Chiquito

I am easily annoyed by little things. I had a reasonably good experience at Chiquito, but finding their address details has me all annoyed. I just want an address and their website did not provide it. Why do web designers not think about the useability of the site? Chiquitos web-design is horrid.

There, rant over.

I went here with a few friends, for a catch up dinner. We ordered the ultimate combo, to share between the five of us. I don't know why I order these starter combinations of fried goodies. I don't like them. They were perfectly fine for what they were - the chicken pieces were quite tasty - but they don't give me great hope for the rest of the meal. The corn on the cob was particularly disappointing; it was overcooked and therefore soggy and tasteless.

That aside, the rest of our meal was quite nice. I had chilli beef tacos and the staff were perfectly happy to accede to my request for a side of guacamole to go with my tacos, without charging me any extra for it. I cannot now quite remember what my companions had, but they seemed reasonably satisfied.

Service was fine. Nothing to commend, but no excoriating rants either. Admittedly, they may have left us well enough alone because we were clearly hellbent on nattering to each other. And they kept us well lubricated with drinks.

I can't rave about the place, but for a night out with friends and a reasonable meal, Chiquito is all right.


*****
Chiquito

Ironside House
Canutes Pavilion Car Pk Ocean Village
Southampton
SO14 3TN Get Directions

023 80231505

http://www.chiquito.co.uk/

Orange Rooms

I like the Orange Rooms.

I have only been here when it is quiet - Sunday evenings, workday afternoons and, recently, workday lunch - so I do not know what it is like when filled with people.

It has a pleasant ambience in decor of orange and brown, but it does feel odd to be inside what is ostensibly a night-time place, during the day. Very little daylight gets in. There are however comfortable retro sofas and arm chairs, as well as benches and tables and tall stools. Myriad choices of seating.

For lunch, I had a steak sandwich. The bread was delicious: soft granary bread with a great crust. The steak inside was tender and juicy, although all sliced up rather than being one slab of steak, so the steak kept falling out while I was eating. I was a little disappointed in the fries, not that they weren't crisp and well-cooked, but because they were fries, which are so much less satisfying than chips. I feel as if I am munching on crunchy, deep-fried air when eating fries.

My fellow diner's meals all looked great: the burgers, especially, were quite generous and seemed to defeat their eaters. The small serve of nachos was actually quite a pretty decent serve. Naturally, I helped my co-diner by sneaking some corn chips from her plate. They were quite bland although the guacamole was good.

I was surprised, when we got our bill, to discover that my full fat coke was complimentary with the meal, as was anyone else's soft drink with their meal. A bonus, making the meal pretty good value.


*****
Orange Rooms

1-2 Vernon Walk
Southampton
SO15 2EJ
023 8023 2333

http://www.orangerooms.co.uk/
Food Menu

Chambers / Bar Room Bar

The Chambers is a nice, up-market looking pub, which, by its name, seems to be targetting the professional set. That would be fine, but it needs to pull its socks up if it is going to have any professionals as its clientele, especially at lunch time.

I have been here twice in the one week. The first time, it was an impromptu get-together and I went merely for a sociable drink with friends at lunch. That was fine, although I did note that my friends' pizzas came a bit late. Nevertheless I got back to work on time.

I met different friends for lunch later in the week. There were five of us in total, but only four were eating. We all ordered our pizzas at the same time. By 13:45, we got agitated enough to enquire about our pizzas and were told that they would be coming shortly. At 13:55, two pizzas arrived. Neither were mine. I hesitated about whether to wait for my pizza or whether to cancel the order and rush back to work, without lunch.

The pizza oven is a large domed thing, dominating half the room. It is very impressive, but it appears to only fit two pizzas at a time, which seems strange. It looms behind a bar, where we can watch the chefs making up the pizzas and putting them into the oven. I went up to the men working near the pizzas and asked what pizzas were in the oven, as that would help me make my decision. I was informed that the pizzas were crispy duck and margharita. Given that I had ordered the Italiano pizza, I was surprised that my pizza was not immediately in the oven after my companions'. I went back to our table and asked my other companion, who also had not received her pizza, what she had ordered. She, too, had ordered the Italiano pizza.

Deciding that we needed to head back to work, I went back to the counter and spoke with the waitress (not the chef whom I had earlier spoken to). I said something along the lines of, "Our pizzas have taken too long, and we need to get back to work, so could we please have a refund. The chef has not started making our pizzas." The waitress said, rather shortly, "You want a refund?" My companion started in with, "Yes, we ordered our pizzas at 1.15 and it's now -," but before she could continue, the waitress said, rather stroppily, "Don't get shirty with me. I just take the orders." The cheek! Both my companion and I started speaking at the same time, equally riled by her manner on top of the lack of food, but she said, "Talk to my manager," and walked off without telling us who the manager was.

