Andaluz

Andaluz - Castle Road Bedford

Andaluz is a great little café on Castle Road, one of the liveliest roads in Bedford. It’s a Spanish style café and shop where you can sit inside or out and have a meal, then buy the ingredients that made it and re-create it at home. The staff and particularly the owner are very pleasant and helpful, if you’re stuck for inspiration they will recommend dishes for you. The one drawback is that for a relatively expensive meal, you do get great food but the environment in which you eat it in is hardly encouraging. The furniture looks as though it will be better-suited to a beer garden than the interior of a café.  

The goats cheese and caramelised onion quiche is by far the best quiche I have ever tasted and that alone is enough to tempt me back.  

Quality 7

Service 8

Price 6

#Wicbha? More than likely - especially when I get that craving for good, fresh Spanish food

Rajkot

Rajkot - Indian tapas restaurant

Rajkot is a restaurant which we frequent quite often, its well situated if you are (brave enough to be) on night out in Bedford. Very much like the idea of tapas in an Indian restaurant as it is all too easy to sit down in an Indian restaurant and choose your favourite dish. This means that the thirty or forty other dishes on the menu don’t get a look into your Indian food lexicon. The tapas element to the restaurant undoubtedly offers the choice to try something new! This is a great way of experimenting and trying dishes without ruining your evening if you don’t like your dish. 

On a Friday or Saturday night the atmosphere can be quite boisterous and you may find yourself shouting to the person sitting opposite you in a struggle to be heard. The music can be very loud, the last time we were there dance music bellowed out from the speakers, hardly in keeping with the usual Indian restaurant atmosphere. 

We have also been unlucky enough to be there when someone ordered the nuclear chicken wings. This is an extremely spicy chicken wing dish that if you are able to eat you get your name on a board on the wall of the restaurant. The ‘nuclear’ spices that were in the air made everyone in the restaurant apart from the staff cough uncontrollably. The manager then had to put a high-powered fan on and open the door to get some fresh air into the room. Not very pleasant. 

On the whole the food is cooked to a good standard. The restaurant is very small, probably twenty covers which does give it an intimate feeling, but if you don’t like sharing your conversation with the people on the table next to you then it’s maybe not for you. The staff are usually very attentive but when the restaurant is busy they seem to fall apart all too quickly under the increased pressure. 

Quality 6

Service 6

Price 7

#Wicbha? Probably

Corner 5

Corner 5 - Box End

Had being to box end park on several occasions previous to eating there I was very much looking forward to sampling the much talked about food. The restaurant situated on the edge of the man-made lake in an impressive Norwegian style timber framed building is the ideal setting for that special meal. 

As we were among only ten diners one weekday evening we received impeccable service from both the restaurant manager and waitress. However, the only nit-picking I can do is that when I booked I mentioned it was a birthday meal, and they said they would be able to do something special for our dessert. So I was a little disappointed when the dessert came out just as a standard dish. However, this didn’t dampen a truly wonderful meal. The quality of the food was expectedly exceptional. Before eating here I had received numerous recommendations so I was expecting a high level of quality but all expectations were surpassed. A starter of duck cobb salad and mussels set the bar high with a great white wine complementing both dishes we were already enamoured. The guinea fowl main was exquisite complemented with a mashed potato combined with black pudding which admittedly doesn’t sound terribly appetising but was a combination that worked very well. Indeed, it worked so well I am intent on re-creating it at home. The dessert was of ice cream was good but as mentioned earlier a little under-whelming in light of my telephoned request. 

On the whole it was a great evening, the service and food was very good and was only accentuated by overlooking the lake as the sun was setting. One small complaint would be there was at times quite a bit of noise from the bar area but this was only noticeable because the restaurant was very quiet. I’m sure this wouldn’t be a problem at the weekend when the restaurant is a little busier.  I am certainly sure to return on a Saturday night when the atmosphere is likely to be better. 

Quality 10

Service 9

Price 8

#Wicbha? Certianly 

http://www.boxendpark.com/corner5-restaurant/corner5-restaurant.php