Name and shame - or recommend?

I'll happily say if you haven't tried them Harrigran. Finbarrs is excellent and so is Bistro 21. For coffee Vennals. The Undercroft is a trek unless you are up at the cathedral and the Almshouses have become the Inn on the Green with waiter service not self. I'm giving it time. Always keen to help commerce in Durham . Coffee shops come and go so one week you are thinking oh this is nice and then it's changed hands and ambience. There is Oldfields if you are going to the theatre and the Garden House is a bit upsydownsy. There is also a pancake house and two tapas bars which feed you well. The Court is studenty and Zen is Asian. But there are loads more.

I go to one or two restaurants in Durham and I refuse to name them in case I can not get a table the next time I want to visit. I stay well clear of restaurants that say "all you can eat for £*.**".

I think if you look at tripadvisor for a restaurant and see its no 1 to 10 on the top for that town but the words cheap and takeaway is on the blurb,don't bother. By far the best restaurant in Durham is about 17 on the list and the next best is of a similar number. I went out for an Indian meal last night and it was very good but it was one of two in that place and I wouldn't have even parked in the other.

Sounds pretty good!

jO8 It really depends what you want out of your holiday.
Good points, cliff walks, bird sanctuary, clean beaches, peace and quite, nice country pubs.
Bad points, acres of caravans, lack of shops, no cinema, bad road infrastructure.

On the whole we are are lucky with the weather.

Number I agree Harty Inn is good too.

Sheppey

I've sometimes looked online at a holiday cottage on the Isle of Shelley and wondered what it would be like there. I guess it would be very weather dependent. Though that pub sounds encouraging!

Yep! I feel the same. It's not only a few posters who probably read this.

Mishap I feel the same way about a couple of places we visit!

There's a place that we go and we love it - and we are going there next week. But, to be honest, I do not want to share it as it is already getting very hard to book it as it becomes more popular!! Does that make me a real meanie!!??

I think it would be very good to recommend a place - on very speecial occasions our family tend to eat at Sousta a Greek restaurant on the outskirts of Weston super Mare and if you like Greek food this is the place to go. It is run by a family and they manage to involve everyone in the fun.

On the other hand despite my other post (Hopefully I didn't actually name but I was cross) i would't be happy to 'name and shame' because this is a very open forum. We could always describe and then be PM'd if necessary.

Ninathenana, we visited the Isle of Sheppey a few years ago to meet up with friends who live there, at Minster, they took us to lunch at the Ferry House Inn at Harty, and it was lovely, good food and an olde worlde building, would recommend it any time. A bit off the beaten track, but that`s part of it`s attraction.

If I'd known, phoenix...! I know the Alma Lodge quite well, having had excellent buffet lunches there courtesy of CAB who held several 'volunteer days' there. It was worth sitting through all the presentations, discussions, brainstorming... just for the great choice of puddings.

Stockport, graces I believe that a few other GN'ers live not far and had said that they wished they had known I was staying there! (That of course was when I was employed and travelling as part of my job!)

In the unlikely event that any of you visit Isle of Sheppey. I highly recommend The Flying Dutchman gastro pub. Best steak I ever tasted.

Where is the Alma Lodge Hote, phoenix?

(A "lovey" couple of nights " sounds rather cosy, *Penstemmon!!! )

Lovely hotel in Oxford: The Old Parsonage. Not heap but otherwise we had a lovey couple of nights there. Walking into Oxford town centre was easy.

I think I have already recommended the Alma Lodge Hotel, but would be happy to do so again! Good rooms, lovely staff, good food in the restaurant and reasonably priced, only downside is that there is no lift.