The manager was, at that time, quite nearby. So he came over and we explained the situation to him, both a little more angry than we had been because of the waitress' manner. I asked for a refund but the manager offered to deliver the pizzas to our place of work. I wavered and looked at my companion, inclined just to ask for a refund and deal with the hunger pangs until home time. She, however, agreed. We high-tailed it back to work.

Our pizzas were delivered, together with four vouchers for free pizzas plus contrite apologies and an offer of free drinks if we went there for lunch the next day. I snorted at the suggestion (but not to the face of the delivery person). On the basis of the manager's much better service, and attempt to rectify the disastrous situation, I decided that if the pizza was good, The Chambers would not end up on my black list of places to eat in Southampton.

The Italiano is described as having Italian sausage, tomato, mozzarella and basil. The pizzas are a lovely thin base - my favourite - and the tomato sauce and mozzarella were reasonable. However, I barely had half a sausage on the entirety of my 12-inch pizza. Each slice had one slice of sausage on it, and there had been one slice of sausage placed directly in the centre of the pizza that had been sliced through. So, each pizza slice had an additional one-eighth of a slice of sausage. And absolutely no basil. When I was done, my fingers were laden with oil.

That decided it. Perhaps, the whole episode had left me with a bad taste in my mouth, not least because the pizza was rather average, but, on writing this post and investigating the website, I found that, too, to be aggravating. There's a Flash Player introduction and choosing the menu for Southampton oddly takes you to the Cambridge menu. Maybe it's teething problems, but you only get so many chances, and The Chambers gets no more from me.

Not recommended at all.

*****
The Chambers
74-76 London Road
Southampton
Hampshire
SO15 2A

Phone: 023 8033 1140

http://www.barroombar.com/whatsonoffer/index.php?view=bar&display=southampton

Mango Thai Tapas Bar

Okay, trying again with the Belly Dictates blog.

Your humble Belly Scribe has been distracted, but she has still been eating her way around the South of England. She is considering adding photographs to her blog posts, but is not quite brave enough to take photographs while dining out, and often forgets to take her camera, and is also a bit of a perfectionist and does not like photos that don't look nice. She is also considering ending this paragraph so that she can revert to the first person.

A new restaurant opened recently(ish) in Southampton, that I stumbled across one day when I wanted to have a coffee at The Best Second-Hand Bookshop and Coffee Place in Southampton (not its real name). So, I went to the next nearest place because it was open, had seats vacant and, from the outside, a reasonable ambience.

From the inside, the ambience is more than reasonable. It's lovely. Nice, brown walls (whoever thought brown could *work* quite so well...), giving the whole place a warm, homey feel; little vases of little flowers on every table; colourful cushions scattered on bench seats (clearly someone had been reading those interior design magazines that always advises the home decorator to have 'scatter cushions'); and, best of all, very friendly service.

That day, I wanted only coffee, so that was exactly what I had. And a good, strong espresso it was. However, the menu was so enticing and intriguing, and I was so happy to have another Thai restaurant in Southampton, that I also ordered crispy tofu. The friendly waitstaff must have misheard me, because I got crispy wanton. That's okay, I'm not vegetarian and the wantons were delicious.

I returned shortly thereafter to have dinner. For my first proper meal there, I had spicy noodle with prawn (don't worry, I got more than one noodle, and I assume the menu has a mistyping, but it's so enchanting, I have to replicate it) and my dinner companion had phad thai. My spicy noodle was good; my dinner companion enjoyed his phad thai. I am very familiar with Thai food, so the meal was quite good and better than most, though not as I have had it in Thailand or Australia. Still, it's great for Southampton, and England, and reasonably priced. The portions are ever so slightly on the small side.

I have since eaten there again, and again.

I have also been once, in the evening, when I failed to book. It was very busy, although my companion and I were offered a table and drinks and food, provided that we left before a certain time (8pm, if I recall correctly). It was no fault of the restaurants, but we chose to leave, because we were hoping for a nice long chat over a leisurely dinner. To encourage us back, the restaurant chose not to charge us for our drinks and apologised profusely for not having a table for us. Very nice, and welcoming, and producing good vibes, given that our reason for leaving was not their fault. Perhaps the treatment is a factor of being new, and trying to establish good custom. Even so, I'm sold.

*****

Mango Thai Tapas Bar
27 Portswood Road
Southampton
SO17 2ES

T 023 8067 8877
J 07875 148803

http://www.mangothai.co.uk/index.html

The Hare and Hounds, Sway

The Hare and Hounds is one of those rare English pubs: the ones that serve food all day rather than between restrictive hours, strictly enforced. This is a good thing, as I rarely eat lunch at "lunchtime" on weekends.

