A Quick Review

I hadn't intended to review any of the restaurants we visited during DFW Restaurant week. If that had been my intent, I'd have taken pictures of my food - because that is the centerpiece of the experience.

But I was thinking about the restaurants we visited and about which ones we would go back to and which ones offered a good value and just decided to share that info. I think there's another week left (Restaurant Week is more like Restaurant Month but some restaurants only participate in the first week.) If you're going, you need to look online to see the participation dates for the restaurant you want to go to. And once you get there, you will need to ask to see the restaurant week menu - it is not automatically offered. For those not familiar with Restaurant Week, it's a time when the restaurant offers a three course menu for a fixed price of either $39 or $49 (depending on their regular prices) with $10 of every meal purchased going to local charities. Most restaurants offer a selection for each course - typically a choice of salad or soup for the starter, and a beef, fish, pork or vegetarian for the main entree. Desserts vary from selecting something off the regular dessert menu to a taste of several desserts. I like to go because it gives you an opportunity to try a new place at a reduced price.

So, in the order we visited - here goes:

Silver Fox Steakhouse - This one gets my vote for the best restaurant week value. We go here several times throughout the year. They have happy hour pricing on drinks, but only if you're sitting in the bar area. They also bring out the most delicious pickles you'll ever eat - it's like a sweet pickle with horseradish. (You can also buy a jar of them.) They also have waiters taking platters of fresh tomatoes and spring onions around to diners. You can have as many as you like, and they'll keep bringing those pickles to your table, as well.  It was a good value because you couldn't buy the items on the menu for the fixed price. For starters, Mark had a salad and I had the soup. We both had the filet as the main course. I think the steak may have been a bit smaller than their regular menu offering, but that's okay because I couldn't really eat anymore than what I had. The steaks were served with mashed potato and snap peas in addition to the tomatoes, onions and pickles. I think the desserts may have been a bit smaller as well, and even though I had mine "to go" I wouldn't have wanted it any bigger than it was.

Dee Lincoln Prime - We'd never been to this establishment before. It was exceptionally good and we'll definitely go back. It's at the Frisco Star Center so the worst thing about it was parking. There are times when parking is great and other times when the Cowboys are having some kind of event. At those times, they try to siphon you off and direct you to places you don't want to go. But back to the restaurant - there are no happy hour specials no matter where you sit. Again, I had the soup starter and Mark had a salad. And again we both had the filet as the main course. The filet came with mashed potatoes and a couple of substantial asparagus spears. Again, we had the desserts to go. I don't think they "downsized" any of the menu items and again it was a good value because you couldn't buy the menu items a la carte for less than the fixed price. And the decor and design features in this restaurant are stunning. Plus the wine is served at the perfect temperature. (Getting that detail wrong is what put me off Capital Grill.)

Bonnie Ruth's - We go here regularly. I assumed that for restaurant week they would feature their more expensive menu items. But I was wrong. They featured four of their least expensive menu options. I wanted to have chicken, because I was feeling a bit "over beefed". The regular price on the chicken paillard is around $20. Add in $7 for the soup or salad and that leaves $12 for dessert. I'm not sure how much their desserts (which are exceptional) cost - but I wouldn't think they'd be much more than the starters. I wasn't feeling like I was getting a bargain. Yes. I understand that it's for a good cause. I know there are people who go to charity auctions and pay double the value of something because it's for charity. Good for them. I like to feel like a got some bang for the buck. Even if I'd selected the most expensive menu item on the restaurant week menu I wouldn't have felt like it was a good deal. We opted to order from the regular menu, skip the dessert and donate to the charity of our choice.

Perry's - We'd been here before for an anniversary celebration. On that occasion, I think we spent well over $200 and it was the same again even though I ordered from the Restaurant Week menu. I'm not sure whether they had any happy hour specials or not. Once again, I had the filet and Mark decided to order seafood from the regular menu. The salad was very good and the filet was regular size - I couldn't finish it. This one didn't come with any potatoes or vegetables at all. Those had to be ordered separately and were sized for two people at a price of roughly $12 per dish. We had Brussels sprouts and Lyonnaise potatoes - a good portion of which was boxed up with the beef and fish and served for lunch the following day.  While the food is very good, and the service is excellent - that could be said of every place we visited so I'm not sure that I'll be going back to Perry's, even for a celebration.

Everyone Loves a Parade

We had no idea what the purpose of the parade was but we had a front row seat - our balcony.

We could see everything exceptionally well, except perhaps for the queens and princesses. They were all in "enclosures". At home we stick them on the back of a convertible. But my best guess is that English parades have a better chance of being rained on, so it makes good sense to put your queens and princesses under cover. I ended up not photographing that many of them because the quality of the shots was relatively poor. Every neighboring village was represented by a queen and each queen had a court that included somewhere between one and six princesses.

