NABM travels to: Folkestone, Kent

If you consider a one hour drive travelling, that is. While trying to figure out which district Folkestone was in, I Wiki-ed it and found these interesting facts.

1. Currently Folkestone has the only sandy beach and coastal park within an hour of north London.
2. Its original site was in a valley in the sea cliffs and it developed through fishing and its closeness to the Continent as a landing place and trading port.



And as a bonus; personal observations:

1. They sure do good prawns.
2. Seagulls don't care about your hair, and they are playground bullies intent on dive-bombing you. If you are brave enough, you could stand up to them, but that could also result in your having seagull in hair.

Setting the scene - it was about 2 months ago, and the day was bright and almost warm. We HAD to make use of the good weather so decided to make a day trip to our favourite place by the coast that is Folkestone. It's roughly around an hour's drive from where we are, and on a warm day like that one, what could be better than having a relaxing drive with the wind in my hair, sunnies up and face sticking slightly out the window?



I sometimes find it hard to believe that Folkestone is in England. On a sunny day, the photos make it look like somewhere in the middle of sunny Italy.

Seems warm, doesn't it? Don't be fooled, it wasn't. But it looked warm, and that's all that matters on this blog.



If I had to find one reason to come to Folkestone, this is it. Chummy's fish stand which is located right by the entrance to the pier, and surrounded by queues of hungry people all the times we've been there.

For £3, you get the smaller round containers shown above, and if you wanna roughly double it (in terms of quantity), you pay £6 for a rectangular takeaway box. We bought both versions that day, and concluded that you do get a little more than double with the £6 portion (and that is more prawns than anyone can have in one sitting. Really.)

Shown above are: Mixed seafood, king prawns and scampi tails.

My personal favourite is the king prawn, and that was what we bought more of after.

I'm guessing it's gonna be fresh fish? I know, I know. Some people will argue that the fish you buy in the UK has probably been caught somewhere in the Atlantic or wherever, and then frozen, and shipped to the UK so it's never really that fresh but come on, it tastes fresh so that's all that matters.

We walked around the high street for a bit, and considering it was quite a sunny day out, the high street was very empty. Maybe I've just gotten used to how busy it always is in London, regardless the day or the weather.

Despite having scoffed down a good few bowls of seafood earlier on, we stopped at this cafe for some lunch.

It was one of the nicer looking cafes along the little alley leading to the high street.

Because I have so much coffee daily during the week, I try not to have too much of it during the weekends. Theoretically speaking, I don't really need caffeine when I should be relaxed and just wandering around in Folkestone, but by the time it was noon and by the time I'd had my fair share of the seaside breeze, I felt myself getting warmer and warmer to the idea of a nice, smooth latte.

Not my lunch - this was a Ploughman's platter.



Fresh, full of different sorts of nibbles and perfect for a warm day out.

I had this instead, which was what I bought earlier when we first arrived, and nibbled straight away so wasn't too hungry for any sandwiches.

The husband had a ham and cheese sandwich. Just couldn't resist.

The mixed seafood was pleasant, but nothing special - tasted similar to the stuff you get from the fish aisle at your supermarket. Scampi tails were fresh and sea-salty. Usually I have my scampi deep fried and served with chips, but this version was good too.



The prawns were so very crunchy, slightly salty, and when dipped in the tangy Marie Rose sauce, oh my it was like a prawn cocktail gone very right.

Singapore – Modesto’s, #01-166/167, 1 HarbourFront Centre Walk S(098585), VivoCity

When my parents and I were in Singapore a few months ago, one of our close friends took us out for lunch at VivoCity. It was a bright, sunny day (just a few celcius cooler than Malaysia, but that was the difference between sweat patches and sophisticated dryness) and along the way to the restaurant, we went by a large ship that had just docked by the marina.

The crew (who surprisingly dressed like how guys on stag nights pretending to be sailors would look like) were bent down over the side of the ship, giving the name plate a good scrub. Not entirely sure up to now where they were from, but during the course of our meal, we noticed them coming out of the shopping mall with boxes after boxes of new, flat screen tvs. Either these guys were in the import/export business, or they watched alot of tv on the boat.

Right, back to the restaurant. Once we got inside, it was really airy and bright. Surprisingly, despite it being lunch hour, there weren't that many people in there - a couple who looked like they were on holiday, a table of students sharing and caring, and a bigger table with corporate suited types who looked like they were celebrating a deal of some sort.

It was really refreshing coming into the air-conditioned restaurant from the heat outside, but something about heat makes me really hungry. The menu actually shows real-sized pizzas, good for those who have eyes bigger than stomaches (like me) so that you can kinda measure it against your body to see what the possibility was of you finishing the pizza by yourself.

Look, no one in there yet.

After we made our order, the waiter came around with some bread. None of that hard, crusty type bread that makes your gums bleed, no sir. This was lovely, soft, herbed bread to be dipped in the balsamic vinegar and olive oil mix. Could have had lots of that if not for the pizza (measured, nonetheless) that was to be coming.

