Foodie Abroad: Nottingham

While we primarily went Nottingham-wards in order to have dinner at Restaurant Sat Bains (an early birthday present from the parents - thank you again M&D!) we decided to make a bit of a trip of it and spend a day and night in the city itself.

Gargoyle at Nottingham Castle

Clearly, one of our main goals was to check out some of Nottingham's eating and drinking establishments.  We're predictable like that.

Since we were there of D's birthday, I deemed it extremely important that we should have cake.  And according to some foodies in the know on Twitter, the place to go for cake in Nottingham is The Pudding Pantry.  Judging by the number of people squeezed in, the general populace agrees.  Unfortunately, said general populace had eaten most of the cake and the available range was smaller than we might have hoped.  Nevertheless, the butterscotch tart (apparently a local dish) and the cheesecake brownie (less of a local dish) were very nice indeed, and the reasonably priced bottle of Prosecco alongside went down a treat.  The tables were a little close together for ultimate comfort but it did mean that I got to eyeball other dishes and the American style pancakes looked very good indeed.  I'd go back for breakfast.

Prosecco

Butterscotch tart

Increasingly when we visit a new city we turn to Tony Naylor of the Guardian who has written a series of British city budget eat guides.  His tips thus far have been pretty good and I commend them to your attention.  On his recommendation we visited The Junkyard which was a great venue for good beer and people watching and had a light supper at Edin's Kitchen - a fabulously eccentric little cafe that did a fine line in toasties and well priced, if a little rough and ready, red wine.  We tried to go to Oscar and Rosie's but were turned away having failed to book.  That's fair enough on a Friday night, but the large venue was completely empty when we turned up and we were looking to be in and out in half an hour (we had a film to catch).   The concept of turning tables (as opposed to turning away patrons) appeared to be slightly lost on them.

Finally, no visit to a new city is complete without a trip to the resident Brewdog. D is such a fan that he now owns shares in the company!  And, indeed, the bars seldom disappoint and the wonderful beers never do.  Brewdog Nottingham don't have a kitchen but, even so, managed to knock out a fine meat, cheese and "stuff" platter - perfect for stomach lining.