Matt and Cat\'s Isle of Wight Eating Out Guide
ARCHIVE REVIEW: The Grill, Charter House, Newport takeaway
ARCHIVE REVIEW: The Grill has closed. By the time you read this, we may once again be allowed to eat in a restaurant; with certain safety provisos, naturally. Certainly for us it will be a welcome return to dining at someone else’s table, not that we haven’t enjoyed our... Read more
Pudding and Pie delivery
The Ryde-based comfort-food of Pudding and Pie is something new and different. Until recently a delivery service of this kind would not have existed, unless you subscribed to meals-on-wheels. Who would order in a meal of piping hot pie, complete with veg, mash and yes, a delicious tailor-made gravy?... Read more
Dumpling Dumpling delivery
Dumpling Dumpling is one of those food wagons that we always make for. Over the last few years we’ve been running into them at various Island events, and even on the mainland. Every time, there’s no arguing with the delicious dumpling morsels. This really is cute, tasty and justly... Read more
Courtside at Home

Courtside at Home

Reviews 0

Years ago we proclaimed that Ryde was the international cuisine capital of the Isle of Wight, with at that time Tex Mex, Italian, Caribbean, Thai, Indian, pub grub, American-style steak plus full English on the menu somewhere in the town’s leisure strip. Amazingly, the pandemic has not damped the... Read more
White Lion, Arreton takeaway
Confession time: Cat has never cooked a roast dinner. Nigh-on twenty years as a vegetarian – followed by an astonishing volte-face in 2003 leading her to eat (things with) faces – plus many years as a food critic experiencing other peoples’ cooking, means that she’s never bothered to learn... Read more
Masala Bay Takeaway

Masala Bay Takeaway

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Have you noticed how every Indian takeaway menu in Britain is almost always the same as every other Indian takeaway menu? And probably not even Indian. For reasons too culturally nuanced for us to bother exploring, even Indian restaurant menu writers usually include an unornamented section called something like... Read more
Smoking Lobster, Ventnor – Takeaway
Lordy! The landscape of the takeaway has changed enormously since the arrival of COVID-19. We were quite happy with our intermittent curry, the occasional Friday fish and chips and perhaps a cheeky chain burger. But, as the virus rumbles interminably on, so do our stomachs – for something more... Read more
Eat Street

Eat Street

Reviews 0

Our bold mission to chart the Isle of Wight’s eating out offerings had something of a setback when eating out became illegal. Undeterred, we have returned to working our way through the Island’s takeaway and delivery options. This week we found an offbeat variation on the theme that we... Read more
Cinnamon, Shanklin

Cinnamon, Shanklin

Reviews 1

We’d been recommended a curry house in Shanklin as worth a try, so for our next round of COVID-19-safe meals, we wondered if Cinnamon would be willing to deliver all the way to Ryde. It turned out that they would. A polite chap arrived at our door and passed... Read more
Quay Arts, Newport

Quay Arts, Newport

Reviews 0

After months of lockdown, punctuated with the compassion behind #ClapForCarers and diligent social distancing, girls – and boys – just wanna have fun. And while for some people that might mean the pub, for us it is a cafe. So, on the first day bars and restaurants reopened their... Read more