great western hotel exeter

Hi all.

 

I regularly visit a friend in exeter and use the Great Western Hotel.  This is a hotel but it is in many ways like a pub.  There are a good few locals as well as staying guests.  The Hotel is known for its range of real ales.

 

The Great Western Hotel has a restaurant and a bar menu which are quite different.  In the bar there is a main menu and a specials board.  Dishes on both tend to be reasonably traditional though the specials board is a little more adventurous.  Dishes on the specials board have included Cajun Tuner Salad with bread and butter, New Zealand mussels with prawns in a salad, lemon chicken on Basmati Rice, Home Made Faggots with mash, etc.

 

Well over easter the Great Western chef decided to go all out mad.  I don't know if the cold was getting to him but one of the meals was 3 lamb chops placed on a belgium chocolate waffle topped with home made onion rings.

 

If you've ever had a belgium chocolate waffle with ice cream or maybe used a waffle stall somewhere you will know that they are very  rich and smothered with chocolate.  This sat very unusually with the lamb chops which were in fact minted as well.

 

An interesting experience and I'm glad I went for it though it really was as odd as I expected it to be.

 

Rama Thai, 208 Mile End Road London

This restaurant provides a relatively small selection of thai dishes that are well cooked, flavoursome and reasonably priced. I attended this restaurant on 9th February, 2 days before my birthday. there were 10 of us and while this restaurant prepares food pretty quickly for up to 3 or 4 people, it does take rather a long time for larger groups. Most people enjoyed their food but did think it took rather a long time. I had a spicy mushroom soup as a starter followed by Weeping Tiger as a main which is chopped steak smothered in a wickedly hot chilli sauce that did the trick just fine. Coconut pancakes and a whisky coffee finished things off just nicely. We paid approximately £25 each for 3 courses, a liqueur Coffee and 2 beers each which is a pretty good price for a thai restaurant. The place is also guide dog friendly.

I would recommend this place, but only for groups of up to 5 people.

If this condition is met then I give it 8 out of 10 as prices are cheap and food decent and well cooked.