Tuesday 22 April 2014

The Minories Garden Cafe



The Minories Garden Cafe

74 High St, Colchester, Essex CO1 1UE

The Minories Garden Cafe is situated at the end of the High Street/ top of East Hill, and is a stone's throw away from Colchester castle.  It is joined to the Minories Art Gallery, and boasts a pleasant outdoor seating area (complete with Victorian folly!)

The Chef has helpfully been veganising a lot of the vegetarian options.
Their current vegan options are:
  • Vegetable curry served with pilau rice and lime pickle, or jacket potato. (request no naan)
  • Five bean chilli with jacket potato and salad OR rice and salad. (If ordering with rice request no cheese, no sour cream. If ordering with jacket potato request no coleslaw)
  • Jacket potato with baked beans and salad. (request no coleslaw)
  • Roast vegetable and houmus sandwich served with Fairfield crips (Note: on the menu this is a sandwich, but the loaves of bread may contain whey powder, so request a baguette or roll instead. Also request no coleslaw)
  • Chefs’ Sharing Platter – fresh vegetable crudités with pitta bread and houmous
  • Homemade potato wedges, served with sweet chilli dip (request no mayonaisse)
  • Chefs’ Homemade Soup of the Day - always veggie and often vegan (served with a roll – ask for no butter; vegan spread unavailable at time of post).
  •  Drinks: a variety of herbal teas and pressed juices. Soya milk is available for tea or coffee.







Thursday 3 April 2014

Embassy Suit all-you-can eat Oriental Buffet


2 Balkerne HillColchesterEssex,CO3 3AA
Tel:  01206 572266


Read reviews here.

I recently went to the Embassy Suit all-you-can eat Oriental Buffet for a family meal (on a Sunday lunch time).

I managed to make up a plate of stir fried vegetables, spring rolls, tofu in a chili sauce, plus boiled rice. (I had to ask for the plain rice because they only had egg fried rice on display on the buffet). 



For dessert I had a bowl of tinned peaches and pineapple! (not overly exciting, but better than nothing!)




The Embasy Suit is big, noisy and crowded, but the food was cheap, (£4.95 for the lunch time buffet) and quite tasty.



Not a place to go for an intimate meal, but a good place to go to fill up without spending much money!