Should you find yourself in Canterbury...

There are lots of things to see and do in Canterbury. As well as the obvious touristy things like the Cathedral and Canterbury Tales display, there is a delightful walk around the top of the city walls, a city museum, the Rupert the Bear museum and a variety of boat and punt trips are available. Canterbury is also a really great place to go for a wander round the shops, with a quirky mixture of modern new malls and ancient, beamed buildings off narrow medieval alleys. There is no shortage of choice when it comes to food either, with the usual array of Ask, Cafe Rouge, Pizza Express and so on in prominent locations on the main street.

If you fancy something a little more....interesting, then take the time to find Tiny Tim's Tearoom just down from the Canterbury Tales Experience. It's worth the effort! With traditional favourites likes poached eggs on toast and Welsh rarebit on the menu alongside cream teas and more substantial meals, there really is something for everyone. The building itself is very old and full of character, with low beams and nooks and crannies on all floors. Ok, it's not cheap, but it is worth it. I recommend the Welsh rarebit topped with a poached egg. Delicious!

Having enjoyed a lovely light lunch in Tiny Tim's I suggest a stroll round the corner and down Hawk Street to the city museum. Having had your fill of local history, it is a very short walk down the alley along side the museum to Brown's Coffee House. Go, sit in a huge leather sofa, soak up the friendly atmosphere and enjoy one of the best cups of coffee you're ever likely to try. If you have any room after your lunch, try a slab of one of the delicious cakes on offer too, you won't be disappointed. Places like Brown's are hard to find with the prevalence of Starbucks and Costa etc, so it is refreshing to stumble across a genuine, friendly, high quality coffee house offering so much more than formula menus and bought in character.

Goddard's Pie & Mash and Greenwich Market

Greenwich market is one of those places I can wander round for ages. I love the variety of stalls and little shops around the edges, the mixture of arts and crafts as well as clothes and antiques is always interesting. But the thing I like most is the huge variety of food available there. A truly international mix of authentic street food stalls at the river end of the market provides a mouthwatering scent in the background as you pick your way between the rows of stalls. More of that later though.

Pie, mash & green liquor is about as regional as food gets. Peculiar to East London, traditional pies are minced beef in flakey pastry. Personally, I like two pies, one mash and plenty of green liquor with a liberal sprinkling of white pepper and vinegar on everything. Originally the liquor was made using the juice of the eels that had been jellied, but these days it's pretty much just a gravey-like parsley sauce. Goddard's and Manzie's have been the two main rivals in south east London since the 1890's, both have their fans and both have their strong points. I always thought Goddard's had better pies but Manzie's did better liquor. It's been many years since I've had either, so when Josie suggested pie & mash for lunch today I was delighted! Inside Goddard's was exactly as I remember the Deptford shop looking nearly thirty years ago, with the traditional refectory style long wooden tables and benches, cream tiled walls, and real fast food. Josie chose a steak & kidney pie with mash and gravy, while Dee opted for a chicken & mushroom pie with mash and gravy (philistines...gravy. Really?) while I stuck with my traditional choice. It was every bit as good as I remember, and as good as I hoped.

If pie & mash doesn't appeal then wander along to the river end of the market. There you will find such a variety of food stalls I guarantee you'll find something to tickle your taste buds. There is everything from paella to dim sum, pizza to Moroccan cuisine, crepes to sushi, cupcakes to South African wurst. On a previous visit we tried the teriyaki, fresh tempura prawn and cooked to order chicken teriyaki on sticky rice was the stand out choice. Next time we're there I think I'll try the dim sum, it all looked so good it's really difficult to choose though. It's great to see some slightly more unusual food on offer as well, with Italian fried rice balls stuffed with all sorts of fillings, Ethiopian vegetarian dishes, Moroccan fusion food, as well as some slightly more mainstream things like fresh crepes and fruit with chocolate fondue poured over the top. There is a cupcake stand featuring a vast array of full sized and miniature vegan cupcakes, all beautifully decorated and presented, and a really good baker selling lots of different breads, cakes, pastries and macaroons.

