An evening at the Harvester, Castle Marina

It's been a whirlwind last couple of months for us and we've been darting all over the country recently on holidays and to various sporting events so it's nice to spend some time relaxing at home in Nottingham after our travels.

Jemma has always raved about Harvester's unlimited salad bar (Which I think she would rather have at times than a main meal) so when the opportunity arose to visit the Harvester at Castle Marina for a review came about we were happy to head there on a glorious summers evening. It's years since I visited a Harvester so have to admit I was visiting with an open mind.

The Harvester at Castle Marina Nottingham,

What's it Like Inside?

Clean, bright and airy interior

I'm a stickler for clean, crisp interiors without fuss and the Castle Marina Harvester definitely ticks those boxes for me. It's light and airy, spacious, whilst having a simple yet modern decor. It's definitely somewhere I'd happy sit down with family or friends.

Modern, simple styling works well

The Most Important Thing- The Food

Starters

We love a good starter and decided to go for a meat and a fish option. The fish basket (£5.29) featured tender, succulent Crackerjack prawns, scampi and fish goujons together with a nice tartar sauce. Served in a large basket with the obligatory bit of green (Large lettuce leaf) we had a total of 12 pieces to the starter which represents excellent value from our experiences at other restaurants.

The Fish Basket - £5.29

For our meat option we opted for the Sticky Duck Wings (£5.49) which were served in a Crabbies ginger beer and orange blossom sauce. Very nice, beautifully cooked with the meat almost falling away from the bone.

Harvester Sticky Duck Wings

Our Main Meals

We always love to be a little adventurous when it comes to our food. If there's a great selection we'll often pick something on the adventurous side but with so much meaty choice on the menu we opted to share an I Want it All Platter (£12.99) and the fantastic sounding Jamaican Style Boneless Beef Rib (£10.29)

The  I Want it All Platter (£12.99)

The I Want it All Platter features some of the best bits on the menu with some chicken from the rotisserie, char grilled chicken thighs, a health sized gammon steak chorizo that's more like pieces of hearty sausage and half a rack of baby ribs. As with any Harvester meal you get a choice of sides and sauces. I opted for sweet potato fries (49p extra) and some of Farmer Rikki's Chili Sauce.

The meat came out beautifully cooked. The chicken succulent whilst easily pulling away from the bone with limited effort. The gammon was of a great size and there was plenty of meat between the ribs to keep us going. The chips looked and tasted fantastic with a crunchy outer and soft inner. They were so good I could easily have eaten twice as many!

The Farmer Rikki's Chili sauce was interesting. On initial taste it seemed a little like a hot curry sauce although it's heat built very quickly so anyone who's averse to anything hot would be best to stick to many of the other options on the menu without so much kick. It was certainly great with chips and made a fantastic accompaniment for chicken.

The  Jamaican Style Boneless Beef Rib (£10.29)

Our second choice was the Jamaican Style Boneless Beef Rib with a side of baby new potatoes and Jack Daniels Tennessee Whisky sauce. As shown above the rib came out looking beautiful with a rum and cola glaze. It almost fell apart as it was cut thanks to being slow cooked to perfection. The boneless beef rib was a real highlight that we'd certainly recommend.

The Salad Bar

One of the great pluses for going to a Harvester has to be the unlimited salad bar when you have a grill. In some ways it actually negates the need for a starter and there's such a selection that it pretty much will have something for everyone. Best of all it's fresh and with lots of choices. 

Take your pick from the salad bar

The salad bar is not all about greenery and vegetables. There's a good selection for all with different pastas, sauces and a nice selection of bread and croutons to satisfy the salad-dodgers among us.

Croutons and crispy bits will even appeal to those of us that don't like greenery on plates

Our Drinks

For drinks we opted for the all you could drink Pepsi or Lemonade option. We'd have liked to have seen that extended to other drinks like Fanta or Sprint which worked out just as expensive for one glass compared to the all you wanted to drink option.

Our Experience at Castle Marina Harvester

Having not been to a Harvester for a good number of years the Castle Marina restaurant was really a nice dining experience. Fantastically cooked meats, easily falling away from the bone and a good selection meant we were well catered for.

The restaurant is clean, light and airy, making for somewhere you could easily sit down and chat over a drink and a meal. The staff were attentive without being to the extreme and seemed to have a good knowledge of the menu to help with choices if required.

We'd happily go back.

More from the salad bar selection at Harvester Castle Marina, Nottingham

Disclaimer
Every so often we're offered a meal or experience in exchange for a review and whilst this was one of those occasions we adhere to be honest with people. If our experience was poor we'll tell people as so and if there are things we'd change we'll always mention them. We value our integrity.

The Nottingham Food and Drink Festival Showcased in List of 33 of the UK's Top Festivals

It's amazing how food is becoming the new rock and roll and being showcased alongside music festivals. Hotel group Jurys Inn has recently compiled a list of 33 of the UK's top festivals and our August Nottingham Food and Drink Festival features prominently.


The Jurys Inn 33 Top British Festivals for 2015

On Tour- Lunch at Fifteen Cornwall

Sampling the Delights at Jamie Oliver's Fifteen Cornwall

A trip down to Newquay and the Cornish Coast means so many different things to so many different people. There's the surfing, the beaches and for us the allure really comes with the food and drink. The coastline plays host to some superb restaurants and our trip allowed us some time to sample some of the delights on offer.

Wednesday 8th June saw us have lunch at Jamie Oliver's Fifteen Cornwall restaurant that looks over the beach at Watergate Bay a few miles north of Newquay.

