Summer lovin' at Prezzo

I do love eating out, but my bank account won't let me do it as often as I like, so when I was contacted by Prezzo and asked if I'd like to try its new summer menu in order to review it for the blog, I absolutely couldn't turn it down.

On arriving we were given a comfy booth right infront of the kitchen. We could see the chefs working hard, preparing all the delicious looking meals. The inside of the restaurant is full of super moody lighting and dark furniture, very sophisticated and intimate.


I've never actually eaten in Prezzo before. My nearest one is in Bristol, which is where Vince and I travelled to for our meal. Bristol's Prezzo is situated right opposite @Bristol in Anchor Square, which is an ideal location for people who have spent the day in @Bristol and want a bite to eat after or for those who want to stay near the harbourside and don't want to venture into the busy main town centre.

Prezzo has recently released its new summer-inspired menu as well as a range of gluten-free dishes. The new menu consists of authentic Italian flavours, expertly sourced by Executive Chef, Paul Lewis. The star of the show is the Roquito pearls, little red chillis packed full of sweetness and heat. They're peppered on pizzas, sprinkled on salads, such as the Crispy Crab and Citrus Salad, and they're completely exclusive to Prezzo.


We started off our meal with some olives and cheesy garlic bread. I have to admit we weren't big fans of olives, but we did give them a try. I was more than into the garlic bread though, a great portion size for two people to share and full of garlic and cheesy goodness. I definitely filled up on it a bit too much!


For starters I ordered the calamari, which came with a pesto and mayo dip and was absolutely delicious. It was super light and tasty and a perfect portion for starters. It wasn't too chewy either, which calamari can be sometimes. Vince ordered the king prawns, which came in a tomatoey sauce. He said they were packed full of chillies, parsley and fresh garlic. The garlic was cut into pretty big chunks, which is usually not what you'd want to see but he was super impressed as it wasn't overpowering at all, just fresh and delicious. I even sneaked a prawn myself and it was so good!


It was equally as tricky to choose what we'd have for our main courses. There was plenty of pizza and pasta to choose from as well as salads, burgers, chicken and fish dishes. The new summer menu is also packed full of superfoods and gluten-free and vegetarian options including the Superfood Brushcetta, which is a light sourdough with creamy goat’s cheese and an energy-loaded mix of five super beans and peas, and the Asparagus and Mascarponi Panciotti with peas, mint, spinach and lemon. Prezzo is big on its asparagus as it's packed with vitamins A, B, C, E and K, plus an array of minerals.

I knew I wanted either pizza or pasta and in the end I went for the Penne Con Salmone, which in simple terms boils down to oak-roasted salmon, brocolli and red chilli in pomodoro and pesto sauce. It seems like a super simple dish but it tasted amazing. It was full of flavour thanks to the oak-roasted Salmon, which was succulent and juicy with every mouthful and there was just a hint of a chilli kick too. The pasta was covered in delicious, herby sauce and the portion size was very generous, in fact it was so generous that I had to get Vince to help me polish it off. Not that he minded!

As usual Vince couldn't decide what we wanted. Luckily Prezzo have catered for the indecisive and offer two smaller portions of pasta instead of one main meal. Vince went for the Spaghetti with Meatballs and the Pappardelle Gorgonzola, which was seasoned chicken with pancetta, leeks, brocolli and parsley in a Gorgonzola sauce.

Vince really enjoyed his spaghetti and meatballs, which was super traditional and loaded with mushrooms, his only critisicm was the slightly watery sauce. The Papparedelle Gorgonzola was incredibly creamy and absolutely packed full of meat and both portion sizes were really generous. I think just one of the plates would have been more than enough as a main but it really felt like a generous size and we would definitely have felt like we'd received our money's worth if we had paid.


Although I was absolutely about to burst there was of course room for pudding. Once again there was so much to choose from, such as cheesecake, fudge cake, ice cream and the newly introduced three mini panacottas with summer-inspired berry compote. I decided to go for something light for a change and opted for a simple scoop of vanilla Gelato. It came served in a cold frosted bowl and although pretty basic, it was deliciously creamy. Vince went for the sticky toffee pudding with hot butterscotch sauce and vanilla ice cream. It was superbly sticky and the cold vanilla ice cream gave a nice contrast against the hot sticky toffee.

