Kwizeen

Kwizeen
49 King Street
Blackpool
http://www.kwizeen.co.uk/

This restaurant is an amazing little place, serving food you wouldn’t neccessarily expect. Forget all images of seaside greasy spoon cafes, this place is a gem.

Location and Interior: 4/5

Well of course with this restaurant being roughly an hour and a bit away from my house it was never going to get top marks for location, even so it is certainly worth the travel. It is hidden away in the streets away from the hustle and bustle of the sea-front, but that does mean this restaurant is missing out on a lot of potential custom. My personal belief is that this place would easily make a killing in Liverpool, but it does seem to do perfectly well in it’s current location.

Atmosphere and Service: 5/5

This place is small and intimate and the waiting staff never forget about you. The owner and the chef came to speak to us to check that all was ok with the food, and it was all perfectly charming.

Menu and Food: 5/5

If I could have given more than 5/5 I would have done. The menu changes depending upon seasonality and they always have a good selection. Most of their food is sourced locally. I went with my family to Kwizeen, and we each ordered a different dish so we’d have a selection to try from, and none of us could say that anyone dish was the least favourite. They were all fantastic, from the ostrich in chocolate and chilli sauce to the crab souffle with Morecambe Bay garlic shrimp, to the pheasant, to the suckling pig. We struggled to go with dessert but in the end two were ordered, and they were again superb.

Value for Money: 5/5

Yes Kwizeen is more expensive than an average restaurant, but for food this good it’s definitely worth the price. To be honest with the food they have, I’d have expected them to be charging a lot more.

Website: 5/5

Great design on the website, displaying the current menu, information about the restaurant and details of awards it has won. It would be nice, as I know they have a Christmas party menu and a New Years Eve menu for those to be displayed on the site as well.

Special Offers: 3/5

Kwizeen doesn’t appear to have any special offers on it’s website, nor does it appear to be listed fully on Sugarvine.com. However, having picked up a copy of the Christmas party menu, £16.50 for four courses, that’s one hell of an offer.

Total Score: 5/5

Worth more than a few visits. In fact I’m ordering you all to go. This restaurant, along with Il Forno, gets the Campaign for Good Restaurant Food’s seal of approval.

Il Forno

Il Forno
132 Duke Street,
East Village
Liverpool L1 5AG
http://www.ilforno.co.uk/

This charming restaurant is one of the newer places to spring up along Duke Street. With good, hearty, fresh Italian fare, you’re on to a winner with this place.

Location and interior: 4/5

The restaurant is fairly easy to find, and is only a short walk from Liverpool’s famous China Town arch. Inside, the decor is lovely and modern. There are plenty of windows to gaze out of, and the only authentic pizza oven in the city is clearly visible from certain areas of the restaurant, unfortunately from where we were sitting we couldn’t see it, but we did have a good view of the small fountain around the rear of the restaurant.

Atmosphere and Service: 4/5

I must admit, despite being seated in a small, out of the way place, we were not forgotten about and the service was very prompt. A lot of the waiting staff appeared to be Italian as well which was nice. I felt it lacked the charm of a smaller, cozy Italian restaurant, but that doesn’t really matter when you are getting good food and service.

Menu and Food: 5/5

Luckily enough, I had the chance to look at the online menu before visiting so I had narrowed my choice of food down to pizza at least. Even so, I still spent a while dithering over which one to have as there is such a large selection. I only wished that they’d have such a wide selection with their calzones, as they are a favourite of mine. My dining companion opted for the carbonara, and loved it. I sneaked a quick bite of his pasta and I’m not a fan of carbonara, but this was lovely, not too much sauce, but not too dry either. The restaurant clearly uses fresh herbs and ingredients, and the pizza I opted for in the end was fabulous. I don’t usually like stone baked pizzas, but the ones at Il Forno are definitely something to try.

As for the dessert, I was feeling rather full so I went for a simple peach melba. The peaches were fresh and not out of a can, the cream was real whipped cream too. I was a little disappointed that the vanilla ice cream wasn’t the type with vanilla pods, but I still enjoyed it. My dining partner in crime chose the tiramisu (well that was a no-brainer, as he adores this dessert) and he was impressed. The table next to us seemed quite fond of it too, as four plates of it were very quickly demolished.

