Tag: takeaway

All Back to Sidmouth Street: The Olive Pizza & Grill

We are creatures of habit here in old Devizes. We’ll stand in the Market Place wearing a vacant expression, wondering where we can bag ourselves a good kebab in town now the Kebab House is sadly no longer. I urge you to think Sidmouth Street, think The Olive….

Yeah, I get you. Save the longstanding New Pacific Chinese, the previous takeaways in Sidmouth Street didn’t receive great appraisal, causing the street to be considered a no-go zone for the peckish. Well, times change. With Mustafa Suna, the once owner of the Kebab House content to be relocated a hefty trek away at the Garden Trading Estate, the new option is The Olive Pizza & Grill; you best believe it.

It was newly opened a couple of months ago. By name, it sounds fresher and natural, but does it live up to its name? I thought I’d drag my tastebuds there to find out…..

Shenol Redzheb is the owner of this tidy little takeaway where Acropolis once toppled. He cut his teeth at Chick-O-Land, where he spent thirteen years, but was adamant about building his own new legacy here. It certainly was spotless and hospitable, with everything freshly prepared right before your eyes.

The range is fantastic, too. The standard range of kebabs, combo or wraps, burgers, and chicken, but with a pizzeria too, choices are ample for the most fussiest of families, like mine! One apple of my eye opted for a cheeseburger, the other a pizza, and the wife and I went for the donor kebab, though she favours garlic mayo on hers; sacrilegious! I say this because the homemade chilli sauce here is to die for, really rich, perfect level of hotness and tomatoey; yummy, yummy, yummy, love in my tummy.

In fact, everything was well received. The boy’s burger was apparently “ummm,” and despite explaining I needed a bite for the purpose of the review, he wasn’t giving it up without a fight! The daughter praised the pizza, and she’s the Jay Rayner among us, but she especially adored the chips, describing them as crisp, and they were, I concurred. Perfectly cooked little beauties, and cut just the right size to be best considered “chunky fries.”

The kebab was lovely too, meat, tasty, a good range of fresh salad, and oh, did I mention the chilli sauce?! It’s worth mentioning twice!

Portions generous, all at a competitive price, the family were happy. I’ll be back faster than Schwarzenegger for an uzi 9mm. You should give this local owner’s new enterprise a try. There’s vegetarian options, phones, and an online ordering website HERE, and they deliver right out to the sticks, at around a four mile radius; dinner sorted!

The Olive Pizza & Grill is at: 26 Sidmouth Street, Devizes, SN10 1LD, UK

Opening Hours
Mon-Sat: 4pm-11pm
Closed On Sundays

Website

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Soupchick in the Park

And there was me thinking nothing good comes out of a Monday! Today local bistro Soupchick, popular in the Devizes’ Shambles opened their second branch, transforming the Hillworth Park café. I felt the need to poke my nose in, for the sake of a tea and toastie….

A slight cooling of temperature didn’t prevent a busy opening day for the team.  Owner Marc told me how customers were lined up at the doors before they opened, and supposed the cooler climate wasn’t a bad thing, as they were still finding their feet!

Hillworth Park was much the same as usual, scenic yet functional, with a sprinkling of families passing through and children playing games. This is a welcomed addition, though, as Soupchick is renowned locally for quality homemade tasty tucker, though the customer base might change slightly. What then, is different from the Soupchick of the Shambles and the new café, and what’s the same? I hear you ask!

Easy. The ethos is the same, from  the hospitable welcome to fresh quality produce and homemade food, with Anya’s exceptional attention to flavours that compliment each other; it’s all sooo scrumptious!

There’s two of their delicious soups of the day options, naturally, and there’s toasties of similar variety as before. But with a view to more family clientèle, there’s simplified versions of the toastie, such as plain cheese with ham, tomato or onion, as well as those favourites at the Shambles, such as The New Yorker with pastrami, Swiss cheese, red onion and American mustard, the tuna melt, or Smokey Spanish Chorizo.

While I’m personally partial to a New Yorker toastie, the greater welcomed element will surely be the essential ice cream from Marsh Farm, and a greater concentration on teas, coffees, smoothies, milkshakes and salads. From quiche to baguettes and falafel wraps, it’s a wider variety, but everything retains the fresh quality we’ve come to love Soupchick for.

