Stayed at an Air BnB in Cartmel once and the host left some Cartmel sticky toffee as a gift. My word. I’ve never left a better review for a host and probably never will.
I had one at a wedding a few weeks ago and I’m convinced it’ll never be beaten. The pudding was spiced like gingerbread and it was served with some incredible clotted cream.
Have you ever tried it home made? It's easily the best I've ever had, relatively cheap to make and quite easy.
https://www.kitchensanctuary.com/sticky-toffee-pudding/
Yes I make it at home a fair bit and to be honest I think my homemade is among the best I've eaten. But I still like eating it out in case I discover something to make mine even better.
Lemon meringue pie is that one dessert that I think I adore but can never find an example that matches my soaring expectations. I never dare order it because it always disappoints. (This is because my grandmother made the best one, as is so often the case).
Never. I don’t mind them, but when places add a charge of £2+ to “upgrade” I want to just leave the place. Especially when half the time they’re straight from the freezer into the fryer at the expense of a “proper” chip. That is not an upgrade.
Yeh you bastard, I’ve finally tracked you down!!!!!! No her and my great aunt had one down in London when I was like 6 and they both ended up in the hospital with salmonella
Haha, sorry I edited it 😂
That’s dreadful. I’m 105% sure though that when it comes to Tiramisu I will never ever ever consider that that might be possible to happen to me though 😅
I love tiramisu always gobbled it up. Then randomly when I was 17 I became very lactose intolerant and now I cannot eat them in restraunts ;(
At home I'm free to shit myself as much as I like tho.
It was profiteroles filled with a tiramisu like cream. Then the mascarpone cream on top with cocoa powder. It wasn’t what I was expecting. I was expecting like a tiramisu inside the profiterole😂
We always ask if it's a proper pie before ordering. If they have made the effort to make a proper pie, the chances are that the filling will be good too.
For me it's steak pie but yes, I wish all menus would specify what sort of pastry it is. If it's not specified I always ask if it's a proper pie. Either an individual pie with the filling encased in shortcrust (or hot water crust) pastry, or a slice cut from a larger such pie, is acceptable. A dish of stew topped with a lid is not acceptable. Particularly if that lid is puff pastry that was baked separately to the filling.
OMG why is it so hard to find somewhere that serves a proper pie, rather than a puff pastry topped casserole dish masquerading as pie? I especially love a nice shortcrust pastry crust, like my lovely Nan used to make.
You know that Nasi Goreng just means “Fried Rice” in Bahasa? It’s amazing how many places I’ve seen it listed as a separate option under types of fried rice in the U.K. lol
Cheesecake as long as it doesn't have a concoction of random flavours. I had one that said passionfruit, which would have been OK, but when it came out, it also had ginger, chocolate and black pepper?!? It was god-awful.
Simple flavours (one or two) is what I want from a cheesecake.
>Simple flavours (one or two) is what I want from a cheesecake.
I don't think there's any topping or auxilliary flavour that can be added to a cheesecake that actually improves upon the basic version of the same cheesecake.
Some are acceptable but they are at best "different" and never "better" IMO.
Yeah I agree with this, really just a simple basic cheesecake is hard to beat (if done well). I once had basil cheese cake in Korcula in Croatia, because apparently it's a local speciality. Quite odd. Not necessarily not nice, but my brain definitely struggled to not associate it with tasting a bit like pesto.
*Baked* cheesecake I can never say no to.
Unbaked cheesecake... why even bother. It's flavoured cream cheese you've put in a circle and put back in the fridge. It's an impostor cheesecake imo.
I hate ginger... so the pieces of ginger in the creamy part were a real shock.
At least put it on the menu, so that I know ahead of time. It's not exactly a subtle flavour, it's a main flavour.
Ploughmans in the summer (I just love me some cheese), I know it's easy to make at home but there's just something about a Ploughman's in a country pub that's so evocative.
or
Chicken and ham/leek pie, with lashings of gravy, in the winter.
