WE TRAVEL TO EAT
 

"We travel to eat" is our travel mantra. food has one of our most enjoyable endeavors as we wandered our way across turkey, italy spain, portugal over the last 15 years. considering a 3 week driving vacation wandering the UK in march or april. the wife is dragging her feet because of the food issue. she can't eat beef and also we tend to love food from the warmer climates. would we find a variety of foods as we traveled to small villages?

thanks

There is a huge variety of great regional produce in the UK - however March or April is a bit early for the best of the fruit and veg, and/or for game.

The sort of things you should be looking out for are:-

Seafood/shellfish (scallops, oysters, squat lobsters, mackeral, salmon, trout etc)

Cheeses (too many to list).

Asparagus (just, if you are lucky - late April onward) - East Anglia.

Rhubarb (again if you are lucky - it's late April onward) - go to Yorkshire for this.

Rare pig breeds (Gloucestershire, Berkshire, Suffolk) and pork products in general (pork pies, sausages etc)

Boozes like artisanal gins and beers.

Sweets (some great chocolate makers like Paul A Young in London, Choccoco down in Dorset).

Clotted cream and other dairy products (I favour Roddas - we have a loose family connection!).

Later in the year ie summer and earlier autumn you would have had the best berries in the world and some fab gamebirds....is it worth reconsidering dates?

Check out in advance, food festivals, farmers markets and streetfood markets - I like Mill Road in Cambridge but it is only on a couple of times a year.

I think that you will be pleasantly surprised. There has been a food revolution in the UK over the last 20 years so if you choose well, you should be able to have plenty of excellent food, with no beef in sight if that's what you prefer.

There are a number of guides that you may find helpful - the Good Food Guide would seem an obvious place to start, also Alistair Sawdays has good recommendations for accommodation which may also help you with food as many of the inns he recommends have good food too.

You may be surprised as well by the range of food you can get here - there are restaurants specialising in food from all over the world including Asia, plus fusion food and gastropubs, as well as "fine dining". So there should be enough to suit your wife in most places that you are likely to visit.

Of course you're not going to find all of this everywhere. You may find that you need to do a bit of research if you are going to be traveling into very small places to make sure that you'll able to find places that meet your needs. But overall I think that you should be happy with what you find in most parts of the UK.

I agree that you should do OK, and that you'll need to do a bit of research. Good food is important to me, too, but the UK is worth the occasional food desert in outlying areas. ;)

Some of the best curries in the world can be found in the UK.

Yes you can eat very well in small places as well as big cities. I eat beef maybe once every 5 years and I never go hungry.

I'm not sure you can access the BBC but this might help
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00zxv3j

Just to amuse myself this is the sort of thing you'll find in my little town
http://www.visitotley.co.uk/eat-drink/ for an over view of the many restaurants including a fantastic little Thai, three good "Indian" (Kashmiri in our case), thee good Italians (one very very good), etc etc
http://www.visitotley.co.uk/plan-your-trip/events/ for the events which include a monthly farmers market, plus three vegetable and fruit markets a week. The food and drink festival in July, The Beer festival and the Christmas party.

I see that tripadvisor has just announced the world's best restaurant is based all of 50 miles north of here in a pub, with the number 2 being a large pub in the middle of Oxfordshire (4 seasons no less).

So food, not a problem.

Spring is lamb season.

you'll always find a chippy somewhere

thanks heti

To give you an Idea -- there are nine 3* Michelin restaurants in Paris . . . and seven in London (nine if you include the two in Bray up the Thames in Berkshire)

The UK is not some culinary backwater. The days of over cooked veg and three types of potatoes w/ every dinner ended 30+ years ago.

People who say the food is pants (look it up) either haven't been in decades, OR they eat at nasty places like Aberdeen Angus steak houses (would give Denny's a bad name) OR order 'typical American food' and expect it to be just like back home.

Glad someone mentioned lamb. I'm sure some will think it blasphmey,but I've had better meals in the U.K. than I've had in France.

Food is near the top of my priorities for travel, and we keep returning to England, as often as twice a year. Most of what I love eating there has already been mentioned but there's good Greek and Middle Eastern too.

I love the baked goods and dairy products. My husband loves the fish. Cheese and lamb are both treats.