It was all good - sometimes it's more fun to watch the little kids watching the parade than watching the parade itself. We thought it was over because there was a 10 minute or more gap. And then the parade resumed. But it was pretty easy to see what had happened. One of the vehicles pulling a float with teenagers and loud music had obviously had some mechanical issues. And no one could or would go around them so it held up the entire parade. But they were able to pull into the bus stop in front of our flat so that the others could get past them and they could get mechanical help.

That may have been a major embarrassment for the guy who owned the car. Or maybe he didn't really want the job of pulling the float and decided to stage a series of breakdowns so they won't ask him next year. I rather wished they'd chosen another place to pull over, because I didn't care for the music plus it was loud and really close. And since "air conditioning" was dependent on those balcony doors being open, we just had to listen because closing the doors wasn't a good option.

But it was a beautiful day for a parade!

By the Sea

We spent some time in four different seaside towns this trip.

The first was Clacton-on-Sea in Essex. There are numerous jokes about it (a bit like Cleveland, I suppose) but it's undergone some serious overhauling over the years I've been going there. Within the past few years the beaches have been reclaimed - not many years ago, in most places the water came right up to the seawall with no beach at all. Many of the seawalls have been fortified (some are still in the works) the "pleasure pier" has been upgraded and there are several good places to eat near the sea front. And the gardens are beautifully kept.

After leaving Clacton, we headed down to Margate. We'd found an AirBnB there. It was a flat on the third floor of a Victorian house that overlooked the harbor. It had a full kitchen, complete with a washing machine and a dishwasher. We could open the balcony doors while we sat at the table to eat. It also had a living room, bedroom and bathroom. The only drawback was the three flights of stairs. The lack of air conditioning wasn't a problem because we could open the balcony doors and the bedroom windows and the breezes would come right through.

Walking to restaurants and pubs was easy, although we made pretty good use of the kitchen to make salads and lighter meals. Here's the view from the balcony.

We also made a trip over to Ramsgate. This is the town where Mark's mother grew up. We spent a day there.

We spent two days in Broadstairs. One of Mark's aunts lived there when he was growing up. It's where he spent many summers. We didn't go in and out of the caves he explored as a boy, but we did wander around the town, and sit on the seafront just to watch the people and dogs. It still has one of it's medieval gates in tact and it has an excellent restaurant (primarily seafood) that has absolutely amazing food. (We'd been there a few times before so we had lunch there both days.) I've included a photo of their avocado shrimp tower in addition to pictures of the town and beach.

As You Can See

I know we often complain about the level of service in many English establishments - more so than in the US or other countries. The complaints are legitimate. And the prize winner for worst service in the world may go to the motorway plazas. The worst of the worst? - Costa Coffee shops. Last year we had an incident where Mark didn't get his coffee because he'd ordered it to go and the young lady would have had to take an additional three steps to get a "to go" cup, so she decided she'd serve all the people who ordered their coffee to drink on site first. To avoid that problem, this year he decided to order his coffee to drink there.

In the meantime, I was across the hall getting a snack. I waited in line behind an Asian family who had to order and pay individually instead of all together. It wasn't a small family, so that took some time. I was surprised that Mark still had no coffee when I got back. I don't know whether they were serving the "to go" orders or what. But people who'd come in after him were getting coffee and he was still hanging out at the counter. They could learn a few things from Starbucks. But it seems Mark can't win there, so we've decided not to go back. Ever.

And now for the "surly waitstaff" prize... While in the Clacton area we often stay at the Kingscliff Hotel. I'd prefer the Premier Inn because it's closer to everything, and has elevators and air conditioning - things that are missing in the Kingscliff. However, the Premier Inn admittedly has a dodgy internet connection and I needed to do payroll one of the days we were staying which made the Kingscliff far more attractive because their internet works reliably. We figured that as long as we had a sea view room, we should be able to open the windows and stay somewhat cool. There used to be a nice Italian Restaurant about a block away but it had been closed down and the building had been turned into apartments. Very disappointing.  Anyway, I digress.

On the day I needed to do the payroll, I had problems with the system. And given that the help desk runs on Pacific Standard Time, I wouldn't be able to get help until about two in the afternoon. So we decided to go visit Mark's step mom and then come back to finish up the payroll when the help desk opened. We made sure we got back about an hour ahead so we could have some lunch before I needed to make the call.

I placed an order for two sandwiches at the bar - one ham and one salmon. I took the drinks and went outside since it was a warm and pleasant day. At the time I placed the order, there was one guy sitting at the bar and no one was at any of the tables inside. (This will be important later.) I went outside and selected a clean table. There were two occupied tables out of about 10 total tables outside. We were enjoying the sunshine and everything was fine. A couple of guys came out and sat down at a table near us about 20 minutes later, while the couple at the table closest to us left, making a total of three occupied tables.

We were wondering what was taking so long to make a couple of sandwiches. We'd been waiting for nearly an hour. It was a bright sunny day and we decided to just wait. But when the two guys who came in after us got their sandwiches ahead of us, it was clearly time to take action.

I went inside and asked the young lady where our order was. She looked at me and asked me who I placed the order with.

