Horrible grainy photos - take from a mobile I'm afraid.
Oliver had been very poorly with a nasty chest infection. The doctor gave him penicillin and he had to have Calpol and Ibuprofen too for the high fevers plus antihistamine for the rash reactions. Poor kid - medicine three times a day, and normally 4 spoonfuls at a time.
We had loads of tears... "But it's really yucky Mummy"..... In the end, he'd be very brave and take it all. I promised him when he was better, we'd go to the toy shop in the city for a couple of little cars.
As it happens, when we were coming out of the toy shop, staff were starting to put menus out on the tables at the new Jamie Oliver's Italian in Norwich. It's in the arcade - only a few steps from the toy shop. I stopped to ask when they were opening and if there were any available tables. Honestly - I really didn't think we'd ever get a table !
Our luck was in - and we were told we could come back in 20minutes....
We were seated in the upstairs area (opposite the kitchens) very quickly. This table in front of us was filled up just a few minutes after.
Oliver sat and played nicely with his new little cars. That red thing that you see on the seat behind him is the children's menu. It's a 3d viewer thing. You pull the lever and it shows them photos of what they can choose to eat.
Oliver chose fish fingers with cheesy polenta bites. It was served with a jar of salad chopped into tiny pieces (for him to shake) and some organic cordial. I ordered us some bread to share and a small prawn, fennel and something or other linguine. I also made them aware that we didn't want to hang around - as we were due at the theatre in a snitch over 1 hour. For £5.95 for a kids meal and about £10.00 for mine - that was pretty good value. The final bill including bread and a soda with lime was about £23.00.
The bread selection was lovely - all baked daily on site. There was a selection of white and possibly spelt sourdoughs, some flat garlicky crisp-bread stuff, breadsticks amongst others. More than we could manage between us !
Oliver's meal came on a lovely wooden board (I'm afraid I'd chopped it up for him before taking photos crossed my mind !). My linguine was the best pasta I've ever eaten and full of quite complex flavours. Yum. Oliver is keen to go back for spaghetti !
I must admit, seating and service was very prompt and efficient. We WERE in and out in an hour (just) which was pretty astonishing as the restaurant got very busy. They are very child friendly - and despite the fact there were a good number of children, all were well behaved.
Anyway, I had to nudge Oliver along and get him to pack up his cars in a hurry so we could get to the Playhouse on time to see Hairy McClary (of Donaldson's Dairy !)
It was only afterwards when we got home that I cringed when I realised Oliver had packed up the kids menu with his cars ! He had thought it was a free toy like he gets in Mc Donalds... Oh - the embarrassment.. I bet they lose a few more in the same way. Anyway, I did the honourable thing and posted it back to the restaurant the following day. Least I won't feel guilty next time we visit..