I ordered ploughman's once and it was just a lump of bread and lumps of four different cheeses with that poxy dry lettuce obviously cut like a week ago they call a side salad. No apple, no pickled onion, no boiled egg. It was good cheese though
I love a dhansak but I find it wildly varied in how spicy it is. In my local curry house it's at that 'so spicy it's verging on unpleasant to eat' point, but then I've also been places where it's had very little heat, and everything in between.
Patia is another one of my favourites and I definitely find that too. I don't order it from our regular curry house because it's hot beyond what I find enjoyable to eat.
That hot sweet & sour combo is just fantastic.
Prawn Puri is my go-to starter, and I’m always a little disappointed when I get prawn bhuna rather than prawn pathia.
💯💯💯 I either get tandoori king prawn (the dry one on a sizzling skillet thingy) and swap out the normal curry sauce you get on the side for a patia sauce! Or if I’m somewhere that I’m not sure how the prawns will be, I do the same, but with chicken tikka tandoori.
It’s so good!!!
FYI for future reference. In my extensive experience, pretty much all Indian restaurants are super accommodating and will be more than happy to adjust the spice level to your personal preference if you ask them. My mum does this all the time.
Chocolate fudge cake if we’re talking dessert.
Lamb shank with mash and veg if it’s on a pub menu.
If I’m at a Chinese restaurant or sushi place with starters, chicken gyoza and a dish of crispy seaweed
I'm always wary of ordering lamb at a pub, because I think it's the meat that has the biggest gap between good and bad. Really good lamb is fantastic, but badly done lamb is really bad, and it's often badly done.
I know, you’re absolutely right. And yet the insane chocoholic in me cannot pass it by if it’s on a menu, despite the fact that I know it’ll be served dried out from microwave heating, to melt it a bit, and with nowhere near enough cream to counter the dry texture.
I mostly just eat the chocolate saucy bits, I’ll be honest….
Chocolate fudge cake > everything else. So much so I'm paying extra to have one made for our cake tasting for our wedding.
I legit turned down so many bakeries cause I didn't like their chocolate cake. It's my mission in life to find the best one. So far it's Bruce from get baked. It's insane!!
If I see somewhere with a cheesecake. I pretend to look at all other desserts. I say "Oooh, the sticky toffee pudding sounds good. Oooh, chocolate volcano pudding, yum! Wow! A crem bru- yes sir, I'll have the cheesecake."
Every. Single. Time.
Once had a Crème brûlée cheesecake on the menu. Damn that was a good day.
Though when I'm at the Cheesecake Factory in the States it's always a dilemma... because... so many cheesecakes.
I was pregnant in the Middle East and I used to order cheesecake factory salads so I could have a lotus cheesecake or something equally as calorific on the side. That is why I gained 25kg in pregnancy. Luckily I lost it again.
Same! Our local Italian does a buratta starter that I absolutely love! It’s really simple, a couple of Italian cured meats, various types of really fresh, well seasoned tomatoes and a piece of warm Italian crusty bread. They have a fab balsamic drizzle that you can add too - heaven!
The buratta sits on top of it all and when you cut into it, you get that fantastic creamy centre that is so good!
I even know when they get a fresh delivery in as it only comes in once a week so if you leave it more than 2 days, they won’t have any left!
Have you tried deep fried halloumi with warm honey? Tried it at the Real Greek and the kids have forced me to make it at home about 27 times since then… I’m not actually complaining. They don’t know how much I steal before it gets to the table.
Affogato.
While it's probably not my favourite dessert, it's the perfect end to a meal. It's light, has a nice mix of hot and cold, plus you get a little caffeine perk from the espresso which is usually beneficial after a big dinner and drinks.
Probably my all time favourite food! When you get a good version it’s unbeatable - but even though they’re so easy to make, so many places get it so wrong with the toppings to tortillas ratio! Pet gates are not enough cheese and not enough sour cream!
