A Surprise Visit To Jamie Olivers Italian

I am so behind with my blogging! Apologies, it has taken some time to settle back in and get my head in a normal place!

Now let me whizz you back in time a bit... The place: Manchester.

We met my little brother at his office and headed off for a bit of a mooch around the Northern Quarter the he walked us down to Jamie's Italian, he had some shopping to do so it was a lunch date for me and Ebi-kun...and my, was he excited!

Now, if you are thinking of going, I have a TOP TIP - pop over to his website and sign up for the Gold Club, it's free but by doing that you get priority booking, a free taster and 10 pound off your first visit if you spend 30 pound or more!

So, we had our free taster first which was a whipped ricotta herby concoction on bruschetta and was delicious. Then we had the special which was a tuna and tomato bruschetta, also very good. Ebi-kun decided to have the kids meal, the waiter was really good and helped him decide what to have, it was a toss up between the spag bol or the sliders, spag bol won.

It was an absolute treat to eat with Ebi-kun, he really did savour every mouthful, couldn't stop thanking me and declared it was the best spag bol he had ever eaten, ever! He insisted on eating with tiny mouthfuls so he could make it last (this certainly wasn't a quick meal)

I went for the ricotta gnudi dumplings in sage, lemon and parmesan butter - just melted in your mouth. I also had the crunchy green side salad and Ebi-kun had the shake me salad.

Then for dessert, yes, we went all out! Ebi-kun had honeycomb ice-cream and I had this, to-die-for amalfi lemon meringue cheesecake. Oh My Gosh! So good.

We were so full! And when the bill came I was happily surprised that we had just gone over the 30 pound mark which meant our bill was just 20 pound! Fabulous.

We finished just in time to meet my friend Lesley and her two kids...