Churros are Mexican straight donuts. Very tasty, covered in sugar and cinnamon.

The guys on this sushi stall were making california rolls and maki rolls while we watched. If it wasn't for the fact that we had sushi Saturday night I would have given it a try.

The food being produced on this dim sum stall looked particularly good. A wide variety of steamed buns, fried and steamed dumplings, char siu pork, all sorts of yummy looking things.

Greenwich is certainly worth a visit just for the history. The National Maritime Museum, the Royal Observatory, the Royal Park, and soon to reopen phoenix-like from her own ashes the Cutty Sark (one of the fastest tea clippers ever to set sail) in her fully restored glory are all worth the trip alone. Grab lunch from one of the market stalls, or perhaps one of the little independent tea rooms or restaurants around the town in preference to the generic chain places like Nandos or Zizzi. I don't have anything against them, it's just that there is better, fresher, more imaginative food available at very reasonable prices right there in the market.

The Plough at Langley

This isn't really a review, just a quick comment or two. We stopped at The Plough at Langley for lunch while we were out and about today, and I'm rather glad we did! It's a lovely old building with a little garden area at the front with half a dozen picnic tables with umbrellas on it where you can sit and watch the world go by. It's one of those places I've always liked the look of, but never actually been to.

Although the interior decor is quite dated, the excellent selection of real ales (including a house ale brewed just done the road in Tonbridge) on offer and a menu of really traditional pub grub classics more than makes up for it.

Dee had ham, eggs & chips. A couple of nice lightly fried eggs on a vast amount of Yorkshire style ham and a pile of fat, crispy chips. Not too imaginative, but very tasty! I think I came out ahead though because I had The Plough Burger, which was just great. A big, juicy, homemade burger in a nice bun with a pile of salad and a handful of chips. It was delicious! As a burger maker of some experience myself, I must say I was impressed. It had a generous amount of herbs mixed in with the beef, giving it an interesting twist and plenty of flavour.

Pick a sunny day, have a pint of something you've never tried before, order a burger (a bargain at just £7.50) and sit out the front. Make sure you grab a proper bottle of ketchup from the bar on the way out though, because the cheap nasty stuff in sachets they give if you sit outside you is awful.

Imaginative, fun, interesting food at last! Mu Mu's in Maidstone

At last! Really fun, really tasty food - and it was right on my doorstep all the time! Last weekend I went out to help a couple of friends celebrate their birthdays. When they told me they were holding it at Mu Mu's nightclub and bar in Maidstone I thought twice about going, I'm not really a nightclub person, but a few people told me the food was really good and how can you say no to a birthday bash, eh?

At first I thought £35 for three courses was a bit on the steep side, but actually it turned out to be an absolute bargain. We had a couple of drinks in the bar while we waited for everyone to arrive, draught Japanese lager seemed the best bet from a fairly limited choice, then we were shown to the restaurant in what was once a pub next door. The birthday girls were seated in gilded thrones in the middle of our long table, in a room decorated in a gothic style - could have been a bit tacky, but it wasn't and I loved it.

We had chosen our food in advance, so things started to come to the table fairly quickly. First of all we were given a tall glass of rum and fruit punch each (included in the price of the meal) and then a waiter came along with a massive teapot. He poured us all cups of cucumber water to refresh our pallets during dinner. A bit odd....and we did wonder if it was for cleaning our fingers with rather than drinking, but as it was served in an eclectic mix of bone china teacups on mismatched saucers we eventually plumped for drinking it.

I had chosen fish cakes on wilted spinach as my starter, which arrived very quickly. It was nicely presented, and very tasty indeed. As soon as the smoked chicken wings starters began coming to the table I knew I'd chosen the wrong thing. They were on a wooden base with a long metal frame attached, from which hung a skewer of wings. On the base was a little jar of barbecue sauce and a large lidded jar full of smoke. Yes, you read that right, smoke! The idea being that you tip the smoke onto your wings to make them as strongly smoked as you like. Great fun!

And the fun didn't end at the starters, either. My burger came on a large wooden board covered in interesting stuff. The burger itself was big and juicy and came on a brioche style bun with a heap of coleslaw, some salad, cheese, crispy bacon, a tub of sliced pickles, a dish of ketchup and a little bottle of burger sauce - allowing you to build the burger just how you like it. There were a a couple of crispy onion rings and a mini frying basket of absolutely delicious chips on the side. The basket looked just like the ones they get cooked in, but a fraction of the size! Paul said his burger was a bit dry, and it did look like it was a bit more well done than mine, which was just about medium and tasted lovely. I would order the burger again without a moments hesitation.

Desert was also a fun take on a classic dish. I had a selection of three mini cornettos, served in a little lacquered wooden rack, with a selection of toppings to roll them in. There were little piles of hundreds and thousands, chocolate vermicelli and finally (and best of all!) popping candy. The three chocolate waffle cones each had a little scoop of a different flavour ice cream inside. Don't ask me what flavours, I don't know, and it doesn't really matter because they were all very tasty.

The staff were friendly, the food turned up in a timely fashion and was both interesting and tasty, and the meal finished with an ice cold glass of limoncello liqueur. We weren't exactly rushed from our seats, but we were aware that there was another party booked in after us so we didn't linger at the table. The £35 per head covered the rum punch, three courses chosen from a fairly short but interesting menu, the glass of limoncello and entry to the nightclub afterwards with use of a private booth big enough for all of us.

The birthday girls had a great evening, everyone enjoyed their food, and one or two of us had a glass or two too many in the process. It's a long time since I enjoyed a meal this much. I've eaten fancier food, but nothing as interesting or as much fun as this. Go and have a look for yourself, order the wings and the burger, enjoy yourself and see if you laugh as much as we did.

A day out in Hastings - including Webbe's Rock-a-nore

Webbe's at the Fish Café in Rye came very close to impressing us but somehow fell short. This is particularly galling because, as previously mentioned, their ethos really appeals to me. When we found out that Webbe's have a restaurant right next to the net drying huts at Hastings, one that specialises in fish landed from boats not 50 yards away, we had to give it a try. So at the first sign of a bit of sunshine on a rare mid-week day off together we jumped into the car and ambled off down to the coast through the back lanes to check it out.

It really is in the perfect location, right opposite the new Jerwood Gallery and the fantastic old fisherman's huts and net drying sheds on the front near Hastings Old Town. We walked around the huts and saw a lot of fresh plaice, lemon sole, Dover sole, and lots of fish I didn't recognise for sale from little kiosks right next to the boats that caught them. It's a great part of Hastings and well worth the journey on its own. There is a fishing museum, what used to be a Sea Life Centre but is now an independent aquarium, the East Lift funicular railway and a smugglers museum all within a five minute walk of a large car park. And after lunch I recommend taking a stroll along the old High Street and a rummage through the antique and junk shops found there.

Talking of lunch.....Webbe's presents itself very well. It has the look of a Spanish Taverna on the outside, but don't be fooled because it's a good mixture of classic and contemporary inside. All the tables are ranged across the front of he building, so half are in the windows. If you prefer, you can perch yourself on a stool at the bar and eat oysters and drink champagne, whatever takes your fancy. We were shown to a little table in the window at the right hand end of the dining room. Rather like the Rye Webbe's, the pass and some of the food prep areas are on full view and diners are encouraged to watch their dishes being assembled.

