Restaurant-Guide.com
hand picked restaurants

With its cultivated take on provincial southern Indian cooking, The Coconut Lagoon is a bright, informal restaurant, which is popular with their easygoing crowd of Kenilworth regulars. Lively jade green walls and soft lighting create a subdued, relaxing atmosphere.

Their cuisine subtly explores diverse colonial influences of the invasions by the Portuguese, Dutch, French and British on provincial cooking. This restaurant recreates aromatic specialities from the South Indian states of Kerala, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Goa. These areas have long coastlines and generously use rice, seafood and coconut. Their feast menus designed for four people has varying degrees of spice - mild, medium and hot to suit different tastes.

For some time I made the mistake of thinking that no group of restaurants in the region of 200 locations could hope to maintain the quality for which I was looking.

Then one day I decided to put my prejudices to the test, walked into Oxford Ask! and discovered that I could not have been more mistaken. Their claim to serve freshly prepared quality food in stylish and comfortable surroundings with friendly and efficient service proved to be absolutely spot on.

Since then I have also discovered that a degree of consistency seems to operate throughout their restaurants, and that certainly does take some achieving, implying a degree of management that is enviable. They are perfect places for an impromptu snack, a bit of culinary grazing, or the full works, and families are catered for particularly well.

Their trendy décor usually comprises tiled floors and black furniture with well set tables that sparkle with glass, silver and spotless linen. Ten starters include crostini and bruschetta, followed by a range of salads, pasta and al forno, oven baked pasta, some with chicken.

The pizzas are stone baked in the oven, creating a crisp, authentic and delicious flavour, and they all come topped with mozzarella and tomato. Calzone introduce a touch of opulence with a folded pizza baked in the oven and topped with garlic butter and melted grana padano, whilst inside expect to find chicken or a vegetarian mix.

Amongst the specials may I warmly, in every sense, recommend the polpette al forno, a popular Milanese dish of beef meatballs sautéed in garlic with fire roasted peppers, caramelised onions, chilli and pomodoro sauce, with penne pasta, topped with cheese and oven baked.

An enticing selection of desserts list banoffee pie and tiramisu amongst them, and the coffee tastes like coffee, which may sound banal, but I guess you know what I mean.

Thanks to a well selected wine list speculative drinking can offer handsome dividends, even with prices rarely crossing the £20 barrier.

Situated in the centre of Stratford-upon-Avon, this restaurant offers a warm, comfortable ambience to enjoy fine British cuisine. The interior features a colourful lounge bar with original wooden beams, sofas and a log fire. During summer the guests enjoy al fresco dining in the covered patio. More generally visitors dine in the Elizabethan dining room where oak beams and oak paneling enhance its historic atmosphere.

Among the smaller dishes pine nut and herb coated goat's cheese with red onion marmalade and sweet onion bread and Scottish oak smoked salmon are fit for royalty. With steak, mushroom, and Guinness pie topped with puff pastry and pan fried calves liver and crispy pancetta you may well feel like the famous actors who visited here during an earlier era. A zesty lemon and raspberry posit and sticky toffee pudding should take care of any craving for that little extra with which to end.

A traditional wine list and a well stocked bar will keep your spirits high throughout the meal.

The distinctive Grade II Grosvenor makes a very good match for the historic town that it serves, with a rambling ground floor of tremendous character and a slightly old-fashioned, in the best sense, approach to such matters as personal service and care of their guests.

The Hotel is part of the Best Western group, almost always an indication of professional attention to detail. This is particularly the case in the restaurant which has a truly international flavour backed by well-starched table settings that include sparkling glassware.

Starters set the pace with an oriental duck salad on mixed leaves with an oriental dressing, salmon and crab fishcakes on roquette salad with a light Thai cream, any of which can be followed with a refresher course of lemon, blackcurrant or mango sorbet.

Pan-fried medallions of beef with a Stilton cheese rarebit on a potato rosti and drizzled with port wine and tomato concasse reduction open up the mains selection, with steamed lemon sole fillets stuffed with prawn mousse, set on crushed herb potatoes, with roasted cherry tomatoes and dill butter cream doing ample justice to the restaurant's approach to fish.

The treacle tart served with warm vanilla custard brings a touch of classicism to the desserts, along with the Normandy crêpes, filled with apples and cinnamon and laced with toffee sauce and ice cream.

With New World wines once again beating the French in blind tastings it is time to pay close attention to the wine list, especially one as well travelled as this version. A comparison between the Californian Hidden Falls Merlot and the French Beaujolais, Domaine Pavillon de Chavannes, as served in French Embassies throughout the world, should make for some interesting observation.