So this weekend we’ve been away so of course I’m going to share with you my food (and wine) experiences of a fab weekend.

We arrived at chez hosts to a bottle of real champagne chilling in the fridge, I am a bubbles kind of girl and adore champagne. To this I was jumping around their living room with excitement, much to everyone elses amusement! The bubbles weren’t quite chilled enough so I started with a bottle of Old Speckled Hen – I do like a nice real ale so this went down a treat after the journey. After which the cork was popped… yummy!

Now I hope our hosts don’t mind me saying this but the weekend’s chef is a slimming world member and I have to say I am very proud of them and their commitment (and if you’re reading this I mean every word, you’re doing amazing). So we had no problem at all eating within their means. So to start we had homemade vegetable samosa which were just spicy enough and very tasty, followed by chicken tikka masala and rice. Now I have to say of course you could taste the lack of butter and lashing of cream but this reduced richness had its positives as the tastes where all there, in fact probably more so and it was lovely to eat and enjoy. I was well impressed, such delicious food and only 1 syn for the pastry. Can’t be bad!

Now that wasn’t the end of it, we had homemade ice cream for dessert, now I’ve never even tried to make ice cream and I’m not known to have a great sweet tooth. Made from low-fat fruit yoghurt it was just up my street as it was refreshing and not too sweet. So thanks chez hosts it was an amazing meal.

Now Saturday we had a delicious healthy breakfast and headed into town. For lunch we picked up a quick snack from HotSausageCompany.com which I didn’t realise until now is a franchise in many town centres, but I have to say service and food was just what we are after (sorry about the picture it’s not the best but at least you get the idea). We were supposed to be heading home on Saturday but decided to say for a second night. So to celebrate we headed off to the pub, and oh yes enjoyed that lovely bottle of Villa Maria New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc, it was so fantastic we had to have 2! For Sauvignon Blanc you can’t beat New Zealand (and thank you JD Wetherspoons for selling for a great £10.90 per bottle).

We ate out that evening at MillOnTheExe.co.uk now I don’t want my blog to be about criticising people or places I want to concentrate on the positives. The starters were lovely I had stuffed mushroom but I also got to taste the homemade Thai fish cakes, both lovely just wished the salad garnish was dressed. For main I had steak, rump was all they had to offer and not my favourite cut by far but it was cooked to absolute perfection (medium rare), tasted great and wasn’t too fatty which must only mean that they have good quality meat suppliers. They did forget our mushrooms but this was quickly and efficiently sorted. The service was spot on and friendly, nothing felt a problem. As we had a healthy eating theme this weekend we did think it would be a nice idea for this pub (and others) to highlight healthy / slimming world compliant meals. Or even offer alternative cooking methods to make a dish “diet friendly”.

To clarify we had a very good meal at MillOnTheExe.co.uk , it wasn’t blow your mind away 5 star cuisine but very very enjoyable pub food in a lovely setting, we won’t hesitate to go back. If you’re after a good pub meal in a restaurant/pub setting at good prices this fits the bill.

So thank you chez hosts, a great weekend of different but tasty food… only to be greeted when we got home by a power cut on Friday which tripped all sockets and led to a freezer of food somewhat defrosted. Now that’s another story or two to be continued.