I know, I know guys, I've got to stop talking about food. I don't know about you lot but I'm making myself hungry! This is a review of a fantastic restaurant I discovered when I went to Norwich a few weeks ago with the boyfriend. We have a bit of a obsession with discovering new places to eat and although we find some pretty delicious places, we always try to stop ourselves from revisiting places when there are so many more we have yet to try. I did a bit of research into local restaurants ahead of our trip, to make sure we had a couple of restaurants up our sleeve if we had time to try somewhere new and amazingly we managed to fit two restaurants into one weekend! These ones were so good, I just couldn't resist sharing them with you, so here is my review of the first.

We started off on the Saturday night be heading to Pinocchios Restaurant on St Benedicts Street. This Mediterranean brasserie is in the heart of the city and is easy to find, with convenient free parking right outside. Best of all, it is an independent restaurant, which I always try and stick to just to support local retailers rather than bigger chains. Of course, this isn't always possible, but I think it is something we should all aim to do. From the outside, the restaurant is warm, inviting and really cute - it has the old-fashioned charm of a Lady-and-the-Tramp-style Italian but with a more diverse menu that incorporates some delicious dishes. The restaurant is very spacious so perfect for a romantic dinner for two or a large group for a birthday, there were several different groups in there when we were eating with plenty of room for all of us. The staff were attentive and looked after us well, bringing us pepper and drinks as we needed them, but leaving us alone to enjoy our food. The restaurant also had a lovely upstairs area with more seating.We were in the mood for some comfort food and this was the perfect place to enjoy delicious and tasty dishes reminiscent of a home-cooked Italian, but with some slightly different and more exotic flavours. To start, we shared squid in tempura batter with aioli and salad, and a peach and Italian cheese bruschetta  with balsamic and salad. Both were gorgeous dishes and complemented each other well, they made a great combination and really allowed us to try a mix of flavours. The aioli was delicious and really added something new to the squid dish which I had tried previously in other restaurants, it was great to see them putting a different spin on the dish. The bruschetta was delicious, it wasn't something I would have usually ordered, but I fancied trying something unusual and I loved the combination of balsamic and peach, they worked really well together.

For mains, I had a gorgeous carbonara - not usually a dish I would order, in fact it was the first time I had ever eaten it out, but I was just in the mood for a creamy pasta with plenty of flavour. It more than lived up to my expectations and I ate every scrap of the bowl. The portions were of a healthy size, much better than when you go to a restaurant and have three pieces of ravioli brought out to you. But most importantly, the sauce was delicious, it really combined the cream with the bacon well and with a light dusting of pepper it was pretty perfect. Mark had a parpadelle pasta with lamb in a tomato sauce. His was absolutely delicious, the lamb added a hearty flavour while the tomato kept it fresh and light, he loved the dish and I enjoyed a taste as well.

We had a lovely meal, accompanied by some gorgeous wine and sadly couldn't manage desserts. But I would really recommend this restaurant to anybody, whether you are after a romantic candlelit meal for two, a group meal or a big party, their menu has something for everyone and their service is faultless. I really enjoyed my evening with them and was even more impressed by the prices, if you are on a bit of a budget, this is a great restaurant for you. I genuinely cannot understand why anyone would rather go to the Pizza Express that is further up the street than dine in an independent, great priced and fantastic little restaurant like Pinocchios!

Have you eaten at Pinocchios - what was your meal like? Have you any other Norwich restaurant recommendations?

Lynn News photo

My apologies for the delay, but as you guys have probably seen of late, I have blog posts coming out of my ears! I seem to have all these amazing posts running around my head, barely the time to write them and certainly not enough time to post them. I would post every day on my blog if I had the time to maintain this, but sadly working four jobs does detract from the amount of time I can spend on this. So sometimes there are a few posts that I put on hold, just so I can make sure I do them justice when it comes to writing them up to share with you guys. A few weeks ago, I had a fantastic girl date with one of my best friends and in our usual style, we decided to go all out and treat ourselves. Although we speak pretty much every day, it had been a while since we had the opportunity to really catch up after we had been working lots and away at festivals - we're both pretty busy bees! But that's the great thing about our friendship, although we are both always busy as anything, neither one of us ever takes it personally when the other can't make it along to something. We always know that when we do finally get a chance to catch up, that we will more than make-up for it.