"You. I placed it with you!"

Well that got her flustered. She told me I'd have to wait my turn, because "As you can see, we are quite busy."

Quite frankly, I couldn't see that. And I did look. I saw that the same guy was at the bar. There were now two occupied tables inside, one group of two and one group of three. (Probably close to 10 unoccupied tables inside) and I knew that outside in addition to us, there was a table with two men and a table with three women. As for waiting my turn, it was pretty clear to me that I'd lost my turn - and I didn't even spin the wheel!

I opted not to challenge her on her definition of busy but simply stated that I didn't understand why it should take an hour to prepare a couple of sandwiches that required minimal assembly. She started to lose her mind shouting at me.

I thought I might have better luck with management. The desk clerk summoned the manager who apologized for the problem and assured me that the sandwiches would be prepared and that we would not be charged for them.

I explained that I'd only allowed an hour and a half for lunch and that I now needed to return to my room to get some work done. He agreed to deliver the sandwiches to the room.

They actually turned up in less than 10 minutes, so clearly it is possible to assemble and deliver a sandwich in less than an hour.

But certainly they were not worth the aggravation. The English may have invented the sandwich, but it hasn't evolved there. My sandwich consisted of two slices of buttered bread with one thin slice of ham. No lettuce, no tomato, no pickle, nothing. Nada. Not even potato chips. And I really don't like butter on my bread with a ham sandwich. It's okay for turkey and chicken but not ham or beef. No science behind that, just personal preference. I make sandwiches at home all the time, and from the days when I measured all my food intake, I can tell you that there was LESS than one ounce of meat on that sandwich. It's a good thing they gave them to us at no charge because after taking a bite of the sandwich and not being able to taste the ham, I ate the meat and left the bread on the plate. Can't imagine what they were charging nearly $10 US dollars for. The Kingscliff is a decent enough hotel but it's not the Savoy. And if I stay there again, I will NOT order a sandwich. Ever. (By the way, the picture above is what came up when I googled images for "English Ham Sandwich" - my sandwich didn't have that much meat.)

The next day wasn't much better. We knew we didn't want sandwiches. After last year's fiasco at the Golden Fillet, we didn't really want to go there, either. Last year we were lectured on what time we needed to arrive in order to be seated when all we wanted was to place a "to go" order.  We can no longer get Mark's step mom to come out for lunch with us, so we went around the corner to the Oakwood Inn. This was the place we tried to go the last time we could talk her into going and we called to make sure they were still open for lunch because so many of the restaurants close up between lunch and dinner. They told us they were open until 3. We got there just before 2:30 and were told that they had stopped taking orders. When I pointed out that I'd phoned and was told they were open until 3:00, she clarified that while they were open until 3, they stopped taking orders before that so they could close at 3:00. That would have been useful to know before we got there. But I see how important it is to ask the right question. Anyway, we had a reasonably good lunch at the Oakwood. While they deliver the food to your table, you do have to order at the bar and then pay at the bar. Mark was in line to pay and I was standing off to the side. A man who was old enough to know better asked me if I was in the queue. I said I was not, but pointed to Mark and said, "but my husband is." And armed with that information, he charged in front of Mark and and the person behind the bar just took care of him next. Well, that didn't go down well with Mark, who threatened to leave without paying if they were going to make him wait behind everyone else in the place to pay. And they actually were quite busy. But it's probably just one more place we won't go back to. Ever.

I almost forgot to mention the lunch we had at Toby Carvery near the Martello Tower. Essentially it is a buffet. There is a proper menu but the buffet is a pretty good value. You can order at the bar or you can have a hostess seat you. But if you order the buffet from the bar and pay at the bar, you must sit in the bar area. The hostess cannot find you a table. (I suspect it is prohibited by law.) Although you may sit outside no matter whether you ordered the buffet from the bar or a waitress/waiter. But the young man at the bar was only capable of dealing with one order at a time. He demanded that everyone queue up and then proceeded to take his time dealing with one person at a time. It apparently taxed him to the point where he couldn't deal with anyone because after serving one person, he disappeared to the back. The next person serving the bar failed to demand or even recognize that anyone was in a queue. But "excuse me, I believe I'm next" seemed to work.

It seems that Clacton is the center of bad service (with the notable exception of the motorway service plazas.) So thank goodness there are places like Franco's and Prezzo that get it right without drama.

A Few Days in Cumbria

I'd been to Cumbria before but it had been a long time. The Lake District is in Cumbria but can be quite crowded during a hot summer, so we didn't spend a great deal of time there.

We went off the beaten path and our hosts, Jack and Ann, made sure we saw a variety of scenery and village life. We also visited the Docks Museum and took an excursion on a narrow gauge railway.

View of the coast

Railway

Railway

One of our lunch time views

A view from the train

Railway

Outside the Docks Museum

Inside the Docks Museum

The coast

The coast

Local landmark

A walk in the countryside

Morris Dancing outside a pub in a small village