We really enjoyed our meal at Prezzo. The restaurant itself is the perfect setting for people looking for lunch or dinner with friends and family and works equally well for a date night with your other half. The staff are super friendly and helpful and the food itself is absolutely packed full of flavour.I'll definitely be going back as the prices were really reasonable and you know you're going to get traditional/classic Italian food with a slight twist or a kick of chilli or herb.

Have you tried Prezzo's new summer menu? Let me know in the comments. If not, and you want to find out more then head over to Prezzorestaurants.co.uk.


*I received the meal at Prezzo free of charge for review purposes!

Vita Coco Coconut Oil for the beauty and kitchen cupboard

Not often is there a beauty product that can be used in the kitchen as well. Coconut Oil is by no means a new product but it's become incresingly popular recently, being loved by the health concious, beauty bloggers and foodies!

The Vita Coco pots of coconut oil are cold-pressed and popped in their pots. When cold the coconut oil hardens, a bit like lard/butter but still retains its coconutty smell. I personally think it smells of the 'NICE' biscuits you can buy, delish!

I was recently sent a little pack of Vita Coco Coconut Oil to try for myself and so far I'm pretty impressed with the amount of things it can be used for.

In the kitchen...
Coconut Oil can be used in place of fat or oil in most recipes. My Lean in 15 Cook Book has a lot of recipes that incorporate coconut oil and it's great to cook with as it melts so easily, but it should be used in moderation as it's pretty high in saturated fats. It's perfect for vegetarians and vegans too and is 100% organic and 100% raw.

I recently gave the Lean in 15 Tuna and Courgette Fritters recipe a try, which was SO simple. The mix consists of tuna, grated courgette, onion, peppers, egg and flour, which I simply popped into the pan and sizzled it slowly in the coconut oil. The oil melts almost instantly and gives a lovely coconutty smell when cooking.

I cooked the fritters using the coconut oil and had to let them rest on kitchen roll just to soak up any excess oil. There wasn't a lot of excess oil when we reheated them for dinner, which was great, but there was a slight coconutty taste to them. It wasn't too overpowering and even my boyfriend, who doesn't like eating coconut, wasn't too bothered by it. The fritters were actually really yummy and I was super impressed with the coconut oil, it was a really nice change from using normal oil.

According to Vita Coco is also works a treat in cakes, stir frys, bread, biscuits and even added to smoothies. Basically if your recipe mentions needing oil you can use coconut oil as an alternative.





In your beauty regime...
Something I'm a bit more familiar with than cooking is beauty and coconut oil has SO many uses when it comes to your beauty regime. I've been using it on dry skin on my elbows, on dry patches of skin to keep it well moisturised and even on my cuticles. You can use it round your cuticles when painting your nails to help easily remove any smudges you might make.

It can also be used as a lip balm, cleanser, hand cream, make-up remover and even a hair mask. Why not add some lemon and sugar to create your own scrub, or use it as a leave-in conditioner, a shaving cream or add baking soda to create a whitening toothpaste or even use it to combat bad breath by 'oil pulling'.

It's become quite obvious to me that every household needs coconut oil in either its beauty cupboard or its kitchen cupboard. The oil is best used in its hardened form for anything beauty-wise but can be heated really easily for all things cooking. I'm super impressed by its many uses and I've got a little pot of the good stuff in my bathroom and one in my kitchen too.

The fab people over at Vita Coco have put together The complete life guide to coconut oil to help you on your way to using coconut oil in your daily life.

*This post contains PR samples.

Wahaca Bristol

Bristol seems to be steadily growing into one of those 'go-to' places for foodies. Park Street especially has opened a plethora of new 'trendy' restaurants over the past few years and the latest, which I've been waiting to try out for a while now, is Wahaca.

The new restaurant is tucked away at the top of Park Street but it's not unmissable thanks to its bright pink signage, drawing you in for lots of Mexican loveliness. The restaurant itself is very 'cool' with hipster art work and graffiti, snazzy hanging chairs, dim lighting and even a table football game.

It might look small from the outside but the restaurant goes quite far back so there's plenty of seating for all types. Vince and I popped in at 12pm on a Bank Holiday Monday - it had only just opened so was pretty empty, but within 10 to 20 minutes it was absolutely heaving and there was a real buzz about the place.