I have visited the Hare and Hounds on a number of occassions, now. Its food is great, the service is pleasant and jovial, and there are plenty of tables. If you amble in on a busy day, without booking, you will nevertheless find a table in the spacious beer garden, where dogs and children bound about.


The menu is mostly standard (but good!) pub fare, with decent vegetarian choices and a varied specials list, where they usually have very good fish. I have a wee obsession with chips in England, and tend to order whatever meal will best get me a serve of chips. This means I often end up with the fish and chips, or the burger and chips. I also have a weakness for pies, and they often have a special 'home made pie of the day'. My most recent visit, I curiously ordered Moroccan lamb with rice, bypassing pie, and chips as a side. My co-diners ordered the panache of fish (with chips!) and the cheesy fish pie.

My meal was quite nice - rice well done, lamb tender, but as I was eating it, I was wondering why I did not order something that gave me chips, particularly as I was craving a pub meal. I dipped into my co-diner's fish pie, which was great, but left my other co-diner's chips alone, as she was equally, if not more, enamoured of them than me.

We will, undoubtedly, visit again and take our visitors there too.

*****
Hare & Hounds
Durnstown
Sway
Hampshire
SO41 6AL

Get Directions

This address seems rather imprecise to me, so here is a google.maps link.

Tel: 01590 682404

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Montagu Arms Hotel

We have taken up cycling, and the New Forest is a wonderful place to cycle in: mostly flat, with some hills to keep the cycle interesting, small roads and lots of cycling paths with no cars at all. Cycling has enabled us to not only travel further, but also enables eating to my greedy belly's delight.

Last weekend, we cycled from Brockenhurst train station to Beaulieu, a cute little town with abbey and motor museum, which clearly derives from the French for 'Beautiful Place' but is pronounced Bewley, with no French accenting, and is definitely not pronounced Bo-lee-ew (one gets corrected vociferously if one tries). Bypassing all the tourist attractions, we headed straight for the Montagu Arms (or more affectionately, The Monty, if you're a local) as it was lunch time and we have a knack of arriving at pubs minutes after they stop serving.

At the door, we found a sign directing us either to the Bistro or the Bar. We were dressed in cycling gear and hiking boots, had a wee bit of mud on the bottom of our trousers, and were perhaps a bit bedraggled from the ride. Nevertheless, I walked into the bistro and asked to see a menu, saying I wasn't sure whether we belonged in the bar or bistro. The staff were very helpful, giving me both menus and making us feel welcome, irrespective of our attire.

The bistro menu looked fantastic, so we found a seat (not very difficult, as the entire place was empty!) beside a window. Sadly, the window looks out onto the carpark. The inside of the bistro, however, was lovely: still with its Christmas decorations, and with dark wooden floors. Service was friendly, and not at all stuffy, even though the decor made us concerned it would be.

We decided to eat extravagantly, so my fellow diner and cyclist ordered crayfish and parsley risotto, for starters, and sea bass for mains. I had wanted the same things, but knew that I could try his, so ordered the soup of the day (cream of butternut squash) and Weiner schnitzel for main.

My partner's meals were excellent. The crayfish and parsley risotto was lovely, sweet and tangy, with the rice creamily perfect. His sea bass was also great: nicely cooked with the meat soft, but firm. My soup was also lovely. But the schnitzel was a bit of a disappointment: it was perfectly edible, but just a bit bland. Our accompanying vegetables were perfectly done; my brussel sprouts, in particular, were the best I had eaten out in a long time: not overcooked, al dente and wonderfully peppery.

I highly recommend the Montagu Arms - whether your cycling, walking or visiting the motor museum (we didn't!).


*****

The Montagu Arms Hotel

Beaulieu

New Forest

Hampshire

SO42 7ZL



Tel: 01590 612324

http://www.montaguarmshotel.co.uk/home.asp

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Banana Wharf

I ate here speedily prior to a movie: it is conveninently close to the excellent Harbour Lights Picture House.

I find it a real pity that what little waterfront Southampton has, that is not already covered by dockyards, is effectively just a mooring bay for a whole lot of boats. So the billed 'waterfront' is just the lots of mast poles sticking up in the air.

In any event, Banana Wharf is a perfectly competent bar / pub / restaurant. The menu is varied and interesting. I had the Thai green chicken curry with basmati rice and my companion had the eastern spiced lamb with cous cous. Service was friendly and speedy - a bonus if you have a movie deadline to make.

*****
Banana Wharf

Ocean Village
Southampton
SO14 3JF

023 8033 8866

http://www.bananawharf.co.uk/

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