Food – norfolkgal

Last week Splendid_chap and I visited the newly opened Ivy Norwich.

There was quite a lot of pre opening hype and then all the cool Norwich bloggers were invited for the pre opening ( I’m not a cool Norwich blogger by the way ) I’m one of the uncool ones feeling jealous of the cool ones gettting a free invite and a free meal.

I booked online and chose an early afternoon reservation as it just suited our plans for the day, hubby had a lunchtime hair appointment so we had a very late lunch and a very early dinner.

We were welcomed at the door and seated upstairs and like all the photos we’ve all seen in Instagram, it has been beautifully decorated. There are references to Norwich within the decor such as the Castle, the Cathedral and yellow canaries to represent the football team. It’s a nice touch that it’s not just a generic decor scheme.

Our waiter Lee was fantastic and really looked after us with a great sense of humour and professionalism.

The menu is pretty big. I, as always, have my priorities straight and concentrated on the cocktail menu first and chose a rhubarb and raspberry crumble cocktail which was huge and delicious!

The food menu has loads of choice, almost too much choice but I opted for smoked salmon and crab to start as I thought it would be quite light and it was. Absolutely delicious, plenty of salmon, some yummy crab and rye bread on the side, just what I fancied and made a reallly lovely starter.

I follwed this up with The Ivy Shepherd’s Pie as I wanted something warming after a cold starter. It was so rich and umptious with a little gravy boat on the side and a healthy portion of French beans and peas. It was sublime. You know when you get a meal and every single mouthful gets you making yummy noises – this was one of those meals.

I couldn’t manage a dessert so had a coffee but couldn’t resist a taste of hubby’s cappuccino cake with milk foam which was unbelievably rich but still light at the same time. He’s lucky I didn’t demolish it for him, it was so good.

I really can’t fault the experience that we had at The Ivy, I know others that have not been impressed and I know others that have been back a few times already. My personal experience was it is a beautiful restaurant and the food, staff and service were without fault. It wasn’t cheap, but I didn’t expect it to be. We did have a 3 course meal with a cocktail so I was almost surprised the bill was not higher.

This is a great place for a special occasion meal but you can just go in for a coffee or breakfast and lunch. If you’re thinking of going, go, I don’t think you’ll regret it.

Norwich just got that little bit better.

Splendid_chap and I had Thursday off together this week, I managed to have a lie in which always makes me very happy and it was a nice, leisurely start to the day. We were heading into Norwich at lunchtime as we were meeting up with his parents for lunch but as we’d had no brekkie, we decided to head out mid morning and visit Goodies Food Hall in Pulham and get ourselves a coffee and possibly a snack to keep us going until lunch.

We’ve been here a few times after having it recommended to us by my folks and this week a friend had told us they served the best coffee he’d had anywhere so we thought, well why not go back. We’ve never been in the cafe before so it seemed ideal to go in and grab a cup of char to start the day off. I hasn’t realised the cafe was so big and that they serve more than just tea and cakes. There’s quite a menu and it all sounded delicious.

My eyes zoomed in the cheese scones pretty quickly and Splendid_chap had a sausage roll and a fruit scone. Along with a latte for me and an Americano for him, we took a seat and tucked in and it was possibly the best cheese scone I’ve ever had!! I’d definitely go back there again for a proper lunch because there is a lovely selection and you can tell it’s all freshly prepared. I have to say some of the cakes were huge, the Bakewell slice looked amazing but could have fed an army.

The shop itself is fantastic, such a vast selection of produce from pickles and jams to meat and fish to chinaware and kitchen accessories.

There is great selection of drinks if your alcohol minded like myself so I must admit the selection of gins caught my attention pretty quickly especially as they all local ones and I’m a firm believer that if you can support local, then you should.

My rather lovely husband treated me to a Black Shuck gift box which was a bottle of the gin along with a huge glass which I’m looking forward to filling later this evening! I haven’t yet tried the Norfolk Gin but I’m in love with the packaging.

The butchery section is to die for, so much choice. A tray of Chinese spare ribs caught my eye but I had to resist, I need to be losing weight not putting more on. There is also some lovely fresh produce in the grocery secrion as you walk in which just makes you realise how well you can eat if you can buy this sort of quality product rather than plastic packaged stuff that the supermarkets are full of.

I’d definitely recommend visiting the cafe or if you need gift ideas for someone then Goodies can put a hamper together for you. It’s a little gem of a place and it serves a damn fine cup of coffee.

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this: