Dining at the Lotus Lounge, Yarm

How exciting is winning a competition? Getting pulled out of the hat to win something for nothing is a pretty epic feeling and I did just that last month on Facebook. Lotus Lounge randomly selected me to go for a two-course dinner with a plus one with a bottle of wine thrown in for good measure.

Before going for our meal, neither myself or Matt knew much about Lotus Lounge as a restaurant. It's a pretty well known establishment as a bar, but as for food, I wasn't convinced. When we walked into have our meal to where I thought we might be sat downstairs in the bar, we were then shown upstairs to a part I never knew existed. Upstairs was clearly where the majority of the Lotus Lounge's food is served, if not all, as it was bright, full of tables, boasting its own bar.

It was quiet when we arrived around 6.30pm on a Saturday, but as we ate more people filtered through. When offered the wine menu, we both had a nosy but not knowing anything about wine or really liking it, we were at the mercy of the waitress but in conversation, I did mention I like Prosecco and asked if it was an option. At first, she said that it wasn't part of what we'd won, but then when she went away to get our wine she came back with a bottle which was a lovely surprise.

We both decided to have a main and a dessert and funnily enough, we picked the same for both. For our main meal, we decided on the 8oz sirloin steak which was accompanied by chips, salad and a red wine and thyme butter. I also had a Bearnaise sauce whilst Matt had Poivre. I thought the steak was delicious. It was super tasty and I loved everything that went with it.

For our dessert, we chose the chocolate pudding with peanut butter ice cream. The pudding itself was very cake-like but came away very smoothly and with the ice cream it was divine. The only let down was the plate, or rather the slate which was a bit awkward to eat from.

At the end of the meal, I briefly spoke to the lady I'd been chatting to on Facebook to arrange my visit and she was lovely, as were all the staff. I'm really pleased I had the chance to visit the Lotus Lounge as it wouldn't have been first on my list to try for food but now I'd happily go back.

Have you tried the Lotus Lounge for food?

Want to try the best steak of your life? F.X. Buckley Steakhouse, Dublin

Before we went away to Dublin we were told we should visit F.X. Buckley Steakhouse for what was described by Matt's Dad as the best steak he'd ever had. With that glowing of a recommendation and it being located only a stone's throw away from our hotel, it would have been rude not to visit. The night before we flew home it started to rain, so we asked a very lovely Irish taxi driver to run us up the road to the steakhouse and he kindly obliged not even taking a fare for the trip. 

When we arrived, we were directed upstairs to the steakhouse and swiftly seated. For a Sunday night, it was quite busy with a huge group at the back of the room celebrating a birthday. The restaurant had a very classy feel to it without being too pretentious. The walls were adorned with navy and white stripes which reminded me of a butchers apron which is very apt in a restaurant serving only the top quality meats. 

Although we were there for the steaks, I couldn't sway myself from getting anything from the menu other than the Beef and Guinness pie. When you're in the home of Guinness its a must. Matt chose a sirloin steak and we also ordered some sides of creamed spinach with parmesan and baked creamed cauliflower gratin.

The pie was absolutely stunning. Filled with juicy wholesome pieces of beef, covered in flaky pastry accompanied by mashed potato with spring onion and a delicious drizzle of gravy, it was divine. I also tried a slither of the steak and could see what all the fuss was about. Even though Matt prefers his steak a little more red than me, I could get past that and appreciate the great piece of meat.

I was extremely pleased with my selection and chowed down on as much as I could handle, ultimately having to leave some or else I would have exploded. We decided after our food that that was all we'd have, only for a moment later to be thinking about desserts. We gave ourselves a good-sized break before we chose a cheeky dessert. As this was a weekend of firsts, having had our first Thai food the night before, I selected a vanilla creme brûlée as I'd always wanted to try it. It wasn't what I was expecting but it was lovely, a little too sweet for me to be able to finish it but I enjoyed it nonetheless. Matt went with his usual of sticky toffee pudding and he enjoyed it but found the slate a little hard to eat from.