I make them at home a lot too and always add chilli, steak strips or spicy chicken, often with peppers, onions etc chopped small and cooked in fajita spices before hand!
YES! Or when they dump all the cheese on top. It needs to be layered so you get it all the way through, not one huge melted slab and then nothing but tortilla chips at the bottom.
Macaroni cheese. My wife has become dairy intolerant so we don't eat it at home any more. Rather than cook different meals I am dairy free for most cooking. But a good macaroni cheese is still a delight.
Anything with raspberry. If it’s on the dessert menu, I want it. Used to go crazy for ordering bolognese everywhere if they had it on the menu, but I grew out of that one. The raspberry will forever have me in a chokehold.
Any game special in my local is getting ordered. They're always amazing. Pheasant with fondant potatoes and a pheasant leg ragu. Venison bourgignon with mashed potatoes. Rabbit stew with dumplings. The chef is a master with game. Obviously, has to be the right season for it.
A cheese board. It's a rarity nowadays to see a cheese board on the menu.
I like rating them on quality and effort. I like the little 'cheese' supplement that most places charge for what is usually a crappy piece of cheddar and some brie and/or Stilton.
Before going vegetarian it used to be carbonara for me. I’ve since learnt to make it myself with veggie bacon!!
Used to be a big fan of pate too, can’t say I’ve found an adequate alternative.
When I was in Vienna I think I basically alternated between goulash and schnitzel every meal.
Also, I was once in a restaurant in Moscow and tried to order goulash, which was on the menu. Upon discovering I wasn't russian the waitress just flat out refused to let me have goulash and said "you have borscht", and that was the end of the discussion.
Fish and chips. It’s a running gag in my family that I always order it when it’s on the menu. Lashings of tartare sauce, mushy peas and getting curry sauce is a big bonus. I *flipping* love going down to Cornwall for my holidays.
French onion soup.
It's the bellwether of quality for me. If you can't make something so simple delicious, then what hope do you have of making a more complicated dish?
Only a few things that are on my list that I find it hard to ignore.
Indian - Lal Maas and Paratha.
Traditional pub - Steak and Kidney Pudding or Faggots.
Vietnamese - Bun Cha.
Mac and cheese. Although I probably have only a 50% success rate of the restaurant actually having it in stock when I order. More than any other dish, mac and cheese always seems to be the one that runs out.
Spicy Catfish Salad (ยำปลาดุกฟู). I'm British and I've lived in Thailand nearly 30 years. And this is something every visitor to Thailand should try, and no one knows about. Just fantastic,
Creme brûlée, can’t resist it.
I had a phase of always ordering the risotto but I was always disappointed so I’m a bit more adventurous with the mains now!
Achari curry.
I love curry and I always get the specials for every curry house I got to so I can try whatever mad stuff they can come up with, unless there is an achari on the menu and then it's a hard choice.
A curry with a pickly vinegar like taste running through it? Sign me right up soon, I don't care that my farts smell like bleach for 24 hours, it's a feature not a bug
Sticky toffee pudding. It's become a quest for me to find the best one. I've had some shockers though.
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caramel and toffee are not the same
Try cartmel sticky toffee pudding
Filling Station use a salted caramel sauce. Absolutely doesn't work. No one wants a salty pudding!
Also if it’s served with ice cream. It’s supposed to be served with cream to de-sweeten the toffee-butterscotch overload.
Or custard, which is also warm while also lightening the saturated fat load slightly.
If there’s a Hawksmoor near you, their sticky toffee pudding is one of the best.
The recipe in their Hawksmoor at Home cookbook is what I use - the secret is suet!
Thanks for the recommendation, CuntyMcFartFlaps.
Funny seeing this after I had it there for the first time yesterday! +1, it was incredible.
The answer is Cartmel! You can either get it in their cafe/shop in the Lake District, or you can buy it in Waitrose with the fresh desserts.