The antipasti which had the usual mozzarella and tomato (soft and springy, very nice), bruschetta, grilled aubergine and melon and prosciutto mixture.

Excellent grilled aubergine also, not too greasy but still very well flavoured with the olive oil used.

The melon was so deliciously sweet it was almost as though it had been drizzled with syrup. Lovely stuff. Coupled with the salty, chewy ham, this was as good as the ones I had in Italy, and so fresh.

Then we shared the funghi pizza, which had a lovely, thin crust base which broke apart delicately like the thinnest wafer being cracked in half. Mushrooms tasted good (as good as mushrooms of the non-truffle variety can taste), and again they weren't greasy as I'd expected roasted mushrooms to have been.

And then, we had some rocket.

It was actually meant to be rocket and parma ham pizza, but they must have had a rocket sale or something in the market, as the amount of rocket on that pizza was phenomenal. It could have populated about 5 more pizzas, if it hadn't all been chucked on our one pizza.

Having fought aside the insane amount of green on top of the pizza, we finally found the good stuff - gimme ham! OK, so they might have been a little heavy-handed on the rocket, but boy were they generous with the ham also. Lots and lots of ham beneath lots and lots of rocket. It seems the only thing which was presented in moderation was the pizza base. Absolutely excellent quality again, really surprising for a chain restaurant located in shopping mall.

After all that tussling with the green stuff, I was in awe of the next plate that was taken to the table. The seafood linguine - remember how I said they were quite generous with the rocket, and the ham? OK, the same chef made this linguine dish.

Crab claws, mussels, prawns, fish ... you name it, we had it. In large quantities also. I'm not sure what the prices were as it was our friend's lunchtime treat, but assuming reasonable prices, the portions here sure are worth the price. Excellent lunch with lovely company.

The Ocean Deck Inn, 50 High Street Sandown, Isle of Wight, PO36 8AE

We were in the Isle of Wight in December, and it was very very chilly. The ocean wind was blowing with a wintry mood, and as we hurried into The Ocean Deck Inn for lunch, I was so glad that the heating was working very well in the restaurant.

With a selection of restaurants all along the beach, it’s a tough one trying to choose one restaurant, purely based on nothing. However, someone had recommended this one to us, and the list of dishes served outside the restaurant gave us a little reassuring nod as we went into the restaurant.

Going into the restaurant.

There’s a nice, airy conservatory section at the front of the restaurant, excellent for letting the light in on a not so sunny day. Not many people sat there, so it must have been slightly cold perhaps.

We sat round the back of the restaurant, right outside the kitchen. It looked warm and cosy, and it was next to the bar, plus it was right next to the kitchen, so the food would get there quicker, or so the theory goes.

Big menus sometime make me slightly sceptical. For those of you who’re quite on the ball, you would have noticed that that’s why this blog has something about not another big menu something or another in the name. My justification behind this skepticism is the fact that with lots of dish choices, come lots of waste. This equals lots of money to the restaurant. Unless the restaurant is into serving frozen food disguised as fresh, or the owners are into wasting lots of money, I don’t see how a restaurant can afford to keep lots of fresh items on offer, if they don’t have the continuous inflow of customers.

Why am I going on about this? Because the menu here was quite big. It was divided into three parts, and each part was printed on both sides. Lots and lots of fish choices too.

Guess my theory was proven right when we went to make our order.

‘One BBQ chicken, please.’

‘We’re out of BBQ chicken. We have the roast one though.’

‘Two grilled trouts stuffed with prawns, please.’

‘We’re out of prawns, but we can do king prawns.’ (woo hoo!)

Veggie sausage and mustard mash £8.25

To give it credit where it’s due, this tasted nice enough. However, you could also say that a restaurant has to at least be expected to be able to serve up a decent meal of veggie sausages and mash, so maybe there’s not that much credit to be given here.

Grilled trout stuffed with prawns £12.50

That’s what the menu described it as, anyway. The prawns were kinda sitting side by side with the trout, or, not stuffed in the trout. Maybe it was because they were king prawns and so wouldn’t have fitted inside the trout. Not entirely sure how they were going to stuff the smaller-sized prawns, had they had any in stock, into the trout either.

That little comment aside, the fish was actually really fresh. The prawns were crunchy and sweet, and the fish was grilled almost to perfection. Couldn’t say too much about the potatoes other than the fact that they were cooked.

We waited about an hour for our meals. With 3 other tables in the restaurant, and lots of waiting staff just kinda waiting around at the bar, we had expected the food to be served up quite quick. I mean, how long does trout have to be cooked for anyway? When we asked the waitress where our food was, they said something about the trout taking longer to be cooked, so unless they were busy thawing that out, or catching it fresh from the sea, that doesn’t seem like a very good reason for the long wait at all.

Would I recommend this place? It’s a tough one, this. The food tasted fresh, but it was quite plain, nothing fancy here so if you like that, then you might want to try it out. The waiting time might put you off though. Take some nibbles with you, that might help keep you and your other diners amused during the wait.

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