The view from our table at Fifteen Cornwall looking out onto Watergate Bay

For a reasonable £32 we chose from the 3 course lunch menu which was limited to 2-3 choices per course however took a lot of the guesswork out for us over what to have and if you consider we could have starter, main and a dessert for around £20 at most standard pubs and restaurants at home the extra £12 doesn't seem significant for a specialist restaurant.

Fifteen Cornwall is primarily an Italian restaurant so expect exquisite pasta dishes and Mediterranean flavours alongside fine local produce.

The interior at Fifteen Cornwall

An Afternoon at the Not So Great Food and Drink Festival

We Love Nottingham and Food: But as with most projects it's really failed to deliver on giving us a Great Food and Drink Festival

Last weekend saw the Great Food and Drink Festival in Nottingham with a group of us associated with the Food Lovers blog making our way over to Nottingham Castle on Saturday to enjoy an afternoon in the sunshine with a few sweet and savoury treats.

The idea of a food festival (just like the Beer Festival) inside the iconic Nottingham Castle is a great idea. There's plenty of space and it provides a real focal point for tourists although whilst the beer festival which runs every October completely takes over the grounds, this years Great Food and Drink Festival needs a little bit more of an in injection of food, and particularly drink which we found to be somewhat lacking which considering the cost of tickets for us was a bit of a let down. I'm not sure about anyone else but when we go to a food or drink festival we want to try, try, try and try foods and the not so Great Food and Drink Festival was seriously lacking on that note. There were a few standouts who deserve a mention below however.

For £8 and adult (£7 in advance) we expected much, much more having been to other festivals where there's been more on offer for considerably less money. There were a small number of exhibitors sampling but nothing of real significance. It was the equivalent of paying to get in Wetherspoons and then still having to pay out for your food.

There was some fantastic food on offer from the exhibitors however maybe it was the organisation that let them down by promising something bigger but our biggest annoyance above anything was the lack of any companies sampling. If you go to a food festival you usually expect to sample what people have on offer. Therefore below we've focused on a selection of the sellers that we felt showcased their products well whilst offering the chance to try what they had on offer. If the company name isn't mentioned it's because they were there just to sell products, not introduce us to them.

One of our other annoyances was that it seemed the organisers had given exhibitors some exclusivity. One hot chilli sauce seller, one cupcake baker, one pizza company, one doughnutv company. It was like there had been a degree of selection on place. Sadly this really limited the number of exhibitors and restricted what was on offer. We'd have loved to see one of the local breweries having their own stand (Castle Rock, Navigation, Lincoln Green are always present at local events so why were they missing?) and much more variety for future shows. The top field looked conspiciously empty and this made us think there was something wrong with the event. When we go to a food festival we want food, food, food and usually something to wash it down. If you compared the event to Lincoln Christmas Market or our own Market Square offering which are both free I know I'd be heading to Lincoln for their huge variety.

Best Sampling of the Day

Whilst in general we felt the amount of food on offer was on the low side there were a number of exhibitors who went all out to showcase their product and help keep our hunger at bay whilst introducing us to some very nice food in the process. 

The Cheshire Cheese Company had a nice varied selection of cheeses on offer with a nob of each being cut at request. Their Black Bob was a fantastically creamy mature cheese with a very smooth pallet that we subsequently treated ourself to for an at-home tasting. 

Fancy Contributing?

Would You Like to Review a Restaurant, Cafe or Bar in Nottingham?

We're always on the lookout for new contributors and people who like to go to places we've never been. Therefore if you'd like to contribute to the Nottingham Food Lovers blog please drop an email to liam.hallam83@gmail.com advising a little bit about yourself and where you would like to review.

Whilst the blog doesn't create an income for us we're more than happy for you to link to some of your own content if you have a blog and we increasingly get offers of the chance to trial new places or products which we'll happily distribute to contributors as a thank you for their help.

Many Thanks

Win Restaurant Food at Home Thanks to Deliveroo Nottingham

Please be aware this competition has closed but feel free to check out what Deliveroo can do for you. 

Every fancied something from your favourite Nottingham restaurant, but really couldn't be bothered to get out of your pyjamas? Or are you getting bored of having the same thing time and time again for your corporate lunches?

After success in cities across the UK Deliveroo has now arrived in Nottingham and to celebrate they're offering us all the chance to win £250 worth of restaurant food delivered to our doors in Nottingham. (See bottom of the page for more details)

Put simply Deliveroo deliver high end restaurant and gourmet food to homes and offices straight from the source. They keep delivery times down by delivering close-by to ensure that your food is as fresh as if you'd sat in the restaurant yourself but with the convenience of being at work or home. Delivery is within a 2.6 km (1.5 mile) radius of the restaurants so they can ensure your food will arrive tasting great.

If you live  or work outside that 1.5 mile radius you could be in luck for future with plans for a roll out of the service in the West Bridgford area in future.

Time Out Cafe- Asian Fusion Inspired Street Food Review

Visting Nottingham's Newest Cafe- Time Out Cafe Review

The idea of somewhere offering Asian-inspired street food in Nottingham really got our attention recently when we first heard about Time Out Cafe having opened recently just off Wheeler Gate a short stumble from the Market Square. 

The short walk from Time Out Cafe to Market Square and the tram

Nottingham, In my eyes has been crying out for somewhere to relax whilst working away on the laptop with a coffee and something to nibble away on which isn't a frapaccino, deli sandwich or bagel as I don't find Starbucks a good working environment. On first impressions Time Out could be that place with a relaxed and contemporary feel. It also feels like the kind of environment where we could easily meet a friend for a coffee if there's anything left in the wallet after a shopping spree. The cafe is a new and ambitious venture from a group of former Nottingham University students who've seen an opportunity in the area and committed to the venture without gently dipping their toes into the water.

The contemporary decor at Time Out Cafe