was so tender it fell apart on the fork. Peter had the lamb shank; he took a couple of mouthfuls, and said: "This has been cooking slowly all day."
On the following night, we went up to the Wine Vaults. Again, the staff were very welcoming - in fact, there were a couple of other small children in there when we arrived. Peter had the gammon and egg; I had the cottage pie, and I forget what Julie had, but she polished the plate. The Red Dragon beer was very nice, as well.
And finally, we went to Kilverts. The new owners have kept the menu more or less the same, so they're good on pasta and pizza, with an extensive specials board. Peter had pizza and I had lasagne, which meant we had to sit as far away from Julie as possible, as she is now very allergic to cheese. She had the fish cakes, and her plate was piled high. This was where we found out that James doesn't like olives. At each place we asked for an extra plate, and gave him little bits of what we were having. He's got a healthy appitite, when there isn't too much going on around him to distract his attention.
So, three tasty, successful meals - and I didn't have to cook once!

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