Things aren't too disimilar to other restaurants, you're popped down in-front of a paper menu, which the waiter proceeds to scribble all over and your dishes are brought out as and when they are ready. This has both upsides and downsides. The upside is that you get your food relatively quickly but you can end up like that scene in FRIENDS where Joey is left at the restaurant table and meals for six people arrive all at once. In other words: major overcrowding. Some people like to eat a starter, then a main and don't want to eat them together. Thankfully, I'm not one of those people, bring it all on I say! The other downside is that you can be tucking into your grub and other people are still waiting, leading to that awkward situation where you can't decide if you should start eating and risk looking rude or be polite and wait and risk letting your food get cold.

I'm not too familiar with Mexican food to be honest and the menu had so many options that it was difficult to choose. The waitress was really helpful and suggested a few things to us and went through how things worked. We both went for bigger mains (I had the Pork Pibil and Vince had some sort of chicken in sauce, I can't remember the name!) along with sweet potatoes on the side and a starter of three tacos. In hindsight we decided it would be better to choose lots of different things from the starter/street food menu, that way you get to sample a bit of everything! The tacos from the street food menu were pretty yummy, however I think they should come in twos or fours - it's difficult to share a taco in half between two people!

The food itself was really good - the Pork Pibil I had was technically pulled pork with a coleslaw and pink pickled onions. It came wrapped in a parcel of paper - the pork had a real almost sour kick to it while still being yummy. It was a good size too and I couldn't finish it all, which is unusual for me! Vince's chicken dish was a decent size, covered in creamy sauce and did look really good. Thinking back, we didn't actually try each other's dishes. I have to say the best part of the meal was the sweet potato side, which was absolutely delicious. I could have eaten pots and pots of the things. They were dressed in smoky caramelised mojo de ajo which was gorgeous!

Overall we had quite a lovely lunch and it was nice to try something different. You'll usually find us across the road in the Cosmo pan-Asian restaurant, as it's one of our faves, but we forced ourselves to have a bit of a change. The prices weren't too bad, the atmosphere and food was great so all in all a pretty successful trip. Next time we'll remember to try lots of different dishes for that 'proper' Mexican street food feel.

Before you go, why not nominate Cherry Pie in the Cosmopolitan UK​ Blog awards here under the 'Best Beauty' category.

Bare Grills Smokehouse Weston-super-Mare

Something a bit different from me today and something I hope there will be more of in the future. It all depends on our bank balances to be honest and whether or not we can afford to eat out!

Anyway, Weston-super-Mare isn't exactly known for having lots of good places to eat, we don't even have your basics…none of your Nandos, Wagamammas, TGI Friday, Bella Italia, Pizza Express or anything similar. No Bills, Zizzi…you get the idea. We have a couple of independent Indian restaurants, your usual junk food outlets, a Pizza Hut and that's about it, so I was really excited to try out a new smokehouse style place that has just opened in town.

The name itself pleased me before I'd even stepped inside. It's actually a lot smaller inside than I thought it would be but it's kind of cosy and there is a bar upstairs, which I'm sure gets super busy in the evenings. We were there on a Saturday lunch-time so I'm not surprised it was quite quiet.

The place has an American/Western vibe, quite similar to TGI Friday but less annoying and loud. The menu is very compact, there's burgers, hot dogs, steak and ribs and that is just about everything Vince and I look for in a meal! As I predicted, Vince went for the Jack Mac burger and I went for a baby half rack of barbecue ribs.

I have to say when the food came out we were pretty surprised. It might not look like much to someone who dines out all the time in the likes of TGI Friday/Meat Liquour etc but for Weston-super-Mare this was pretty impressive and it tasted absolutely delicious. The fries were coated in a scrummy seasoning and the ribs were sticky, barbecuey goodness. Vince really enjoyed his Jack Mac, which was stuffed with cheese, onions and pickles, but he definitely didn't need the extra patty!

These kind of food outlets are pretty popular at the moment - huge stacked burgers, more fries than you can imagine and all served on anything but a plate. Thankfully as this is Weston-super-Mare and not the likes of London, the prices are quite decent. I'm really glad somewhere like this has opened in the town and it's not far from the seafront either so it's bound to do well in the summer.

This is definitely the type of place Weston needs, to bring it a bit more up-to-date and somewhere that people actually want to spend time in. This is just the first stop in my exploration of Weston's eateries - if you're ever visiting one day then be sure to check it out!