This article contains a restaurant review where I was given a gift voucher towards a meal for two.

Last week I had a great north staycation, you may remember from my previous article that I'd worked out how to save money on lots of northern attractions, well I can confirm that it absolutely worked and I spent next to no money even though we were out every day from Mon through to Wednesday.

RHS Harlow Carr

As an RHS Member, I got in free and I also got to take a guest free as well so Harriet and I had a wonderful day walking around the beautiful Yorkshire gardens. The borders were full of Alliums and Iris's.  It's a wholly beautiful day out and if you have children with you, there's so much for them to do. As well with wicker dinosaurs all around the gardens and play areas, there are long expanses where they can run and run and run.  What they also have is Betty's and that was a highlight, I'm thankful we had a £5 off voucher for that as we did enjoy a delicious lunch followed by cake.  We had the full Betty's experience and Harriet loved it.  She's from Yorkshire and had never been!!

Wynyard Hall Gardens 

Definitely, worth a trip to the beautiful walled garden, we had a delicious and not too pricey meal in the cafe and a wander around the gardens, we paid a fiver for both of us and we've just bought a years pass for £6 each so we'll definitely be going back as the plants you could buy weren't too expensive and it gave me the opportunity to photograph flowers.  I'm not sure what it would be like if you have children, it does sell itself as being child-friendly but perhaps only if your children are called Timothea and Anunciata, most of the people when we were there were older couples and ladies, much like me, ladies of a certain age.  It's a quiet, calm and peaceful place, the farm shop had a big selection (I bought cheese), the homeware store was expensive but not completely ridiculous, let's call it aspirational.  The staff were professional but not overly friendly.  It does have a bit of an Alnwick gardens feel to it but maybe not quite so friendly.  As I said we've bought yearly passes and we'll definitely return but I don't think it would be worth paying £6 a time.  

Neither of those attractions is dog-friendly and that's proof that we still have a way to go in this country to embrace the joy of guests bringing along their cherished four-pawed companions, I think it's actually weird at outside attractions to not accept dogs on leads, and after all, our friends at the National Trust and English Heritage have no problem at all with dogs on leads so maybe it's time to take a leaf out of their books.

Thaikhun

One of the other lovely things Harriet and I did was eat out at Thaikhun for dinner, we'd been invited to try the new menu and it did not disappoint.  we marvelled at every course and though we didn't drink any alcohol the cocktails did look delicious.  I think there's something special about Thaikhun, it gets the vibe just right between casual dining and going out for dinners, I love the atmosphere and the staff are always so utterly helpful.  I loved everything we tried on the menu, the Bangkok street platter with its assortment of magical morsels.  The main courses which were a stack of 3 different dishes plus Jasmine Rice and I couldn't have been more excited about the Unicorn Sundae.  We did receive a gift voucher to partially pay for our meal in return for an honest review but I regularly dine at Thaikhun anyway so believe me when I say, I've never been disappointed, although there was that comedy disastrous visit the first time I went with the kids.

During the week we also went down to Yorkshire to meet up with Harriet's parents for lunch but it was raining and we really didn't do much after lunch other than discovering a weird garden centre frequented by the older generation which didn't even contain a single plant inside it but it did have a hairdressers and a full selection of comfortable shoes.  It was dog-friendly though so that's always a win in my book.

This summer we'll be off again on our travels but this time instead of Madrid or Barcelona we'll be doing a great British holiday starting in Cumbria and then continuing down to Wales and of course, I'll be taking my camera, Harriet and Holly Bobbins.

Thaikhun Cooking School

I love cooking, it's well known that on any given Monday I'll be found in my kitchen for the afternoon cooking for all of my friends so when I was invited to the brand new Thaikhun Cooking School at Thaikhun in the Metrocentre, Gateshead I got quite excited and dragged along Harriet who I'll be honest, likes to come and eat at my house so that she doesn't have to cook herself, she's the master of a buffet though!!

When I cook I love to make the British classics, I love my slow cooker and there's no end of recipe combinations, I also love the chance to cook stir fries and anything with noodles but I'd never actually cooked Thai before so it was quite an exciting proposition.

The Thaikhun cooking school costs £50 per person and the best part is that at the end of the experience you get to eat what you've cooked, you also get a goody bag and you can take home the recipe to cook for all of your friends and family, I have mine stored for a special occasion.