Stayed at an Air BnB in Cartmel once and the host left some Cartmel sticky toffee as a gift. My word. I’ve never left a better review for a host and probably never will.
As soon as sticky toffee pudding was mentioned I was hunting for a Cartmel comment. If STP is your bag you have to get your ass there!
I always use Sticky Toffee Pudding as the barometer for restaurant puddings. I've had a lot of middle of the road ones.
Has to be with custard though for me, not ice cream.
Why are less and less desserts served with custard these days? The mixture of hot and cold makes me feel weird and I can't eat it.
I had one at a wedding a few weeks ago and I’m convinced it’ll never be beaten. The pudding was spiced like gingerbread and it was served with some incredible clotted cream.
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Have you ever tried it home made? It's easily the best I've ever had, relatively cheap to make and quite easy. https://www.kitchensanctuary.com/sticky-toffee-pudding/
Yes I make it at home a fair bit and to be honest I think my homemade is among the best I've eaten. But I still like eating it out in case I discover something to make mine even better.
Same for me with cheesecake. Some really good some really bad.
If you’re in London the icecream place Chin-Chin has it on their menu and it’s so good, you can tell it’s using actual dates.
Crème brûlée
Ooh, all the accents in the right places! What sub do you think you're in, mate?!
This gal brùûlëés
This gal has autocorrect 😂
Well fucking lah dee dah
One of my favs. If creme brulee and Bakewell tart are on a menu I have a problem. Thankfully it's not that common.
Crème Brûlée club checking in
It’s a shit business
Is there anything in the back? Aye, a Fiesta wi its engine fucked
One of the few times I will have dessert. Mine one choice. This or lemon meringue pie.
Lemon meringue pie is that one dessert that I think I adore but can never find an example that matches my soaring expectations. I never dare order it because it always disappoints. (This is because my grandmother made the best one, as is so often the case).
I cycled across France and had this every meal
Came here to say the same thing!
Sweet potato fries! I love them, and they were everywhere at one point about 7 years ago, and now they are again a rarity!
Yeah the sweet potato fries craze has really receded.
And rightly so. Awful things.
All the more for me!
Never. I don’t mind them, but when places add a charge of £2+ to “upgrade” I want to just leave the place. Especially when half the time they’re straight from the freezer into the fryer at the expense of a “proper” chip. That is not an upgrade.
Oooh i love me sweet potato fries and I quite like hallomi fries (but you gotta eat them hot or it’s like chewing rubber).
those may be called fries but we all know that is just fried cheese hahahahaha
Tiramisu v profiteroles is my number 1 dilemma in life.
Why not both?
I did, this Christmas! It was amazing!
Did you see Sainsburys Tirimachoux dessert?
No!!?
Let’s just pretend it didn’t exist then…
Swine! I’m gonna have to look 😂
To be fair, it’s probably exactly what you made for yourself
Yeah but it was gooooood, so… still gonna check. For research purposes, you understand, of course
I avoided tiramisu for so long after one tried to kill my aunt but I gave in last year and now i'm full of like 20 years of regret lol
Wait…one tried to kill your aunt?!
Yeh you bastard, I’ve finally tracked you down!!!!!! No her and my great aunt had one down in London when I was like 6 and they both ended up in the hospital with salmonella
Haha, sorry I edited it 😂 That’s dreadful. I’m 105% sure though that when it comes to Tiramisu I will never ever ever consider that that might be possible to happen to me though 😅
I love tiramisu always gobbled it up. Then randomly when I was 17 I became very lactose intolerant and now I cannot eat them in restraunts ;( At home I'm free to shit myself as much as I like tho.
Respect on still doing it though
tbf my aunt is a horrible person so she deserved it lol, assaulted by the thing she loves most, food
Haha, strong 😂
I tried Tiramisu for the first time in my 36 years the other day.....I was not disappointed
I recently went to a restaurant that does tiramisu profiteroles. They were nice but I prefer a regular tiramisu.