They also have Italian lager, which was lovely and refreshing.

Value for Money: 4/5

Some student types may balk at the idea of spending over a tenner for a meat dish here, but there are plenty of reasonably priced alternatives. The pizza was large enough to satisfy even my appetite, and prices for those start at around £6.50, hardly an expensive meal, and well worth the price.

Website: 5/5

Well designed and giving you all the information you need including menus, and the chance to book online.

Special offers: 2/5

Currently there doesn’t seem to be any special offers, but the prices are reasonable anyway.

Total score: 4/5

Definitely worth a visit, or two, or three, I feel this place will become one of my regular haunts. The score is only brought down to 4/5 because of the lack of special offers, but even so it gets the Campaign for Real Food in the UK seal of approval

The Monro

The Monro
92-94 Duke Street
Liverpool
L1 5AG
http://www.themonro.com/

This little pub is one of the new breed of gastropubs, sweeping across the country. On the menu you can expect anything from traditional roast lamb to the more unusual ostrich and venison.

Location and interior: 2/5
For those who don’t know Liverpool particularly well this pub may be a little hard to find. The layout is decent enough with a bar area in front and the restaurant area to the rear. The decor is in need of some attention, as they seem to have had some damp damage in the main resturant area. However the room that can be rented out for parties is in good condition.

Some of the chairs in the restaurant have padded seats and other don’t, which lead to a brief game of musical chairs until we found a set of all padded chairs.

The toilets are pretty much normal pub toilets and are clean enough.

Atmosphere and Service: 4/5
I could not fault the service, the waitresses are polite and helpful, and most importantly what you get here is service with a smile, which really does make a difference. The staff were quite content to engage in some friendly banter, and also recommend various things on the menu.

The one thing that bothered me while in there was the doorbell sound they used to alert the waitresses that food was ready to serve. I imagine that on a busy night that would get extremely annoying for the customers.

Menu and Food: 4/5
The menu here is advertised as changing constantly, depending upon what fresh produce they have in the kitchen. I went to the Monro for Sunday lunch, and I was not disappointed with the food at all. I must admit when they first brought out the starters the main thought in my head was, “Where’s the rest of it?”. Yes, the portions are small, but once you get through a three course meal you do feel very satisfied. The food was full of flavour, and a personal favourite for me was the apple pie dessert. It was lovely and tangy, and the custard ice cream really complimented it. The food here is fresh and not a frozen ready meal, which is a selling point for me.

Value for money: 4/5
Depending on what time you go to The Monro, you can get a really good deal. Sunday lunch is set at two courses for £12.50 and three for £15.00, which is nothing to sneer at. From Mon to Thurs two courses are £9.95, and before 7pm on Fri and Sat two courses are £12.50. For more prices please visit their website.

Website: 3/5
The website is well designed. However, at several moments there have been problems with downloading the menus. At the time of writing, all the downloadable menu links seem to lead to the office lunch menu, which is hardly ideal if what you’re craving is a hearty Sunday lunch. Also certain areas of the site aren’t updated frequently.

Special offers: 4/5
See their website for any special offers, other special offers are to be found on www.sugarvine.com under The Monro.

Once a month The Monro do a pudding banquet, once main course and a choice of three desserts. I haven’t been to one of these but I intend to in the near future.

Total Score: 4/5
Well worth trying, although at busy times it is recommended that you book a table in advance.

What’s it all about?

Well, speaking for myself (and another friend who I may be able to persuade into becoming a co-author), we have always liked the idea of being food critics. We unfortunately find it highly unlikely that anyone would be willing to pay us to go and eat at various restaurants, so we’ve decided to do the next best thing, blog about it.

So what you’ll see from us is posts about restaurants we’ve dined at, and how we found the experience. Bear with us as we start up please, we hope to have a lot more posts up fairly soon.

On our travels we have found a few gems of places so if you fancy somewhere good to eat, please read on!