The menu held very few surprises, given the location. A fairly short list of main courses speaks to me of fresh produce and minimal use of the freezer, there were a handful of meat dishes, a couple of salads and ten-ish fish dishes on offer. The refreshing surprise on the carte was a selection of taster dishes on the list of starters, an imaginative idea that we were keen to try. Our waitress explained that each dish was two mouthfuls, or two fillets, and is designed to give you a taste of something without you having to order a whole dish. We chose five different tasters to share as our starter, picking a few slightly unusual things (for us, anyway!) to try. We had salt and pepper squid with chilli jam, potted brown shrimp and toast, sardine fillets with gazpacho dip, soused herring in honey mustard sauce, and tempura cod with sweet and sour sauce. It all looked very good indeed, and we were generally very pleased with our choices. The squid and the sardines were certainly the high points, both perfectly cooked and absolutely delicious. The shrimp and the herring were pretty good, but the cod was very disappointing indeed. It was tasteless and obviously unseasoned, not what I expected from a specialist seafood kitchen.

I'll come back to the selection of starters, or tasters, or whatever you want to call them later. For the main event I went for a seriously local speciality, plaice fillets with brown shrimps cooked in butter, and Dee chose smoked haddock fish cakes on creamed leeks. The waitress advised us that although the fish cakes could be considered a dish in its own right, my plaice came on its own and that I should probably order some side dishes to accompany it. I chose triple cooked chips and a plum tomato salad (at an extra £2.50 and £2.00 respectively) and sat back to wait. As with our starters, the food arrived quite quickly and was nicely presented. My fish was tasty and perfectly cooked, and there was plenty of it. The chips were really good, crunchy on the outside and fluffy inside, I almost wished I'd ordered the classic fish & chips, but not quite. The plum tomato salad, on the other hand, turned out to be a sliced tomato with olive oil drizzled on it. More of that later as well.

Dee's fish cakes were so overpoweringly smokey that neither of us were very keen on them when we tried them in isolation, but when eaten with the creamed leaks the dish as a whole made sense as the flavours worked very well together. The portion was enormous and even with our combined appetites we couldn't finish it all, each cake was the size of a pool ball.

We shared an absolutely delicious chocolate mousse with espresso cream and caramelised banana for desert, along with a very good cappuccino for me and a good quality pot of tea for Dee. Again, desert was nicely presented and each element was perfectly executed. The tiny ball of pistachio ice cream linked the textures really well.

Over all then, a really good meal, you'd think, right? Well.....yes....and no. This is our second visit to a Webbe's restaurant and it is the second time we have left feeling a little disappointed but without really being able to put our fingers on exactly why this should be. Having thought about it for a couple of days, though, I think I'm groping towards the answer.

When I pay this much for a meal I want the chef to have done more than just cook what I order. I want him to put a dish of food together that features elements that compliment each other. The customer should not have to do this part of the process himself! For example, a good chef knows that balance is necessary, and that each dish requires sharp notes to offset rich flavours, saltiness to balance sweetness and so on. So if I have to choose my own vegetables and so on, how do I know what will best compliment the main component? This strikes me not only as simply another way to charge each customer an extra fiver, but extremely lazy on the part of the chef and the establishment! So to return to the taster dishes, how do I know what is likely to go well together, and also compliment my choice of main course? By all means, offer the tasters like tapas, as a stand alone thing perhaps, but if you have pretensions of fine dining I'm afraid you must work harder before the customer walks in the door. Sorry, Webbe's, it was an excellent effort but I don't think we'll be back. There are just too many really good places in Hastings doing really good fish & chips for a lot less money. True, the surroundings might not be as classy, but the fish probably came off the same boat.

On our post-lunch stroll round the old town we stumbled across a little bakery that over-delivered on just about every level. Judges Bakery, as it turns out, is a bit of an institution in Hastings. Fantastic little fruit pies, big fat flapjacks, crusty bread, huge Italian meringues, a fat boy's heaven indeed! Having chosen a couple of little apple pies to have for supper later, we turned to look at the rest of the little shop and found it packed with unusual and interesting produce. Fresh fruit and vegetables, local organic meat and sausages, big slabs of cake, it all looked delicious. Not the place to do your weekly shop, perhaps, but certainly somewhere to visit for ingredients if you're planning something a bit special or simply fancy a treat. Probably not worth the effort of going all the way to Hastings just to visit this shop, but if you're here anyway, walk up the Old London Road and find it. Pick something nice for later, eh?

