Zorbaz Restaurant

Recently I introduced you to the prospect of me taking my foodie adventures away from the plain sailing world of crepes to other local places to eat. This led to a visit to a Greek Restaurant (www.zorbaz.co.uk) on Radford Road.  

12 years since starting my love affair with Coventry, I had a spell couched surfing* as I tried to not leave the life of a student behind. Not quite as exotic sounding as traveller’s journey's around sunnier climes like Australia, but this couch surfing lark took me out of the perilous city ring road and to Radford.

I'll get to the point, Zorbaz restaurant was a restaurant we passed on a journey over to the Student Union and back.  Not quite on my bucket list, it was always somewhere that I felt I would like to go if I had a regular income. Trust me I do have bigger dreams, but my plan of going to eat locally meant I visited and most importantly ate at Zorbas restaurant.

What do you do when you are not an expert in Greek cuisine? Go for the mezze; a range of small options that allow you to try a larger variety of foods rather than the traditional 3 course meal.

My love of humus meant it was an automatic choice from the mezze options and I played it safe again with feta cheese and salad. Keftadakia, a Greek take on meat balls that was simple, but deliciously coated with a tomato sauce. Saganaki was Amanda’s unhealthy choice of deep fried Greek cheese. If Amanda was allowed to give into temptation then that was my excuse to go for Loukanika, which is a Greek type of sausage similar in nature to the Spanish chorizo with a light peppery spice to it.

Other treats were the stuffed vine leaves. Vine leaves that are wrapped around rice and melt in your mouth. Out of all the foods we had these are the ones I would recommend the most.

There is a downside to the Mezze, if you want to call it a downside, is that you are full by the time it comes to the desserts.

So my 3 tips:

1. Go to Zorbas.

2. Choose the Mezze. You can’t fail!

3. Do not eat for 12 hours prior to your meal.

 

* I think I better clarify couch surfing. Not a Wikipedia definition, but it meant that I was able to continue the University lifestyle a year after I had finished my degree by staying around my friends and sleeping on their sofa.  

Foodie Adventures

The recent #CovTweetUp (see my penultimate post) highlighted to me the sheer number of businesses in the local area. This was not demonstrated better by being staged at international standard facilities of the Ricoh Stadium and being organised by a number of marketing and social media experts all based in the local area.  

A lover of food and as a caterer meeting Ajay of Lebanese restaurant (http://www.aqua-food-mood.co.uk) also highlighted one of an array of foods available on our doorstep. This made me think of the various restaurants in Coventry. I could quickly roll off restaurants serving food from around the world: American, Chinese, Moroccan alongside many pubs and restaurants serving more traditional British dishes, but how many had I actually been to?

Being inspired by #CovTweetUp I've been encouraged to try out more local restaurants and sidestep the local chippy once in a while...however, delicious they are.   A mission that could make me as famous as Mary Portas… if only anyone read this. I am going to go to one new restaurant, pub, cafe or deli from Coventry once a week. WAIT!!! Scrap that! Once a month. I don’t get much pocket money you know.

A man of many talents, being a food critic is not one of them, but I'm going to report back on some of my foodie adventures. At this point I will add that I am not going to highlight any poor ones, just sidestep them when I next think about eating out.

My next post will be on a Greek restaurant I visited.

ILC Update

“Not enough time in the day”. What an overused saying, so it’s not going to hurt if I say it this once as I have sadly neglected this blog the past month.

So, a catch up from our last few weeks as we get up-to-date and as a warning I may name-drop once or twice. Apologies in advance. J

This last month has seen us travel around the UK with our record number of weddings from the glamorous Corinthia Hotel in London to a small village in Thruxton, Hampshire; A fabulous setting within rolling countryside where a lovely couple got married. On this day I even discovered that someone actually reads these posts. Thank you Tessa and congratulations once again.

As well as these two weddings we have been up to Yorkshire, had a couple of trips to Fawsley Hall and more. Plus in-between all these weddings we were at the Stratford Upon Avon Food Festival and here is the ultimate name drop. No not David Beckham but Paul Hollywood aka The Silver Fox! Not that I was fortunate enough to see him, but apparently he is shorter than expected as Amanda passed him and nervously mumbled hello earlier in the day. For what only lasted 2 seconds, she managed to talk about ALL afternoon!

The year is not even close to passing and we are now having to turn our attention to the next year, with promo’s and some exciting times ahead planned for I Love Crepes (Watch this space). Thankfully we can energise ourselves with an endless supply of crepes. This job sure has its perks, though since we started I have had to up the miles I run to keep in shape.

I would now just like to take the time to thank you for reading my posts and your support of I Love Crepes.