What is it about chain restaurants? We diners profess disdain for them, saying that we prefer small local businesses for our meals out. But clearly we don’t – or at least a lot of us don’t. It doesn’t look as though McDonald’s in Newport is closing down any time... Read more
ARCHIVE REVIEW: Original Phil’s is now closed. We’ve got the idea that at some point, way back, we actually met the original Original Phil. Or maybe we dreamt it. Anyway, he’s long gone, but the diner that bears his name has been doing the Island’s best impression of an... Read more
The Island’s tourism organisation Visit Isle of Wight never misses a trick. Going large in its inaugural year it capitalised on the enduring popularity of ‘terrible lizards’ with a Walking with Dinosaurs tie-in, based around interactive augmented reality meteorites. This was followed up with a Transformers: Age of Extinction... Read more
We were pretty much on the doorstep the day the Garlic Farm Cafe opened in 2009 and had a lovely lunch. Our one gripe way back then was “The menu unexpectedly made no mention of local produce – other than the farm’s own chutney – and hardly any of... Read more
Never let it be said that we’re cheap. Well, maybe just a bit. Truth is, we probably wouldn’t have set off for Cowes on a chilly Monday evening if it hadn’t been for the fifty per cent off food offer at the Union Inn. We’ve eaten at the pub... Read more
White Horse, Whitwell
Uncategorised 21st May 2016 2
In these modern times, you can buy a pint of beer from ten o’clock in the morning. To help it down you could order a budget meal from a satisfyingly familiar menu. All this just a step away from your house into the embrace of a town centre chain... Read more
The Cow Co, Tapnell Farm
Uncategorised 17th March 2016 0
It must be an interesting process, starting a new restaurant. Do you, perhaps, take over an existing established business but possibly end up having to live up (or live down) to the previous restaurateur’s reputation? Maybe it would be safer to start from scratch in a high street location... Read more
That Spanish plume, eh, coming over here enhancing our English summer. With its thermometer-popping temperatures and Mediterranean humidity, providing the perfect weather for eating outside. For most of you that probably meant bending over a hot barbecue, trying not to splash your novelty apron with the ejaculant of a... Read more
This is an archive review; Kynge’s Well is now closed. Brading was once an essential destination on the clockwise coach tour. For a while, although the town is not quite suffering from the malaise that has hit neighbouring Sandown, its attractions have been somewhat diminished. The twenty mile an... Read more
So it looks as though the cronut has passed the Isle of Wight by. The biggest culinary fad of 2013 disappeared before we even had time to pretend to be interested. How about the slider burger? Briefly in fashion some time around last Christmas, it’s probably no disaster that... Read more