I live in California where we have countless great restaurants . . . but I can honestly say I've had more bad meals here than in my 2 to 3 trips a year to the UK. I can count on one hand the number of bad meals I've had there in 20 years.

The lamb, game of all types, scallops, salmon, pork, Scottish beef (I seldom eat steaks out), veg, fruit, Afternoon teas, DESSERTS (one sticky toffee pudding and you'll be converted for life :) ) Cheeses, great wine lists, and the beer/cider(!)

I've eaten quite well in France/Paris -- but in general I've had better and more memorable meals in London and the UK

thank you so much for the great info. are most of the "good meals" that you are talking about in london and other large cities. we tend to spend a lot of time in smaller villages.

>>that you are talking about in london and other large cities.<<

Many have been in London and in other large cities -- but many more have places like the Peat Inn (in a wide spot in the road village in Scotland called . . . Peat Inn), The Kingham Plough and the Wild Rabbit in the small village of Kingham near Stow on the Wold, the many great seafood restaurants in small villages and towns in Cornwall, the Nut Tree -- used to be just a local thatched pub with beans on toast in a 'nothing village' in NE Oxfordshire that is now a Michelin starred destination restaurant http://nuttreeinn.co.uk , amazing places in the Yorkshire dales, wonderful fish & chips everywhere from London to the NE to a simple cafe in Anstruther Scotland, you name it. Could list 100+ more . . . (places I've eaten personally - not those I know only from reputation)

Just terrific food all over,

I can absolutely recommend the Sportsman in Seasalter in Kent. It has become trendy now, and getting a table can be tricky, but we have been going there since the current owners have been there, never had a bad meal.
http://www.thesportsmanseasalter.co.uk/

We've had lots of great meals in London, but have had several trips based in the countryside and smaller towns.

I've eaten well in York, and the Dales, and Keswick, and small village pubs in the Lakes, Cornwall, the Cotswalds, and lots of other places. We've had absolutely wonderful food in historic houses (not Chatsworth) and in some museums.

Our worst meals have been when we've wandered into places with no recommendations or leads, but that hasn't happened very often, and sometimes happens no matter where we are.

I wouldn't rave about the food that we had in our 10-day trip to Cornwall last fall, though we did have one of the best meals ever with annhig outside of Penzance (maybe she can refresh our memory of the name of the place).

I think I can always find better food to my taste in France, but I live here so have some advantages. But it is a really ancient attitude that there is not good food in the UK.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicken_tikka_masala

Some call Chicken tikka masala Britain's national dish - served in ubiquitous Indian restaurants and thought to have been dished up for first time in UK - various versions as to where though - just in 1970s.

You haven't eaten in the UK in over a decade but you are always good at googling . . . .

Some of the best places to eat in the UK are country pub/restaurants. If you want to travel in the countryside and travel to eat, as you put it, I assume you've got hold of the Good Food Guide and the Michelin guide.

We're not some backward nation that only eats beef.

Go away and do some proper research, if food is that important to you, and tailor your trip around special places to eat. There are very many of them in beautiful country settings.

The Good Pub Guide is also a great reference, especially in the countryside. Reservations are a must for most of the pubs, at least on weekends. There is an app that is very helpful in finding great pubs nearby.

You haven't eaten in the UK in over a decade but you are always good at googling>

I watch Coronation Street where this came up.

You think watching Coronation Street makes you an expert on British food? Or anything else, for that matter? Dream on.

Read this this morning http://www.telegraph.co.uk/food-and-...gordon-ramsay/

Not that TA is the be all and end all (I seldom read the reviews) but just another indication.

(PQ is enamored of Coronation Street, the London Dungeon, and Blackpool - 'nuff said)

I'm fortunate to live in Yorkshire, and also fortunate to have eaten (and stayed overnight) at the Black Swan. Wonderful experience (aided by the four poster bed and the huge copper bath tub).
Up here in Yorkshire we have what are known as the Super Six - six fantastic Michelin starred restaurants. Think they have all held onto their stars this year.
However, beyond the Super Six we have some fabulous pubs and restaurants. You'd be spoilt for choice if you holidayed up here. Plus the people are famed for their friendliness and the scenery is superb.
Have a look at the Yorke Arms for instance, in a tiny village in Nidderdale and looking like something out of a picture book - serving the best food I have ever eaten. It has rooms so you can stay over (and I can vouch that the breakfasts are brilliant too).
http://www.yorke-arms.co.uk/
It might be having a change of management soon though.
The Hardens Food Guide is also a very reliable source for the best food in the country. I use it more than the Good Food Guide.
http://www.hardens.com/

LOVED the Yorke Arms - went thanks to Morgana's recommendation.

