Nothing quite like a Friday night out with friends to warm down for the weekend... in this case eight of us had decided to go and try one of the many new (to us) restaurants in Norwich to celebrate a friends birthday. We settled on East Twenty Six, a modern tapas restaurant on Exchange Street, as several of us had heard good reviews and I've wanted to try it ever since I saw it was open as I am quite a big fan of The Iron House, which is run by the same group of people.
Lucky for me my husband and Daughter dropped me to a friends who kindly taxied me to the restaurant and then back home again when we were done, so I got to indulge in a few glasses of vino, helping further with the warm down mission!
When we arrived it was the best part of the evening and we pitched up on the tables and stools outside making the most of the warmth in the air. I ordered a large glass of dry white wine for myself and a diet coke for the kind friend who drove me in. My wine came half poured into a small glass with the additional amount in a sweet little carafe. 'Such a cute way to serve a large glass' I thought to myself, that was until they hit me with the £10 bill for the two drinks! Ok, I know this would be cheap for London, but I don't think I've ever paid £8 for a glass of wine in Norwich before. Of course it could be that it has been a while since I've bought a 'large' glass... I enjoy wine don't get me wrong but I am no connoisseur and whilst I'm sure there are varieties that wholly warrant a hefty price tag (and yes I know all you wino's with more money than me, £8 is not exactly hefty, I'm really referring to more expensive wines), but if I'm happy with the taste of one that costs me £6 for a glass when out or a bottle at the same price from a shop, then that will do me! Besides whilst there's no denying that I do spend some of my money on alcohol if there's any spare I would rather it went towards creating some memories by having adventures around the World! Anyway, despite this becoming a talking point, it wasn't actually that big a deal really I just thought I'd mention it so if any of you try this place out you know that it will be more value for money to treat yourself to a bottle (any excuse!!) Either way, I still like the carafe and actually this price for the wine definitely wasn't reflective of the whole drinks menu as we enjoyed a really good Prosecco at £21 a bottle during our meal and the food was very reasonably priced too.
I was really excited to try the food here and as soon as I saw the menu I knew that it would be a good choice, particularly with a group of friends so that we could share lots of different dishes. As I've said before and will probably say again I literally eat anything, so in these situations I'm more than happy to go with the flow and let everyone else order, but we had a good thing going where everyone picked about three dishes and if we had too many of one thing we switched for something else. I worked out that we could have had one of everything on the whole menu but by this time one of my friends was already well under way in creating this very well organised list of what we wanted and it worked perfectly. The only slight problem during the menu scouring was the paper menus and small tea-lights on the table, as between us we had a few close call, fire incidences!! Whoops!!
Lucky for me my husband and Daughter dropped me to a friends who kindly taxied me to the restaurant and then back home again when we were done, so I got to indulge in a few glasses of vino, helping further with the warm down mission!
When we arrived it was the best part of the evening and we pitched up on the tables and stools outside making the most of the warmth in the air. I ordered a large glass of dry white wine for myself and a diet coke for the kind friend who drove me in. My wine came half poured into a small glass with the additional amount in a sweet little carafe. 'Such a cute way to serve a large glass' I thought to myself, that was until they hit me with the £10 bill for the two drinks! Ok, I know this would be cheap for London, but I don't think I've ever paid £8 for a glass of wine in Norwich before. Of course it could be that it has been a while since I've bought a 'large' glass... I enjoy wine don't get me wrong but I am no connoisseur and whilst I'm sure there are varieties that wholly warrant a hefty price tag (and yes I know all you wino's with more money than me, £8 is not exactly hefty, I'm really referring to more expensive wines), but if I'm happy with the taste of one that costs me £6 for a glass when out or a bottle at the same price from a shop, then that will do me! Besides whilst there's no denying that I do spend some of my money on alcohol if there's any spare I would rather it went towards creating some memories by having adventures around the World! Anyway, despite this becoming a talking point, it wasn't actually that big a deal really I just thought I'd mention it so if any of you try this place out you know that it will be more value for money to treat yourself to a bottle (any excuse!!) Either way, I still like the carafe and actually this price for the wine definitely wasn't reflective of the whole drinks menu as we enjoyed a really good Prosecco at £21 a bottle during our meal and the food was very reasonably priced too.
I was really excited to try the food here and as soon as I saw the menu I knew that it would be a good choice, particularly with a group of friends so that we could share lots of different dishes. As I've said before and will probably say again I literally eat anything, so in these situations I'm more than happy to go with the flow and let everyone else order, but we had a good thing going where everyone picked about three dishes and if we had too many of one thing we switched for something else. I worked out that we could have had one of everything on the whole menu but by this time one of my friends was already well under way in creating this very well organised list of what we wanted and it worked perfectly. The only slight problem during the menu scouring was the paper menus and small tea-lights on the table, as between us we had a few close call, fire incidences!! Whoops!!
Fire avoided and some of the candles safely blown out we were good to go and within what seemed like about five minutes of ordering out came the Binham Blue Wantons, yes I really did say Binham Blue Wantons!! Some of you close to me will know that Binham Blue is my absolute favourite local cheese, so slightly melted inside the delicious hot crunchy shell of a wanton and my tastebuds were already in heaven! Quickly after this the other dishes we had ordered started coming out thick and fast and before long our table was filled with more culinary delights than you could dream of...
 |
| Hummus and Lamb Shoulder |
We had Hummus with smoked lamb shoulder, pinenuts with a herb salad & pickled chillies; Beef kofte with a butterbean, tomato, red onion and cucumber salad; Smoked chicken wings with spiced tahini marinade & baby gem salad; Morcilla and chorizo with caramelised apple; Smoked lamb bacon salad with char grilled peach and fennel and the most melt in your mouth 24 hour cooked ox cheek you could imagine, served with a warm pancetta, broad bean and radish salad and this was just the meat selection! In addition to this we had Salt cod croquettes & aioli; Salmon cerviche with chilli, ginger lime & coriander;
Bandari monkfish tails with cucumber, red onion, tomato and pomegranate salad; House smoked haddock with macaroni cheese; lime chilli and ginger potted crab with a tempura battered avocado and kimchi salad; Charcoal roasted anya potatoes; Sauteed fine beans with shallots & parmesan and finally Smoked aubergine chips, tempura battered with rocket & chilli mayonnaise! You can see now why you need to come here with a decent size group as then you can try nearly everything!! I cannot fault any of these dishes what so ever and although I'll eat anything, trust me when I tell you that I appreciate really well made food and good flavourings, lots of herbs, spices and seasoning and everything I put into my mouth was an absolute taste sensation!
 |
| Salmon Cerviche |
 |
| Salt Cod Croquettes |
Although we were all absolutely stuffed after this there's always room in a girls tummy for something sweet and with a little snack sized treat of churros with chocolate sauce on the menu we really had no choice but to indulge in a few of these to share, finishing off the meal perfectly.
Another thing I should definitely mention is the staff at East Twenty Six... every single person that served us, whether at the bar or our table, were not only attentive but they know how to give good service with a smile and this simply added a sprinkling of perfection to a wonderful evening.
Great setting, fab decor, wonderful staff, amazing food and for me the best company a girl could ask for... an incredible set of best friends! Now, can we do it again tonight please?!!
No comments:
Post a Comment
Thank you so much for taking the time to leave a comment on my blog. It's so important to me to know that you're reading as it keeps me going on my logging journey! Until next time lovely reader x