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Having been
open for little over a month, the husband and wife team that run
the All Seasons Restaurant can already be proud of the fact that
they received 4 stars from Milton Keynes Council for food
hygiene. So exactly what is All Seasons Restaurant and what type
of food do they serve? We paid them a visit and soon realised
from the menu that this place is all about comfort food.
Décor
The restaurant
has a lovely, simplistic and clean look, although the addition
of some artwork along the white walls will help to give the
place a warmer feel. The original oriental looking bar (the
previous occupants ran an unsuccessful Thai restaurant) means
that this restaurant actually looks like an English restaurant
in a busy Spanish resort. This is an environment where you can
immediately sit down and relax.
Food
The menu is
neatly presented and contains many dishes that you would look to
cook at home. The difference here from other establishments is
the price of the food. For example, my choice for main course
was the 8oz sirloin steak (just £8.99) with chips and onion
rings. This represents great value and was actually better than
I expected. I asked for this to be cooked medium and thoroughly
enjoyed covering this with plenty of garlic butter that quickly
melted into the meat. The thick, crispy chips had a lovely
fluffy texture inside and were great when dipped in the butter
running from the steak.
I had started
my meal with the garlic field mushroom at £3.49. A huge mushroom
on a bed of salad arrived on a small plate. This was well cooked
and not over-doused with garlic nor was there too much salad
like you find in some restaurants. This dish was a pleasant
start but maybe needs a little something else. Melted mozzarella
or some pine nuts or even both would take this starter up
another notch or two.
My partner
started with the chicken liver pate (just £3.49). This is
freshly made in the kitchen by Stuart and like the mushroom I
had, this was not overpowered by garlic. This was particularly
tasty and the flavour of the chicken shone through. Put simply -
a really nice way to start your meal.
Next up was
the lamb shank, mash and garden peas for mains (£10.99). The
lamb was delicious and the mash was described as similar to the
variety you would find in the best pie and mash shops. As a
lover of pie and mash, my partner was clearly loving the potato
and this made for a very satisfactory main course. My partner
decided to end with the cheese and biscuits at £3.99 – always a
great way to finish.
My choice of
bread and butter pudding (£3.49) was slightly larger than I
expected and arrived with a jug of custard. This allows you to
pour just as much as you like (a nice indication of where the
restaurant actually think about the customer). This dish has
“comfort food” stamped all over it and this tasty, not too heavy
and a pretty decent ending to my first experience of All
Seasons.
Service
Karen waited
on us throughout the evening with a warm smile that made us feel
welcome and relaxed. She is incredibly passionate about what she
does and this made for a nice, refreshing change to some of the
service you can receive in MK.
Atmosphere
All Seasons is
a large restaurant so it will always need to see a large number
of tables taken before you can describe the place as “buzzing.”
With a scattering of tables taken, and a helping of popular
music, we were able to sit down and chill.
In summary,
there is nothing pretentious about All Seasons Restaurant. They
are aiming to cater for those who, after a hard days work in the
office, can sample home from home food at prices that will not
break the bank. Id like to see a couple of changes in the months
ahead – Stuart is a good cook and will need to come up with some
signature dishes that stop people even thinking twice about
cooking when they have the choice to eat here. Some more
attractive plates would also help but all-in-all, this is a
lovely place to eat good food at very affordable prices.
We’ll be
looking to return soon to sample their great value breakfasts.
All Seasons is situated at Chandos Place near Central Milton
Keynes with ample parking. If you do not know Bletchley that
well, it is just a 5 minute walk from the train station. |