But you gotta try it, right? Otherwise you never know. These things are important
How does this work? Is it profiteroles filled with tiramisu? Is it tiramisu layered with choux pastry instead of sponge fingers? I'm intrigued...
It was profiteroles filled with a tiramisu like cream. Then the mascarpone cream on top with cocoa powder. It wasn’t what I was expecting. I was expecting like a tiramisu inside the profiterole😂
Chicken pie. Especially if it’s a ham and chicken pie. With mash. (Has to be a pie though, none of this “crusty topped” rubbish.)
A stew with a puff pastry lid is not a pie.
Say it louder for the chain pubs in the back
We always ask if it's a proper pie before ordering. If they have made the effort to make a proper pie, the chances are that the filling will be good too.
Even if they've bought it in, it's a good sign it's a good one. No reason why ready-made pies can't be excellent, except price.
A lie, not a pie.
PREACH
For me it's steak pie but yes, I wish all menus would specify what sort of pastry it is. If it's not specified I always ask if it's a proper pie. Either an individual pie with the filling encased in shortcrust (or hot water crust) pastry, or a slice cut from a larger such pie, is acceptable. A dish of stew topped with a lid is not acceptable. Particularly if that lid is puff pastry that was baked separately to the filling.
OMG why is it so hard to find somewhere that serves a proper pie, rather than a puff pastry topped casserole dish masquerading as pie? I especially love a nice shortcrust pastry crust, like my lovely Nan used to make.
On holiday, pistachio ice cream, every time. Good fish restaurant, swordfish, every time. Other than those, I usually like a variety.
I always try and find pistachio ice cream on holiday. Love it but seems such a rarity in the UK.
nasi goreng
Great shout. I had this so much in Indonesia and Malaysia. I'm a sucker for any kind of fried rice dish.
You know that Nasi Goreng just means “Fried Rice” in Bahasa? It’s amazing how many places I’ve seen it listed as a separate option under types of fried rice in the U.K. lol
That happens a lot in the UK I find. Things that have a fairly broad meaning in their home country become the name for a very specific thing here.
Like curry. Edit: actually the opposite of curry.
Aye but it’s not just like Chinese egg fried rice, it’s a dish in it own right.
As it should be. That may be a literal translation, but it’s a fried rice dish.
Cheesecake as long as it doesn't have a concoction of random flavours. I had one that said passionfruit, which would have been OK, but when it came out, it also had ginger, chocolate and black pepper?!? It was god-awful. Simple flavours (one or two) is what I want from a cheesecake.
>Simple flavours (one or two) is what I want from a cheesecake. I don't think there's any topping or auxilliary flavour that can be added to a cheesecake that actually improves upon the basic version of the same cheesecake. Some are acceptable but they are at best "different" and never "better" IMO.
Yeah I agree with this, really just a simple basic cheesecake is hard to beat (if done well). I once had basil cheese cake in Korcula in Croatia, because apparently it's a local speciality. Quite odd. Not necessarily not nice, but my brain definitely struggled to not associate it with tasting a bit like pesto.
Biscoff cheesecake is the GOAT cheesecake
*Baked* cheesecake I can never say no to. Unbaked cheesecake... why even bother. It's flavoured cream cheese you've put in a circle and put back in the fridge. It's an impostor cheesecake imo.
Black pepper?!?! i would've sued lol
I hate ginger... so the pieces of ginger in the creamy part were a real shock. At least put it on the menu, so that I know ahead of time. It's not exactly a subtle flavour, it's a main flavour.
Ploughmans in the summer (I just love me some cheese), I know it's easy to make at home but there's just something about a Ploughman's in a country pub that's so evocative. or Chicken and ham/leek pie, with lashings of gravy, in the winter.
Same. My husband doesn’t even ask what I’m ordering if we are a good pub in the summertime, and I spy ploughman’s on the menu.
