A rare night out! Off to the bicycle shop….

The birthday girl complete with fabulous bow!

I know it doesn’t sound like it would be very exciting…. but this is a great bar in Norwich where one of my best friends had her b’day party. Happy Birthday Vic! A really funky venue on St Benedict’s in Norwich with great wine and delicious tapas… they really looked after us and brought us platter after platter of fabulous food. Cheese boards, deli meats served with harissa chutney, roasted vegetable dishes, beautifully crispy whitebait….. my mouth is now watering even in spite of my hangover! Can’t recommend it more highly for a fab night out… would have stayed longer, but had to get back to relieve our babysitting neighbour!

Tapas….. Barcelona here we come??

As you can see we took our very over-tired daughter for a meal out on Sunday…… 

We were attending a cathedral service in the afternoon and needed a quick bite beforehand – Jon suggested ‘La Tasca’ along the lines of ‘They’ve got olives and bread, perfect!’. Abbie has always loved olives (as do many of her friends) since we attended the ‘Italian’ market in Norwich – she aged 2 – where she was made a huge fuss of by some rather dishy Greek men. They were delighted to see a young child eat an olive and so Abs was given stuffed, garlic, spicy… in fact every type of olive on offer! As the cuteness of my daughter meant that we were given a free tub of these delights for later, who was I to complain that she then wouldn’t eat her lunch!

An olive a day....

 La Tasca was, remarkably, really child-friendly; even if, as we did, you did not order from the children’s menu.  Abbie was given crayons and an activity book on arrival. They do a 5 dishes for 12 pounds deal for lunch which was great for us and we ordered extra bread and olives.  Abbie is really into dipping bread into balsamic vinegar and oil at the moment – if you haven’t tried it with your children – do it! She loves the drippyness of it and how you have to get through the oil to the vinegar. 

We ordered calamari – yummy for us (refused by Abs), fried white fish (enjoyed), patatas bravas (really enjoyed), tortilla (refused and I don’t blame her – not the best!) and a really yummy aubergine dish which I think she would have been happier about if she weren’t so tired!  We were encouraging her to eat it, as all parents do – imagine the scene ‘Just try it…. come on Abbie’ – ‘No!’ – ‘Come on darling, you’ll like it’ – ‘No!’… just as the waitress approaches to perform the predictable ‘Is everything alright??’ – if ever there was bad timing that was it!

What is fabulous about La Tasca? Pudding!!  They do a great 3 mini dessert tray (lemon tart, choc brownie and Sangria Mess) all with an espresso – we are returning just for that.  Jon has decided we are going to Barcelona in October half-term….. at least they have olives and bread there!