We had a brilliant night in F.X. Buckley, despite there being a very rowdy birthday crowd in for the duration of our visit. The food was delicious and the vibe was suitably chilled. If you are a meat lover and heading to Dublin, this is certainly one for you. There are a number of F.X Buckley restaurants in Dublin, we visited the restaurant above Ryan's on Parkgate Street.

The Bay Horse, Hutton Rudby

On Friday night me and Matt decided last minute that we'd go out for tea to a local country pub. We'd been to the Bay Horse before so thought we'd go there, however, there are so many pubs named the Bay Horse in the area that we weren't aware of at the time. When the sat nav brought us to this one we were confused but we went decided to try it out. It turns out we'd been to the one in Great Broughton before and this one is in Hutton Rudby... Nevertheless, we trudged inside to find a quaint little pub in which all the locals were staring us down as we looked for a find a table. We chose our meal from a board on the wall as they didn't seem to have any proper menus. The wait time was quite long for the food but when it came we could see why! The food looked gorgeous, like so much effort had gone into perfecting it. I chose the steak and mushroom pie whilst Matt went for a sirloin steak.

It's been a while since I had a pie so I was excited to try this one and it did not disappoint. The pastry was lovely, thick and crumbly with the steak inside being very tender and juicy. The sauce was quite rich and the mushrooms were whole which I thought was different! I had so much on my plate it was hard to finish and I didn't even touch the extra gravy! Matt enjoyed his steak and said he really liked his peppercorn sauce although it had a lot of full peppercorns! We didn't stay for dessert as we felt like we were about to burst but I wish we had as I am sure that would have been just as home-made and yummy. I'd definitely recommend the Bay Horse to anyone in the area as the food was very lovely and it was a nice place to spend a night. They even had a outside garden area for a sunny day.

Angus Steakhouse, Leicester Square - London

After trawling around London all day it's sometimes hard to get to the place you planned on eating, you just want food right now. That is how we stumbled into the Angus Steak House, we’d gone into M&M world at Leicester Square to keep warm and then wanted food so went across and into here.

Now, this steak house is pretty swish and will definitely break the bank if you aren't careful. The cheapest steak is £17.50 without any extras! Although it was expensive we were too tired to go elsewhere so settled down for a lovely steak. We both chose the 8oz fillet steak and then got a portion of chips, one portion of onion rings and some béarnaise sauce to share.

When the steaks came they looked gorgeous and were cooked to perfection. I like my steak to be medium to well done so that there isn't any blood and it was just that. The salad that accompanied it was very nice with a lovely vinaigrette. I made sure to eat all my steak rather than filling up on chips and onion rings and I was glad I did as it was amazing. We got the béarnaise sauce to try and it was pretty tasty although quite rich so I couldn't eat a lot.

If you are into your steaks and have some money to burn I would definitely suggest visiting Angus Steak House on your trip to London.

Fancy a steak? El Gaucho, York

For my boyfriend's birthday we had a day trip to York. As we are major foodies when visiting new places, we decided to scope out where we would eat before we arrived. We chose a place for breakfast(brunch) and a place for tea. Unfortunately we arrived after the place we'd chose for breakfast stopped serving so had to find a cafe for a greasy English brekkie.

The place we chose for dinner was a suggestion by one of Matt's work colleagues. It was an Argentine steak house called El Gaucho. Me and Matt are lovers of steak and love to try new places so this was perfect for us.

As per usual we had a bit of trouble finding the place but that is just our bad sense of direction. It was down a street which had a lot of other lovely looking restaurants on. Inside it is quite small but there were a lot of tables dotted about as well as lots of random Argentine related art on the walls.

We both chose to have the sirloin steak - me choosing the 11oz and Matt choosing the 14oz! When it came it tasted lovely! It was full of flavour. I accidentally knocked all my salad off my plate whilst trying to cut my steak just after I took the above picture. I told the hostess and she didn't seem to mind too much...oops!

I should mention before the steak we were given a basket of bread with some sort of herby/garlic butter to put on. It was soo nice. I wanted more than one slice but didn't want to ruin my dinner.

If you are in York on a night time (it opens at 6pm) you should definitely try this out.

Have you been before? Do you love steak as much as I do?!