The Cambridge Brewhouse, King Street, Cambridge

Twitter is a great place, it is where I nearly always hear about new restaurant openings and where I heard about The Cambridge Brewhouse. I'd heard whisperings a few weeks before, and then Cambridge News picked up on it and by opening night on Wednesday Twitter was awash with pictures of their delicious food.

The Cambridge Brewhouse is on 1 King Street, which is a pub that has suffered from being not that great. It was The Bun Shop for a long time, a shabby looking place which never really held any appeal for me, then just over a year ago it was refurbished and turned into The Jolly Scholar - I blogged about it back then - the food was okay and the service was really quite terrible. I heard many more bad reviews about it after that, and it closed last year.

So now is the turn of The Cambridge Brewhouse, and things are definitely looking up. They brew their own beer as well as having a selection of ales from independent brewers, they smoke their own cheese and meat and make their own sausages. The food is pub style with a twist and they do a selection of 'British Tapas' - little light bites to go with your beer or as a starter.

I started off with some Shepherd's Pie Croquettes which aren't the most photogenic things, but they were tasty. Very crispy on the outside with soft centre made up of mash and traditional lamb shepherd's pie filling. I would have liked the mash to be around the outside and a meat filling in the centre but the Mr did point out the logistics of this might have been pretty hard to achieve. So I'm just fussy.

There are a few vegetarian options on the menu, from either the tapas section or the mains, and you can have sandwiches in the day time too. Mr had a butternut squash pearl barley risotto served with a little pot of the house smoked cheddar. Again, it wasn't too photogenic (hence no picture) but it was delicious, nice and generous on the cheese and lots of herbs to go with the squash and pearl barley.

I had the pie of the day which was lamb and rosemary - served with either mash or chips and red cabbage, and importantly - extra gravy! The pastry was crispy and flaky and the filling slow cooked and tender, perfect. The chips were unfortunately a little bit soggy, only a few of them were crispy.

Feeling full we almost didn't have pudding, but all the food was 50% off for the soft launch, so it would have been rude not to. I had my favourite - Sticky Toffee Pudding which was sickly, sweet, sticky and perfect. It didn't look as drenched in sauce as others do, so I was worried it would be dry, but the sponge was perfectly soft and there was plenty of sauce to go with it.

Mr had the 'Winter Berry Eton Mess' - as far as we could tell it came with raspberries, which aren't particularly wintry, and in fact there are no berries around in the winter anyway. Maybe a winter Eton mess would be better if it was served with stewed or preserved fruit of some kind. Despite the fruit, the meringue was chewy and crispy, it had a generous amount of cream and the out of season raspberries were at least sweet.

With 50% off a beer and a glass of wine it came to £23, so at normal prices it is about average for a meal in Cambridge (I know, it is expensive here!). We'll definitely go back again, the food is interesting and I like that they have their own microbrewery and smokery.

You can find the menu on their website and also follow them on Twitter for updates.

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The Jolly Scholar, Cambridge

Update: The Jolly Scholar has now closed and has been replaced by the Cambridge Brewhouse, read my review here.

Since I heard the Jolly Scholar had opened I was quite keen to go, it was formerly the Bun Shop which is a pub that was crying out for new owners and refurbishment. The Jolly Scholar is very gastropubby, in the decor and the menu. Inside it is lots of oak, old style furniture and little Cambridge themed decor - ie the punt suspended on the ceiling.

They popped up on Groupon recently so I bought a voucher, thinking that if it wasn't up to much then at least it only cost me £12 for £35 worth of food. Anticipating it being very busy due to the voucher (our experience at using a Groupon for The Rice Boat taught us this) we booked for 6pm, although when we arrived it was pretty quiet - a good sign, or not?

The Jolly Scholar is part of the same group as The Jolly Sailor in Orford - a very good place to find something yummy to eat, and of course a great place to find seafood. Mussels are one of my favourite things to eat so I ordered these, and Mr. Giraffe ordered the veggie burger (halloumi burger with other fried veg) with aioli & sweet potato chips. Both were good, a nice start. The mussels were very very fresh with a lovely white wine sauce and a slightly too huge portion of very nice crispy frites. The sweet potato chips that accompanied the burger were great too, they know how to do chips here.

Unfortunately the puddings let us down. I had a broiche & marmalade bread and butter pudding, which was perfectly acceptable if a little soggy, I like my bread and butter pudding to have a crispy top. The custard was however homemade, not the flouro Birds stuff. Mr's berry crumble was a huge disappointment, the berries were nondescript and mostly full of seeds and the crumble top was dusty and uninspired. Such a shame.

We loved the mains, but the puds let us down and so did the service. The restaurant was pretty quiet which only made the rather brash member of staff behind the bar barking orders at his staff sound even louder -  this also meant that the waitresses were quite nervous and obviously under undue pressure.

I don't think I'd pay full price here, the whole experience wasn't up to scratch despite the main courses being nice.

The Jolly Scholar
King Street, Cambridge
www.jollyscholar.co.uk

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The Eight Bells, Saffron Walden

Saffron Walden is a brilliant little town, about 15-20 minutes from Cambridge, full of lots of independent shops, delis and restaurants and seems to be a well kept secret! We live only 5 minutes drive away now so we shop and eat there often, the Saturday market is fantastic (go to the bread stall and the olive stall but for the tapenade) and there is a wool shop opening soon! We have also tried Dish Restaurant  and Cafe CouCou (for the puddings) there and both are a must, fantastic food.

But now onto the Eight Bells. We went about 6 months ago when it was under different ownership, the food was only okay, but the pub was taken over just before Christmas by new owners. The old chef from way back when the pub was better is back and the interior of this 15th century (?) building has been transformed in to a nice cosy place with big leather sofas and huge woodburners.

Lit with candles and dim lights it wasn't best for photography but it was very romantic!

We went one Saturday afternoon for one of the 'grazing boards' - we tried the Greek meze board - which was fantastic and really good value, £9 which fed both of us a nice lunch. They also have local cider on tap, yay!

Keen to go back we treated ourselves to an evening meal one weekday. The food was just as good as before, there is lots of choice on the menu and if you go for anything, go for the puddings. I had fishcakes with green beans and a lovely lemon butter sauce for main, oh and I had to order some onion rings because I love them - they were great and obviously made from scratch.

The real star was the enormous sticky toffee pudding with cinder toffee- drenched in caramel sauce and with a scoop of locally produced vanilla ice cream. Yum! I think I could have just had that and gone home happy. My hubby had the vegetable tagine which was really flavoursome for a vegetarian dish, followed by an immensely chocolatey chocolate brownie.

The pub is open all day, they do light bites, sandwiches along with their main meals. We will be going back soon, it is also a lovely place to stop off for a drink after shopping.

The website is here but you will find the menu on their facebook page

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