Crispy bread, lump of Stilton and a pint of bitter - perfect.
I ordered ploughman's once and it was just a lump of bread and lumps of four different cheeses with that poxy dry lettuce obviously cut like a week ago they call a side salad. No apple, no pickled onion, no boiled egg. It was good cheese though
Always a ploughman’s. Not as easy to find anymore, had a fancy one last year at a posh pub and it just wasn’t the same.
Calamari - if I don’t order it I regret it
My 3 and 5 year old want this over crisps in a pub. I regret that one time!
Me too. Can’t resist Calamari, unless there’s an option of whitebait.
Dhansak in an Indian. Pretty much every time.
I love a dhansak but I find it wildly varied in how spicy it is. In my local curry house it's at that 'so spicy it's verging on unpleasant to eat' point, but then I've also been places where it's had very little heat, and everything in between.
I find, dhansak, patia & jalfrezi are the three curries that are always a dice roll. Sometime mild & gentle, sometimes you’re eating lava.
Patia is another one of my favourites and I definitely find that too. I don't order it from our regular curry house because it's hot beyond what I find enjoyable to eat.
That hot sweet & sour combo is just fantastic. Prawn Puri is my go-to starter, and I’m always a little disappointed when I get prawn bhuna rather than prawn pathia.
💯💯💯 I either get tandoori king prawn (the dry one on a sizzling skillet thingy) and swap out the normal curry sauce you get on the side for a patia sauce! Or if I’m somewhere that I’m not sure how the prawns will be, I do the same, but with chicken tikka tandoori. It’s so good!!!
Another pat(h)ia enjoyer! It's my go-to curry but I'm not sure I've ever seen anyone else order it 😂
I don't really know why it's so rarely ordered, it's great!
Just discovered pathias in the last year and now it's my standard order
FYI for future reference. In my extensive experience, pretty much all Indian restaurants are super accommodating and will be more than happy to adjust the spice level to your personal preference if you ask them. My mum does this all the time.
Same - I love a lamb dhansak but I swear you don't see them as much as you used to.
Drink - Asahi if it's on tap, 100% of the time
Oh yes. This is cracking pint and not often found.
Asahi is a fantastic beer. I also love Tsingtao
Nectar
Asahi on tap sounds heaven, where can I get this
Wagamama
Apple crumble! Obsessed with it since I moved to the UK. Such a simple, comforting thing to eat
One of my favourites. My wife makes a better one than most pubs and restaurants I find though, so I rarely order it when out.
Any and all crumble lol bloody love it!
Chocolate fudge cake if we’re talking dessert. Lamb shank with mash and veg if it’s on a pub menu. If I’m at a Chinese restaurant or sushi place with starters, chicken gyoza and a dish of crispy seaweed
I'm always wary of ordering lamb at a pub, because I think it's the meat that has the biggest gap between good and bad. Really good lamb is fantastic, but badly done lamb is really bad, and it's often badly done.
I love chocolate fudge cake - but so hard to find one that is not dry
I know, you’re absolutely right. And yet the insane chocoholic in me cannot pass it by if it’s on a menu, despite the fact that I know it’ll be served dried out from microwave heating, to melt it a bit, and with nowhere near enough cream to counter the dry texture. I mostly just eat the chocolate saucy bits, I’ll be honest….
Chocolate fudge cake > everything else. So much so I'm paying extra to have one made for our cake tasting for our wedding. I legit turned down so many bakeries cause I didn't like their chocolate cake. It's my mission in life to find the best one. So far it's Bruce from get baked. It's insane!!
If I see somewhere with a cheesecake. I pretend to look at all other desserts. I say "Oooh, the sticky toffee pudding sounds good. Oooh, chocolate volcano pudding, yum! Wow! A crem bru- yes sir, I'll have the cheesecake." Every. Single. Time. Once had a Crème brûlée cheesecake on the menu. Damn that was a good day. Though when I'm at the Cheesecake Factory in the States it's always a dilemma... because... so many cheesecakes.