Hope to make it to the Black Swan sometime next Spring(?)

Meant to add - whilst no one should ever take culinary advice from Coronation Street (LOVE that programme), Bettys Hot Pot made slowly from lamb can be a wondrous thing to eat!
Deirdre's Stuffed Marrow was a long running joke in the programme too.
Janis - Tommy Banks is all over the TV and newspapers here, best book way in advance.... And if you are in this area next Spring it would be fab to meet up and cook for you!

Meant to add - whilst no one should ever take culinary advice from Coronation Street>

Obviously but they mentioned it once in context of being so so popular itintrigued me so asked folks here in a thread about it and many Brits said yes it was very popular - so yes it is good to mention something so so popular in UK to folks who Travel for Food- right? Rather than be met with denigrating disdaining comments about doing so.

Spag Bol is another very popular British dish they talk about on Corrie!

Nice when you go abroad to taste the delicacies but also IMO very popular foods with common Brits- everyone knows about fish and chips but foreigners may not have heard of tikki masala.

Chicken tikka masala is the lowest common denominator of Indian food, and Indian food was already mentioned upthread. For foodies there are MANY more interesting Indian dishes available. Ditto Italian. Would you send a foodie visiting the US to Olive Garden? (And if the answer is "yes", please quit commenting on foodie threads.)

<<I wouldn't rave about the food that we had in our 10-day trip to Cornwall last fall, though we did have one of the best meals ever with annhig outside of Penzance (maybe she can refresh our memory of the name of the place). >>

I can of course, St C - it was the Old Coastguard Hotel and Restaurant , at Mousehole - though there is another equally good restaurant in the same village plus a pub serving pretty good pub nosh.

http://www.oldcoastguardhotel.co.uk

http://www.2forestreet.co.uk

https://www.shipinnmousehole.co.uk

Back in Penzance there are probably 6 or so decent restaurants where anyone could be happy with what they are served plus a number of decent pubs.

It seems to me that you have two possible ways of approaching this - either work out a route that you fancy and then research decent places to eat nearby, or research what you think will be good eateries, and plan a week accordingly.

Chicken tikka masala is the lowest common denominator of Indian food>

And also the most popular - a food person may want to try one of the most popular dishes in EU?

Wili: It is among the United Kingdom's most popular dishes, leading a government minister, Robin Cook, to claim in 2001 that it was "a true British national dish".

If I were a foodie I'd want to try one of the most popular dishes in a country - why not mention it?

And hot dogs, hamburgers and pizza are probably the most popular dishes in the US. Popular does not mean good or interesting.

Morgana: I'd LOVE to meet up. That would be great. Injured my knee in Peru in August and it is very slow getting back to normal so I'm not making plans yet -- I'll know more this winter. I am going to London at the end of Nov . . . but there I can use taxis and buses to get around if needed.

PQ: Give it a rest, will ya. please. The OP is pretty obviously not thinking of Chicken tikka - that ain't a 'foodie' thing.

But honestly >>but foreigners may not have heard of tikki masala.<< Really? Maybe not in northern Michigan but anywhere else it is pretty common.

I think some people here are unaware of the usual BRITISH definition of a 'foodie'.
Describing yourself as such over here would define yourself much more as a gourmet or lover of refined food.
That does not include our version of a spag bol, or tikka masala or hot pot, however lovely such dishes might be when cooked well!

Morgana - interesting. I would have defined it the same way (I grew up in England but have lived in the US for many years) but Merriam-Webster defines it as: "a person having an avid interest in the latest food fads". However, other online sources disagree.

In any case, I can't imagine describing tikka masala, spag bol or hot pot(!) as a "latest food fad". And in the US I imagine it is referring to the most recent "in" ingredient, or technique, like molecular cooking or food foam.

Webster is very much an "American" dictionary :-)

That is why I cited it.......! See the "but"?

I'm agreeing.