Saturday - Part One - Sweetpea 9/10

After a Friday night out in the pub (Joe) and dancing (me) it was something of an effort to persuade Joe to get up and make the most of his weekend on the Wirral.  I do have one trick though, and that is bribery with food, which proves rather successful.

Following a stop off at the West Kirby Concourse for a Saturday morning swim, we headed to The Sweetpea Cafe in Acacia Grove in West Kirby for some lunch.  Sweetpea is a gorgeous little cafe with a properly home grown feel.  West Kirby is full of little cafes doing lunch and drinks: it is great to see them thriving when everyone is telling us things are so bad, and I couldn't be more pleased for Sweetpea as it is a total treat. 

After our food-free indulgences on Friday night we were both feeling like some healthy food was in order and this place really does cater for your needs.  It does a range of breakfasts, sandwiches, and more substantial foods.  This is a place where you can just order coffee and cake, cheese on toast, lamb koftas or beans and chorizo stew.  They really do cover all bases.

We opted for a Greek salad, falafels and some chips (ha!  to undo all the good work at the pool).  The Greek salad was full of pungent tomatoes, sweet red onions, cucumber, black olives and a delicious feta in a dressing.  It also came with a little dish of humous and flat breads.  A Greek salad is all about the ingredients and it was really nice to get something that was so flavourful.  The falafels were served on salad and flat bread with humous and sweet chilli.  The falafels were really good - light, spiced and a nice texture.  And well, who can complain about a good chip?

Overall it was a great lunch, accompanied by tasty coffees (they also do a good flat white!) tea and a hot chocolate.  Sweetpea is a great cafe to while away some hours eating good food, drinking good drinks, and eating the papers.  Thoroughly recommended. 

You even get water in a fancy bottle.

Falafel on salad and flat bread

Greek salad

Chips, yum

Friday in Liverpool

We always knew this day would come.  This is the sad day that Joe and I both failed to do any food pictures.  I know, we've let you down, and worse, we've let ourselves down too.

But let's not be too down heartened as we do have a good excuse for our failure.  Friday night was more about the drinks than the dinner.

On Friday Joe and I took a little trip along the M62 to the Wirral.  The main point of our visit was that our friends, Laura and Chris, have recently had a baby girl called Grace, and Friday night was Grace's head wetting drinks for the boys.  Joe went for a boys' night in the Black Horse in Heswall, dinner being usurped by a succession of pints of San Miguel.  You can't blame him really.

I was also out on the tiles, accompanying the lovely Stephie and Shereef to see Mr Scruff at The Magnet in Liverpool (I am so down with the kids!).  The Magnet is a super cool bar and club in the Cultural Quarter, around the corner from the Philharmonic pub.  It was established in 1958 and has seen the Beatles passing through, as well as the first gig of Freddie Mercury and Brian May in their pre-Queen days.  To me, that's pretty awesome.  The bar is 1950's diner inspired, with a great range of spirits and beers.  If you head downstairs, you are into the cave-esque club which, on Friday, was full of an eclectic range of people drinking and dancing to Mr Scruff's beats.  All in, it was a great night, and I'm sure you now understand why we might have failed on the food front....

Me and Stephie at the Magnet

Thursday Chilli Prawns

So Joe is out on the town AGAIN!  This time playing (and hopefully winning) pool with the boys he works with.  Don't feel too sorry for me though, my social life hiatus is totally my own doing.  I am going on what should be my last bridal dress shopping excursion next week so I am off the booze and eating steamed vegetables.  No pain, no gain, hey?!

So tonight my dinner comprises of stir fried prawns with chilli, pineapple, steamed broccoli and pak choi with steamed white rice.  It's actually not so bad for a healthy dinner, although I definitely now want to eat all the chocolate in the house....

Chilli prawns with pak choi, broccoli and rice