The Landgate Bistro, Rye Scallop Festival Weekend

Oh no! Surely not more scallops? I'm afraid so, folks! Last ones for a while, I should think, I'm pretty much scalloped-out!

Our second visit to Rye this Festival, this time to a little bistro we know quite well already on The Landgate. If you only visit one place during the festival week, make it this one. As well as their usual a la carte and set lunch menus they offer a special choice of scallop dishes available as starters or main courses. There were eight of us in the party for lunch, which must have been a bit of a challenge on the last weekend of the festival as the little dining room was full, and indeed our meal was not a swift one, but that was fine with us. The food came out hot and everyone got theirs at the same time.

The Landgate Bistro is a delightful little place on the very edge of Rye, essentially made out of two small cottages. The set lunch menu is excellent value at £12.95 for two or £15.95 for three courses. I recommend the potted rabbit with homemade piccalilli and sour dough toast, it is tasty, light, and different enough from the norm to be worth a try even if you're not keen on rabbit. It is pretty to look at and absolutely delicious!

The jewel in the crown here during the festival is the trio of scallops starter with fortified wines to accompany them. This includes a scallop in red & green pepper sauces with a glass of Madeira, scallop tartar with lime juice and tomato with a glass of oak chipped white port, and a bacon wrapped scallop on caramelised onion with a glass of pale sherry. Our waiter made sure we all understood which glass went with which scallop, this turned out to be important because each was chosen very carefully to match and enhance the various flavours of the dish (which were quite distinct, but came together very nicely). You could order three of any of these as a starter in its own right, or six with a selection of seasonal vegetables as a main course.

We thought we'd be a bit unconventional in our ordering, which can't have helped the kitchen but they took it entirely in their stride. Some of us ordered the trio, then a starter, then a main course, but some ordered just a single dish from the light-bites section of the menu. Can you guess which group I was part of?

We liked the sound of the potted rabbit, so we slotted it neatly between the trio and our mains, and this proved to be an excellent decision. Now, I like piccalilli, I like rabbit, I like toast, so I was clearly onto a winner here. It was as light as a feather, creamy but meaty, and topped with a sweet sauce a lot like hoi-sin. Lovely!

Between us we ordered an awful lot of scallops on Saturday. Several of us (me included) chose the main course versions of the scallop starters, but my Mum went for Romney Marsh lamb done in a Moroccan style with couscous, Anthony had fish cakes, and Bex went for fillet of sea bass so there was quite a variety of flavours, colours and textures on the table at once. Needless to say, the scallops were perfect, the bass had crispy skin and lovely white flesh and the lamb was just pink enough to be really moist.

I'm sure there were lots of different deserts on the menu, but I declined the chance to look as I decided I was quite full. It therefore came as a bit of a surprise to hear myself about a minute later agreeing to share a chocolate brownie with pouring cream! The waiter told us that the brownies were made to order so there would be about a twelve minute wait for them, which suited me just fine. Let me tell you, I'd wait an awful lot longer again for a chocolate brownie as good as that. It was supposed to come with brandy soaked plums, but they had run out of plums and were serving it with kirsch soaked black cherries instead. I don't think it's over stating it to say that this was the best brownie I've ever tasted. Gooey in the middle, a light crust on the outside, rich, light, tasty....mmmmm! Wish I'd ordered my own, to be honest.

Still my favourite place to eat in Rye then, The Landgate Bistro looked after us very well indeed. We weren't rushed at all, despite being the last table to leave. Not the most formal restaurant, but very welcoming, very friendly, and well known for serving excellent local produce. We'll be back soon, I'm sure.

