Opening Oysters – Wrap one hand in a tea towel and place the oyster in it, put your hand on a work top, push the point of an oyster knife or small, thick-bladed knife into the hinge of the oyster and, using firm but not excessive pressure, work the knife backwards and forwards into the shell, breaking the hinge. As the hinge breaks, twist the point of the knife to lever the shell up then slide the knife under the top shell to sever the ligament that joins the oyster to the shell. The ligament is slightly off to the right of centre of the oyster. Lift off the top shell keeping the bottom shell upright at all times to avoid losing any of the juice. Pick out any little pieces of shell that might have broken off. ALTERNATIVELY, COME TO THE OLD FORGE AND WE WILL DO IT ALL FOR YOU!!
Tables are still available for Valentine’s night. Don’t forget to book. Come and see what special little treat is on your table for your romantic meal out. Why not make a night out of it and stay in one of our romantic rooms for only £65 for the night including breakfast.
We are putting on a special offer for dinner, bed and breakfast for £95 from the 18th February. This will include one of our rooms, dinner and a bottle of wine. Why not book and enjoy a lovely seafood meal and wine and have a romantic stay overnight with your loved one. This offer is from 18th February until Easter weekend.
Happy New Year to all our customers and a big thankyou to all our regulars for coming so often to visit our restaurant. Also a big thankyou to everyone who sent e mails and made phone calls supporting us after our Tripadvisor appearance on Channel 4. It has been a huge boost to have so much support. We have finished catering for The Thursford Christmas Spectacular and were busier than ever. We did not have one complaint about our rooms or our food and must have cooked thousands of meals. If you visit Tripadvisor website you can read some fantastic reviews of our little B&B and restaurant. We also have some fake reviews written that Tripadvisor will not take off. I have commented under them with a management response so please do not take any notice of such malicious and nasty people who must have taken offence to us appearing on the TV show. Thank you again to all our lovely customers. We are closed now until February 11th when we re-open for Valentine’s weekend and night. Colin and Sarah.
Colin and I would like to thank the thousands of people who sent e mails and phone calls with offer of support to us both after the Channel 4 programme. Editing is out of our hands and some of it was quite debatable. It portrayed us as having had many bad reviews, when in fact we have only had a few, it also picked on something I said about visitors to Norfolk in the summer. We actually love all the visitors who come to our establishment during the summer, it was edited very badly. I was implying to our lady visitor that there were sometimes not very nice people visiting Norfolk in the summer but only a few, the majority are lovely, of course Channel 4 left that out. So sorry to everyone who visits our lovely county in the summer and throughout the year. We had no say in what they put on the show.
Cutting Edge Documentary is on Monday 31st October at 9.00p.m. Trailers have started on Channel 4 and we are in Whats on TV mag. It is all quite scarey but also exciting. Try and watch the documentary as it should be interesting and features us in it.
Our photo shoot for promotion purposes has just been completed. The documentary should be out in November and Colin and I will be pictured in most of the TV mags. Don’t forget to watch the documentary, it is called “The Tripadvisors” a Cutting Edge documentary on Channel 4.
Our special at the moment is scallops cooked in cream and sherry absolutely delicious as a main course.
Thursford show is getting nearer so don’t forget to come and eat early with us before the show, we start at 4.30p.m. Just phone and book. Also we have some rooms left but not many!!
The Thursford Christmas show is back soon. Starting on the 9th November until 23rd December. It is an all singing and all dancing Christmas spectacular and well worth a visit. We are just around the corner from the show and offer pre theatre meals staring at 4p.m in the afternoon. We also offer accommodation. We are getting very busy so please call soon for a booking. The show has an amazing array of professional singers and dancers and musicians. There is a comedian and ventriloquist who is brilliant. John Cushing who owns the show and writes it every year comes in every night to our restaurant to eat and we obtain tickets from him every year and are never disappointed. There is also a wonderful Christmas Wonderland for the children to visit, it is full of pretend elves and animals and of course Rudolph and the rest of the deer who pull Santa’s sleigh and at the end of the tour you can visit Santa himself who has a present waiting for you. Why not make a weekend of it and visit Holt Christmas lights as well as they are also spectacular. Holt is a Georgian town and is very beautiful at Christmas time with lots of lovely little shops down the Georgian cobbled side streets, great for Christmas shopping. Camilla, Prince Charles’s wife shops in Holt every year before Christmas.
Bank holiday Sunday is the last day of filming us at the restaurant. It has been great fun. The Producer has recently filmed The Big Fat Gypsy Wedding. We are being featured in the Cutting Edge programme along with other establishments who are affected by the website Tripadvisor. The documentary should be very interesting – try to watch it!! This weekend there is a fantastic agricultural show at Aylsham, well worth a visit. It is a proper Norfolk show, full of real Norfolk people, no airs or graces, no trendy side stalls just stalls filled with local produce and lots of local animals being shown around the grounds. It is truly wonderful and great for the kids as there is a fun fair and lots of interesting local crafts to be seen. We love this show as it is REAL NORFOLK AT IT’S BEST.
We are presently being filmed by Channel 4 for a documentary called Cutting Edge which is featuring the website Tripadvisor and ourselves. The documentary is focussing on how unfair Tripadvisor is to people such as ourselves who have 99% wonderful reviews and then suddenly a malicious and vindictive one. They are featuring on how difficult it is for restaurants or hotels to have the nasty reviews taken off the Tripadvisor website. The story is only one sided and the restaurant is not able to put their side of the story, they have to be polite and courteous in a management response yet the reviewer can be as rude as they want!!! It will be worth watching, we will keep you posted on the date it is being shown on Channel 4.