We cooked Thai spring rolls followed by a Thai green curry and it was so good, the tastiest thing I've eaten in ages,  our teacher was amazing and made the whole process fun, we were also allowed to adapt the recipes so for example in my case, I'm not a huge fan of really spicy food so where some of the students put all of the chillis into their curries I stopped at just 1 chilli, I know, I'm a lightweight but I'm also a super taster.  It was the perfect recipe for me though as I adore anything which is a coconut based recipe and if I make a curry at home it's almost always got a tonne of coconut milk in it.

Harriet loved the experience of being a chef for an evening, I'm not sure if it means she's likely to be whipping us up all Thai food on a regular basis but at least it means I can rope her in to help me cook recipes, she's got far better knife skills than I have!

I think the Thaikhun cooking school is the perfect friendship date night, I mean, we laugh together, cry together, so why not cook together.  It's also the perfect date night or even something different for a birthday or hen party, I'd certainly love to do it all again with some different recipes.  At the end of the day there aren't many restaurants who help you cook the exact same recipes as they're serving to customers, to me that speaks volumes and it doesn't mean I'm any less likely to eat at Thaikhun, in fact for me, I love the fact that they shared so freely but I still love to be cooked for!

Thaikhun invited us along in exchange for a blog post and you know what, that's just fine with me, whilst I'm pretty good at blogging, they're definitely the best at Thai cooking!

Thaikhun, when restaurant reviews go wrong...

Have you been to Thaikhun in the Metrocentre yet?  I didn't even know it was there until a couple of weeks ago when I randomly ended up at the Metrocentre on a Saturday afternoon so when they asked if Looby, Abigail and I would like to go along to sample their Thai street food delights I couldn't refuse.

If you've never been to Thaikhun, they specialise in Thai street food straight from the heart of Bangkok, if you've never had a Thai red or green curry then Thaikhun is a pretty good place to start, the restaurant is dark with ambient lighting meaning it's not the best place for photography but then that's not the reason that people go to restaurants (or in this social media based world, perhaps it is?)

When we sat down we were given a pot of bugs, yes bugs, with every kids meal you get a pot of bugs, I think perhaps just a couple would have done, Looby and I dared each other to eat one, well let me just tell you, they taste like death, I'm not sure who's idea it was to give children chargrilled bugs in pots, it's certainly an interesting talking point but for me, well I won't ever forget the taste of chargrilled bug for the rest of my life and no, I shan't be in a hurry to source some for my cupboards.

Now I should state at this point that there have in the past been a few disasters in my taking the kids out for food and so I'd like to state the following, Abigail had heatstroke, she'd been doing every single event in the school sports day, a whole day event and she'd not worn a hat, suncream or drank nearly enough water and so for the most part Abigail lay with her head on the table and looked particularly ill, in fact she was so ill that her daddy had to come and pick her up and take her home!

I should also state the following - Looby has now worked out that if you get a sauce with your noodles it's probably a good idea to taste the sauce before you pour it all over your noodles just in case you're not so keen on the sauce.  I don't need to tell you the rest of the story...

and in conclusion to my tales of woe I should also state that when it comes to spicy food I am a big girls blouse so when I was exclaiming to the waitress that I needed water, water and more water to cool down my tongue from the burning sensation caused by the Tom Yum sauce she told me that some people don't even think it's hot enough, are those people the spawn of satan, have they no tastebuds?

So at this point you're probably thinking we weren't the biggest fans and shan't be going again but you know what, the food is delicious, the starters were amazing, there's a good selection for the veggies amongst and even Abigail in her ill beyond ill state liked them, she followed by having a veggie pad thai and loved the little that she ate.  Looby loved Abigail's dessert that she didn't want and I loved the starter of tempura prawns, the Tom Yum soup before it all got too much for my tastebuds and the pudding, I'm always a fan of puddings and there's a large selection of puddings you just wouldn't get anywhere else.

Abigail went again this week with her daddy and had a really lovely meal and an enjoyable experience, Looby said she would definitely go back, she wouldn't put the sauce on the noodles and she definitely wouldn't be eating bugs again!  I will go again but if I'm honest I'll probably just leave the kids at home and try one of the steaks which looked amazing on the menu.  The one thing we all loved was the Thai iced green tea, probably the best green tea concoction I've ever had, I also loved the cocktail I had which came served in a Thai takeaway box.

I'm relieved that all we paid for was the desserts, If I'd had to pay £68 for meals which didn't get eaten through no fault of the restaurants I might have cried, in fact I was on the verge of dismay by the time we'd finished anyway!  It's all just proof that even professional writers have disasters when combined with parenting efforts but as always I maintain professional honesty too so I recommend you go and try it yourself and I hope it's not a catalogue of catastrophe or you might just need to sample several more cocktails to get through it.