Webbe's at the Fish Café, Rye, East Sussex

Rye Scallop Festival week always means the local restaurants make a special effort and put on a special menu. We took our time getting there, rolling through the beautiful Kent and Sussex country lanes in the sunshine. As we drove out of Tenterden towards Smallhythe we were accompanied for several hundred yards by a green woodpecker who kept pace with us across the fields, flashing bright green, red and gold in the sunlight, surely a good omen!

Having had a look at Webbe's website (www.webbesrestaurants.co.uk) before our visit today I was really looking forward to the seven course scallop tasting menu for a long lunch. Imagine my disappointment when we discovered that it was only available in the evening. Not the best start then. Fortunately for all concerned there were a number of scallop starters available, as well as a stunning sounding main course scallop dish.

The restaurant itself is in a sympathetically converted four story brick building that dates from 1907. Although it isn't on the main High Street, Webbe's is close enough to the centre of town, but being a bit off the beaten track it gives you the feeling that you've stumbled across a bit of a hidden gem. Lunch is served in a small, open plan dining room on the ground floor. Much of the cooking and all of the dish assembly happens in the corner of the room in full view of the diners, which gives one a certain confidence in the chefs. There is an eclectic mix of art on the walls, including a fantastic block of polished black stone that is packed with fossilised mussel shells.

Our waitress didn't smile much, but was very polite and efficient indeed. As I may have mentioned before, I like it when a waiter or waitress is professional enough not to have to write your order down, and not to have to ask who is having what when they bring dishes out. Not only did they manage this, but it was particularly impressive as there were only two waitresses and the maitre d' covering around fourteen or fifteen tables, some of which seated six or eight. The maitre d' was quick to come and explain the thinking behind not offering the tasting menu after I expressed my disappointment that we wouldn't be able to order it. But we'd gone all that way to eat scallops, and we were damn well going to order some off the lunch menu anyway!

Starters cost from £6 to around £8, and there was a lot of variety for a lunch menu. As well as half a dozen scallop dishes, there were half a dozen other interesting sounding dishes to choose from including a warm locally made goats cheese with beetroot salad that looked stunning. In the continuing quest to find new dishes we both ordered something to start that we wouldn't normally think about. I had scallop, potato and watercress chowder. (I never order soup, but I'll make an exception for chowders!) I should have thought to hang on to some of the delicious home made bread we had been served with to dip in it, but i hadn't. The chowder was delightful. Simple, big on flavour and texture, and full of big chunks of scallop and baby new potato.

As good as the chowder was, it just couldn't compete with Dee's dish of three of the biggest scallops I'd ever seen, served on a slice of fried black pudding and caramelised apple with a cider reduction. It was beautifully presented and unbelievably tasty. The flavours just combined to give a sweet start, really good "mouth-feel", and a slightly earthy finish from the black pudding that cut through the sweet scallop meat to perfection. A really well balanced dish, a delight to eat. Neither of us are particularly fans of black pudding, and I can be a bit funny about fruit in savoury dishes so this is high praise indeed!

I'm sure there were other main courses we could have ordered, but I didn't look beyond the very top item. Can you guess what it was? Well done, no surprises, more scallops! We both ordered the same thing, pan fried scallops with pancetta, mashed potato, watercress and silver skin onions. Five massive scallops nicely arranged around a piped cone of mashed potato on a bed of cress and onions. When the plate arrived in front of me I thought I was in for something really special. To be fair, it wasn't bad, it just needed....something. The mash was made with some white pepper, and that was the dominant flavour. Everything else was quite a delicate taste, and although the saltiness of the wafer thin and nicely crispy pancetta complimented the sweetness of the scallops, the whole dish needed a little seasoning or another dominant element of some kind. Don't get me wrong, everything was perfectly cooked and precisely presented, and a light sprinkle of salt made a vast improvement, it's just a shame at this level of cuisine that it was needed.

