The Honeymooners

Today my girlfriend and I ventured into town and ate lunch at the very wonderful Honeymoon Chinese Restaurant in town. The building itself is very old, dating from who-knows-when (my mother could probably tell you) and used to be a pub way back in the day. As far as I can remember though, it's always been a Chinese restaurant, originally the Loong Sing, and we went there several times when I was a kid. Later, when I reached drinking age, we would often stop off there for some chips and spare ribs to eat on the way home after a night on the razzle.

Around the time I got married for the first time in 1990 it changed hands and became the Honeymoon. The menu expanded to include some Thai dishes too, and it was here that I first experienced satay dishes. Mmmmm.


Well, today Laura and I toddled in to have a lovely bit of lunch. The lunch menu allows you to pick one soup from a selection of 5, and one main dish from a selection of about a dozen, with either plain rice or egg fried rice and a tea or coffee for the paltry sum of £6.50. So we started with some of that lovely Chinese tea.

There's just something about the way it tastes that makes you feel it's doing you some good, isn't there?

We both started with some of fabulous chicken and sweetcorn soup, a real taste from my childhood. It's funny, I haven't eaten Chinese in every region of America, but at least in the ones in Washington and Georgia I could not get this soup. I could get egg drop soup which is similar, but without the corn and chicken it was not the same.

Laura ordered the sweet and sour chicken balls...

...with Egg Fried Rice.

I had the Beef with Ginger and Spring Onions...

...with Egg Fried Rice also.

We were both stuffed after this. They give you a lot of food (and tea) for £6.50. I had to eat Laura's last chicken ball. Well, to be honest, that slipped down pretty easy. Had it not been so early in the day, we might have gone for some dessert.

Later on after trolling round a few shops we made our merry way to Waitrose supermarket.

I have a problem with high-end supermarkets, in that they carry loads of amazing stuff I want to buy, but they are monumentally pricey. Therefore, the best thing to do in places like Waitrose is not to go there with specifics in mind, and just buy things that are reduced or on a special offer. You've got to do your homework, unless you're a Range-Rover-drivin' member of the landed gentry with money just burning a hole in the pocket of your plus-fours, in which case, go nuts! Here are a few examples of just how fancy-shmancy Waitrose is, taken while perusing the poultry cabinet...

Okay, here I should take a second to perhaps explain what is meant by "Spatchcock Poussin". A 'poussin' is typically a young chicken (not older than 28 days) and weighing between 400-450g. When it is 'spatchcocked' it is split open and held flat with the aid of skewers, like so...

Good for grilling.

In case you can't make it out, those are two whole quails.

The best time, therefore, to visit Waitrose is in the late afternoon, when they start marking perishable items such as sushi, dairy items, sandwiches etc. down for quick sales. Today I picked up a pack of three buffalo mozzarella balls normally priced at £3.19 for only 99p, so I grabbed a pack of fresh basil, a can of Waitrose's chopped tomatoes with olives and a pack of two pizza bases and went home and made two lovely fresh pizzas. Unfortunately I didn't take a picture, because I am a twit. But boy did they taste good. 

One thing I did take a picture of though. One of those "look at this product known by one name in America and another in Britain" things. In America you have Sun Chips. Here, they are...

Interesting flavours too.

Anyway folks, those are today's dispatches from the food frontline. Cheers!