They’re open for breakfast too, with granola bowls, fruit salads, porridge, toast and wraps, and everything on the menu all day is very reasonably priced; when considering how tasty it all is; you can’t go wrong with a toastie for six pounds, or sandwiches from £5.50.

It was a shame, for years past, the Hillworth Park café perhaps wasn’t reaching its full potential, and selling chocolate bars and drinks which could be found cheaper at the Hillworth Road store a short walk up the street. Soupchick has truly turned the facility around, it offers now something unique with a personal touch, and something, while Devizes residents have become accustomed to through their time spent at the Shambles, a wider appeal than before.

Though, I must stress, Anya, Marc and the team are determined to keep both cafés open, and The Shambles one will continue as before. You could, potentially, buy a takeaway soup at one and walk to the other for a refill!!

We wish them all the best with their new venture, and look forward to the possibility of perhaps having a few events there too some sunny day and meeting you there, of course!

T F I Thaiday Friday

Checking out the little Thai cuisine delivery service in Devizes, Thaiday Friday; why am I the last to know about these things?!

I’ve no gripe with Andy, I couldn’t have, he’s standing at my door clutching some takeaway Thai curry. And my grumble certainly isn’t with his partner, Som, who’s lovingly cooked it. It’s with some of you, you know who you are! I do have bad moods, and they can be known to last for anything up to thirty seconds. The Thaiday Friday Facebook page has received over 400 likes, and not one of you thought to tell me about it. Well, your dirty little secret is out!

Thaiday Friday is the “lockdown project” of Andy and Som of Devizes, each Friday they deliver a different homecooked Thai dish to your door. While we have some great established takeaways in town, variety lacks, Thai cuisine one of them, and you know what they say about variety; aptly, it’s something about spices.

If they’ve found a gap in the market, and set up as a registered business, Andy seemed ambiguous with the prospect of expanding the project. He’s worked as a DJ for over 35 years, and Som is the breakfast chef at The Bear Hotel, so they’ve their hands full already. Besides, overthinking something can be its downfall, the beauty of this idea is its simplicity.

“We sell out most weeks,” Andy told me, making me wonder why we need review it at all. But I’m not about to argue, as I said, he’s standing at my door clutching some takeaway Thai curry! After hoofing it down, and cleaning my plate dry, (which I may/may not have licked,) I see why it needs a mention, deffo. Though I’ve not a great deal of experience with Thai cuisine, ergo nothing to evenly compare it with, I knows what I likes, and this was simply delicious.

Those few times I have had Thai curry, it’s always been green, like it’s an English set standard. This Friday though, it’s a welcoming, warm orange tint; chicken Massaman curry, apparently, with chickpeas, sweet potato and cashew nuts, accompanied with soft Thai Jasmin rice. “We rotate five dishes on weekly basis,” Andy explained, “Massaman, yellow curry, Panang curry, red curry and green curry, all with Thai Jasmin rice.”

Choice maybe limited, no restaurant menu here, rather a quaint homecooked operation of which you can check to see what’s cooking and order via their Facebook page. If you have to hold your hands up and praise the ingenuity here, the proof is, as they say, in the pudding. You can choose if you want it hot or just lightly spiced, of which we opted for the latter.

Like Marilyn Monroe, without the legs for it, I do like it hot, but lesser so, I considered, you can really taste the quality. And it is quality, restaurant-standard. The chicken fresh and succulent, the sweet potato smooth and the whole combination of cashews, chickpeas and the incomparable sauce were to die for.

Massaman is a rich, relatively mild fusion dish, not over-sweet, savoury, and just, velvety. Is this the cinnamon at work, the palm sugar or cardamom? Do I look like Jay Rayner to you? That was rhetorical, you don’t have to answer it. To compare to Indian curry though, this was far more delicately composed and lighter; it was sweet, to a degree, savoury to another and creamy, just a bit. With Indian curry I find it’s either one end or the other, here curry is balanced to perfection, from someone proficient and obviously passionate about bringing you a taste of her home; that’s my amateurish opinion!

Thanks Som and Andy, but I couldn’t finish it all!

Portions were plentiful, but size is unimportant compared to the notion; here’s something unique to our little market town, and for which Thaiday Friday thoroughly deserves top marks, and a little more. This is undoubtedly the completion to a perfect Friday night in.