To Dee's delight there was a pear and blackberry crumble with custard and vanilla ice cream on the desert menu, so she didn't have to think too long and hard before she was ready to order. The crumble arrived piping hot in a little Le Crueset style dish, with a little jug of home made custard and a ball of delightful home made ice cream. The fruit was soft but not overcooked, sweet but not too sugary, and the whole thing worked perfectly presented as it was on an olive wood board.

I chose the citrus mousse with blood orange sorbet, which was lovely...but it wasn't a mousse. It was a lemon creme brûlée. A very good one, but not what I was expecting at all. The highlight was the sorbet, which is making my mouth water as I type this! Absolutely delicious.

I know it's a little thing, and some of you will think I'm being picky, but the white plate my desert came on had a grey ring around the inside where it was worn from being stacked with other plates a lot. I'm not suggesting it was dirty, it certainly wasn't, but if you look closely at the photo you can clearly see it. Not very appetising. Now that I look closely at the photos of the starters and main courses I can see that the whole set of crockery is overdue for replacement.

So, over all impression? Pretty good. The food came to £58, which included a vast amount of enormous scallops, so I think it was very good value for money. The wine list was very good, if a little pricey, and the service was good. I think the status as our favourite restaurant in Rye is still The Landgate Bistro's to lose next week, if I'm honest, but I'd like to come back here and eat in the more formal setting of the upstairs dining room before I make my mind up. Would I recommend it to a friend? Yes. No hesitation. It wasn't perfect, but it was very good, and at that price I think it was a bargain.

Rye Scallop Festival

I know I go on about scallops a lot, but they are just about my favourite thing to eat. Every year there is a week long scallop festival in Rye, East Sussex, and each year we go for lunch at least once during the week. Those of you who know Rye will already be aware that there are a number of really good places to eat in the town, and over the last few years we have tried quite a few of them.

A couple of years ago we had lunch in The George Hotel on the High Street, one of our favourite pubs in the country. They offer local real ales in a very traditional feeling setting, on a cold wet day there are few better places to be than sat in front of the roaring open fire in a wing-backed leather armchair eating warmer dishes from the special lunchtime menu like chorizo and lentil stew in the bar of the George. The scallop dishes were very tasty, but the scallops themselves seemed small and a bit disappointing. Shame, because over all this place is worth the journey on its own.

For the last couple of festivals we have made a point of visiting The Landgate Bistro specifically to have the scallop starter. You get three huge scallops, each presented a different way and served with a different fortified wine. You get one of each of - scallop wrapped in home-cured bacon served with a sherry and shallot sauce, scallop marinated in lime sauce and coriander, honey glazed scallop with roasted pepper sauce, a glass of ruby port, a tawny port and a measure of Madeira. Occasionally they do a mystery dish, the object being to guess the 8 ingredients. They give you scallops, salt & pepper to get your list going, but that's all! The Landgate Bistro has been named as the best restaurant in Rye for the second year running by the Good Food Guide and once you have eaten there it is easy to see why. It's a small, intimate place, a little off the beaten track, serving consistently good quality food at reasonable prices.

This year we will be trying Webbe's The Fish Café (which comes very highly recommended) for he first time. For the festival this year they will be offering a seven (yes, seven!!!) course scallop tasting menu for £39 a head...I can't wait! Webbe's is exactly the sort of place I should like, it ticks all my boxes. The owners opened their first restaurant based on the principles of using fresh, local ingredients, striving for perfection in menu design and presentation, and creating the sort of restaurant that they themselves would enjoy visiting. They now own three places, including one right on the front at Hastings that uses fish landed from the boats right there next to the restaurant. Doesn't get any fresher than that!

Our Rye Scallop Festival Festival 2012 will start at Webbe's on the first weekend and end at The Langate on the last. If we could get down there during the week then we would, and if you can then I urge you to go. Try something new, or at least somewhere new, you might find a new favourite!