We headed to one of the newer restaurants in King's Lynn, Marriotts Warehouse, for dinner - a real treat we had both been excitedly awaiting as neither of us had tried it out yet. I had actually been there previously for a Christmas meal with friends, and the food was incredible, but it was a completely different menu to usual, so I considered myself a newbie to the restaurant. As you guys will know by now, I'm a bit of a foodie and I love going out to eat, but in King's Lynn we are sometimes a bit lacking in different types of restaurants - we have loads of Indian, Chinese and Italian restaurants, but very little else and it was great to go to a real bistro-style restaurant. After all of the local restaurants I have been to, I have yet to find another that serves the same type of food as Marriott's.The restaurant itself is in a fabulous place along the quayside, the old warehouse building overlooks the water and at sunset provides a stunning view. The outside seating area has seen various new additions of more benches, seats and plants which, although a little busy, was a lovely place to sit out in the sunshine with a glass of wine, as Vikki was doing when I arrived. Inside, the building is softly lit and has a cosy feel, with lots of wood panelling, beams and a huge wooden bar. The restaurant has a great atmosphere because although there are plenty of places to sit, it is not over-filled with tables so it is never too loud and voices don't echo, even when it is busy. They have plenty of staff, perhaps too many considering the volume of tables, but they give a very personal service and are on hand to cater to your every need.The food itself is outstanding. I don't really know how to describe it beyond that. The flavour combinations are fabulous and in some cases very unusual, they use local produce and it is all presented beautifully.

We shared the Marriott's Sharing Platter to start, which had a delicious combination of feta stuffed peppers, potato and chorizo salad, jerk chicken skewers, minted yoghurt dip and spicy jerk sauce, goat’s cheese, mushroom and sun-dried tomato bruschetta, chicken liver pate with malted bread. Wow, it may have sounded over-ambitious, but we finished everything and it even shut us up for a few minutes because everything was so tasty. It was the perfect accompaniment to a glass of Pinot Grigio and a great conversation. I always love the sharing platters when out with friends because it is such a lovely tradition to share a meal and I love the mezze-style of eating lots of little bits of bigger dishes - as you can imagine I absolutely love tapas!For mains, we actually both went for the same dish because it sounded so tasty! We had the pan-fried duck breast served with chocolate and chilli sauce, potato rosti, braised red cabbage and caramelised oranges, and we ordered some onion rings on the side. I chose the duck because I have never really had duck out in a restaurant and I was dying to try it, my main experiences of duck are having it in pancakes as part of a Chinese. The richness of the meat really appealed to me as a big lover of venison, and I loved the idea of chocolate and chilli sauce with red cabbage. It was absolutely delicious and I struggled to keep chatting because it was so damn tasty. I loved the combination of the flavours, particularly because I would never think to have a chocolate and chilli sauce with meat, or to combine it with oranges - but it really worked and it is making my mouth water even now to remember the dish.

The whole meal was fantastic and I can't recommend this restaurant enough, the whole venture was a brilliant idea and I'm so pleased it is paying off for the guys behind it all. Particularly after they suffered so much with flooding and even a fire earlier this year. I have heard nothing but good things about Marriotts and I always think that is the mark of a good restaurant, not what you read on websites by people who have had a free meal and rate it, but people like me who just love the food and genuinely want others to share the experience, and those who can't stop raving about a place. Marriotts is easily one of my favourite restaurants in Lynn and I will definitely be going back again to try more on the menu!

Have you been to Marriott's Warehouse? What was your favourite dish?