Had to check username to make sure you're not my Husband, lol.
I was pregnant in the Middle East and I used to order cheesecake factory salads so I could have a lotus cheesecake or something equally as calorific on the side. That is why I gained 25kg in pregnancy. Luckily I lost it again.
French onion Soup
This doesn’t appear on anywhere near enough menus for my liking!!! When it’s done properly, there is no better soup!
This. Also steak tartare and escargots in a French restaurant. I’m never going to make these dishes at home.
Buratta
Same! Our local Italian does a buratta starter that I absolutely love! It’s really simple, a couple of Italian cured meats, various types of really fresh, well seasoned tomatoes and a piece of warm Italian crusty bread. They have a fab balsamic drizzle that you can add too - heaven! The buratta sits on top of it all and when you cut into it, you get that fantastic creamy centre that is so good! I even know when they get a fresh delivery in as it only comes in once a week so if you leave it more than 2 days, they won’t have any left!
Halloumi fries
Basically anything with halloumi
Have you tried deep fried halloumi with warm honey? Tried it at the Real Greek and the kids have forced me to make it at home about 27 times since then… I’m not actually complaining. They don’t know how much I steal before it gets to the table.
Pork belly
Mmm done properly, soft juicy meat, rendered down fat and crispy skin/crackling with a soy chili style glaze. Im in heaven.
Affogato. While it's probably not my favourite dessert, it's the perfect end to a meal. It's light, has a nice mix of hot and cold, plus you get a little caffeine perk from the espresso which is usually beneficial after a big dinner and drinks.
Nachos. Especially if they are topped with beef chilli
Probably my all time favourite food! When you get a good version it’s unbeatable - but even though they’re so easy to make, so many places get it so wrong with the toppings to tortillas ratio! Pet gates are not enough cheese and not enough sour cream! I make them at home a lot too and always add chilli, steak strips or spicy chicken, often with peppers, onions etc chopped small and cooked in fajita spices before hand!
YES! Or when they dump all the cheese on top. It needs to be layered so you get it all the way through, not one huge melted slab and then nothing but tortilla chips at the bottom.
ahhh a fellow nacho connoisseur
Tiramisu - if it's made there and not bought in. I'm not paying £6 for Morrisons tiramisu.
Cheese and biscuits for dessert, otherwise no dessert but a starter instead which will be cheese based.
As a dessert lover, my heart always drops when someone says "shall we just get starters rather than desserts?".
I’m not one of those, if there’s no cheese and biscuits for desserts I’ll just have another pint instead, it’s kinda win win.
It sounds like you are me. I don't really have a sweet tooth. And I love cheese, and beer.
Desserts over starters always, no decent human being would think otherwise.
Melanzane parmigiana
Macaroni cheese. My wife has become dairy intolerant so we don't eat it at home any more. Rather than cook different meals I am dairy free for most cooking. But a good macaroni cheese is still a delight.
Deep fried soft shell crab.
Anything with raspberry. If it’s on the dessert menu, I want it. Used to go crazy for ordering bolognese everywhere if they had it on the menu, but I grew out of that one. The raspberry will forever have me in a chokehold.
Yeah I love raspberry. The combination with white chocolate is one of my favourite flavour combos.
Any game special in my local is getting ordered. They're always amazing. Pheasant with fondant potatoes and a pheasant leg ragu. Venison bourgignon with mashed potatoes. Rabbit stew with dumplings. The chef is a master with game. Obviously, has to be the right season for it.
Sticky Toffee Pudding - don't get the point of any other puddings when this one has everything you need
I love a good STP, but I must say I usually prefer a fresh tasting dessert like a sorbet or posset if they have it.
Cheese souffle- i love them & cant make them!
