Birthday Rockfish meal

I always take my friend Irina to the same restaurant every time she comes down to visit me in Plymouth. She lives in London and loves seafood. So in my head, Rockfish is the best place to go (and she loves it)! Plus, they only have restaurants in the South West so you can't get it in London! The fish is caught daily so the fish you're eating that day is so fresh and tasty! She came down last weekend for my Birthday so naturally before she got the train home we grabbed some seaside fish and chips.

Time and time again, they give the best service and even better food. Sorry if I make anyone hungry after reading this post, I'm already wanting it again and I haven't even put the pictures in yet... The restaurant over looks the Plymouth Sound and has a lovely seaside chic interior with lots of booths.

Now, lets get down to the details.. thats why we are all here! I am so predictable when I come to Rockfish, I get the same starter every time. IT IS SO DELICIOUS.

I mean lets just take a moment to look at this crab delight...

White and dark crab meat stuffed in a crab shell with a side salad, brown bread and garlic aioli. Its just beautiful. 

For main we both had the mixed plate of different seafood. It had prawns, monkfish, cod, sprats (normally there is calamari but they didn't have any!). The dips were their original tartar sauce and sweet chilli sauce, mmmmmm....

We'd be drinking the night before so as much as the gin cocktails were tempting me I decided to be sensible and also a big kid. I had a traditional coke float. I didn't even feel ashamed asking for it...

Best decision of the day.

Massive thank you to Rockfish for a lovely birthday meal and fantastic service! I'm sure we'll be back for lots more seafood soon!

Check out their website and head to your nearest Rockfish for amazing food!

Plymouth Gin Festival

If you know me, you'll know I love gin. When I saw that a gin festival had scouted out the Plymouth Guildhall for the next location I texted my friend Sian (fellow gin lover) and we bought our tickets instantly! It cost us £12 for the ticket which included free entry to the festival, as many samples as we could manage, a gin bible (best thing ever) and a gin festival glass (they were selling for £3.50). I have to admit I was expecting at least one full G&T on entry for the price but it was good fun!

The event started at 2pm and went onto 11.45pm. We arrived at 3.30pm, we didn't want to get there at the start as we were going on a night out afterwards with work so wanted to pace ourselves... As you entered you got given a wristband to allow entry in and out of the festival as you wished. We also got the goody bag and then were let loose!

Now, this was the first time I'd been to this sort of event before so I had NO IDEA what you were meant to do... We soon found out that there were stalls around the left of the hall where you could go and chat to them about their gins (and buy some if you wanted) then have a taste. After you'd gone around around 10 (?!) stands tasting at least two gins you definitely feel a bit fuzzy headed! Then you'd consult your gin bible and go to choose a gin from the bar, there was hundreds. I was in heaven. My favourite gin of the day was a Warner Edwards rhubarb gin with a ginger ale tonic (Franklins & Sons tonic). The guys on the tonic stall were great at advising you on what tonic to have with your gin.

I was very excited when I saw Sipsmith as I'd wanted to try their sloe gin for agessss and debated for a very long time buying some a while back, but more on that later. Other brands that were there included Curio, Plymouth Gin (obviously), Tarquins, Copperhead and a few more that slip my mind...! Now gin interests me more than just the taste... (what, you don't believe me?!...) I love finding out what distillers put in to make them different from everyone else. Most of the stands had pots of what they put in the gin other than the normal ingredients. You were able to smell and taste the individual ingredients which meant you were able to pick out the tastes when you drunk the neat (!!) gin they gave you.

I'm a little biased, Plymouth Gin has always been a favourite of mine and their sloe gin is the best I've ever tasted. The guy on the stall has convinced me to come for a tour around the distillery, not that it took much convincing, I'll be honest, I've always bought their gin but Sipsmith is battling out with them for a top spot now! We waited for a long time to try their sloe gin as I've mentioned I've wanted to try it but £30 is a lot of money if you aren't a biggest fan of something! Unfortunately he only had one bottle of taster left and needed that for the masterclass later in the day. So we made a note to attend. 

8pm comes around and two fuzzy headed twenty somethings turn up to hear about about Sipsmith and damnn it didn't disappoint! The lovely rep Rich proceeded to talk through the history of the company and how it was formed. Two old friends reuniting and finding their drinks historian Jared who helped them brew their first bottles in a tiny garage in London. Years passed and they now make the most beautiful gin. And as I said, it is now a very close call between their sloe gin and Plymouth Gin's, I FEEL SO CONFLICTED.

I had a great day at the festival and enjoyed learning all about the gins (as well as drinking ALOT of gin)... You can't really go wrong with a good day of drinking with fellow gin lovers.

Review: HubBox, Plymouth

When my friend was down from London, I decided to take her to HubBox as I had heard really great things about it but hadn't been myself yet! If i'm honest, I was a bit let down...

I had the 'Hot Chick' burger and I felt like it was mostly bun and salad than chicken which was a massive disappointment as on the menu it was my burger down to a tee! Hot, crispy chicken in a bun. Yum. But as you can see below, that top thin layer is all the chicken I got....

On the other hand, my salted caramel shake was incredible and it came it a massive big tin! We also ordered the cheesy 'dirty' fries which were also meh. They were meant to be really spicy but they weren't, although they were better than the burger and the HubBox sauce was pretty immense.

Saying this, I think I will try again as I have heard nothing but good things about this place and my friend had the 'Big Kahuna' and said it was incredible so maybe I just made a bad choice...

Atmosphere was great, music was even better and its always packed! Will definitely be going back soon, but think I'm going to try a hot dog!

Bx