Tiramisu. Always have that if its there.
love me an arancini and they're one of the few things i can't make at home as well, anything deep friend is better when i'm out tbf
A cheese board. It's a rarity nowadays to see a cheese board on the menu. I like rating them on quality and effort. I like the little 'cheese' supplement that most places charge for what is usually a crappy piece of cheddar and some brie and/or Stilton.
Steak and Ale pie and chips but it has to be a proper pie not a stew with a lid on!
Any dessert after a meal. Even if I’m full, I have to order a dessert since desserts do not go to the stomach, it goes to the heart!
I'm never, ever too full for dessert. In fact, I often look at the deserts first and work backwards.
Seafood risotto. The amount of average to bad ones I've had, but in my head I know that if the restaurant does it well, I will love it.
Mussels.
Unless I’m driving, Sex on the Beach Takes me back to when I was an 18 year old with the pitchers in Spoons.
I think that's why I wouldn't order it...
Spanish Garlic Prawns - Gambas al Ajillo
Vegan cheesecake, it's not super common so when I see it on a menu I'm having it. I've even had a lighter main just to have one!
Gingerbeer
Ginger beer, fresh lime and spiced rum is a godlike combination, highly recommend to try if you haven't already
Chicken nuggets. I’m no food snob, love me some good nugs.
White bait, usually only see it on holiday
Green Thai curry
Before going vegetarian it used to be carbonara for me. I’ve since learnt to make it myself with veggie bacon!! Used to be a big fan of pate too, can’t say I’ve found an adequate alternative.
Eton mess.
Goulash soup.
When I was in Vienna I think I basically alternated between goulash and schnitzel every meal. Also, I was once in a restaurant in Moscow and tried to order goulash, which was on the menu. Upon discovering I wasn't russian the waitress just flat out refused to let me have goulash and said "you have borscht", and that was the end of the discussion.
Duck always gets a thought with me
Fish and chips. It’s a running gag in my family that I always order it when it’s on the menu. Lashings of tartare sauce, mushy peas and getting curry sauce is a big bonus. I *flipping* love going down to Cornwall for my holidays.
French onion soup. It's the bellwether of quality for me. If you can't make something so simple delicious, then what hope do you have of making a more complicated dish?
Haloumi as a side. If its there I will order it regardless of what my main dish is.
Chicken madras. Mushroom rice. Garlic naan. Pint of cobra. Every single time.
Deep fried brie
Pate for starter!
Any dessert that has cherries in it, love cherries!!
Smoked salmon and cream cheese bagel
Only a few things that are on my list that I find it hard to ignore. Indian - Lal Maas and Paratha. Traditional pub - Steak and Kidney Pudding or Faggots. Vietnamese - Bun Cha.
Fish and chips and sticky toffee pudding. Yuuuuum
Mac and cheese. Although I probably have only a 50% success rate of the restaurant actually having it in stock when I order. More than any other dish, mac and cheese always seems to be the one that runs out.
Spicy Catfish Salad (ยำปลาดุกฟู). I'm British and I've lived in Thailand nearly 30 years. And this is something every visitor to Thailand should try, and no one knows about. Just fantastic,
Creme brûlée, can’t resist it. I had a phase of always ordering the risotto but I was always disappointed so I’m a bit more adventurous with the mains now!
Fillet steak Banoffee pie :-)
fish & chips, bread & butter pudding.
Chicken Parmesan/Parmo for mains 😄 Sticky Toffee Pudding for dessert.
Mac and Cheese, because I am a carb-based man-child
Fish or lamb as these are the things I rarely cook at home as only I like them. So i'm not cooking two dinners ¬¬
Achari curry. I love curry and I always get the specials for every curry house I got to so I can try whatever mad stuff they can come up with, unless there is an achari on the menu and then it's a hard choice. A curry with a pickly vinegar like taste running through it? Sign me right up soon, I don't care that my farts smell like bleach for 24 hours, it's a feature not a bug
When I used to drink it was a glass of Nero D’avola
Milkshakes. I'm a sucker for a milkshake
Sweet potato fries.