The summer meeting and AGM of the drinking bat lunch club took place yesterday evening at the new Loch Fyne fish and grill restaurant, Hertford. Very impressed, good menu, excellent staff, nice front of house area, very attentive, total score was 8/10. I had the salmon and wasabi starter, rib eye steak which was excellent so good news all round, definitely worth a visit.

The DBLC met most recently at the recently opened Merchant House restaurant in Hertford - Tony Cicchirillo was King Bat for the day.

Now, this is my opinion, nice restauarant, very good food, good surroundings but front of house is non existant at lunchtime - hopefully there might be an improvement of the evening service.

Anyway an original  score of 8.58 was reduced to TOTAL OF 7.83 after deduction for NO DRINK ON THE HOUSE.

OVERALL : Very decent restaurant, good food, sort your front of house and staff out and you might have a winner, but no return visit for me at until this changes.

 Rich

The Fifth regular meeting of the Drinking Bat Lunch Club took place at the Hertford House Hotel, a fine meal with good company was highly enjoyable. However , some dubious scoring method adopted by King Bat ( Ray Knightly ) resulted in an overrall score of 8.6, thus ensuring himself pole position and the chance of becoming President Bat 2008.

Personally I thought the score was a bit high, no doubt the food and the surroundings are very good but the  service does go missing at times and can be a bit slow on the drinks. That aside it is well worth a visit.

I had the pleasure of lunch with Paul Leadley ( Paul Wallace- Cheshunt) last Friday at Smiths Brasserie in Ongar. Now this a great fish restaurant , very Essex like, I would thoroughly recommend a visit, it is a bit on the pricey side but the service and food is excellent. Anyway it was nice to see Paul’s wallet making the light of day, thanks for the meal mate.

Last Saturday I ate out with the Mrs, my good pals Simon , Nat and all the kids and booked a last minute table at the Masoom through my client Michael , the owner.

Now, I always thought the Masoom was a pretty good take out but it is now a really nice Indian restaurant in modern and contemporary surroundings. Get yourself down there if you like Indian food but tell him to hurry up with the beers.

 Anyway Michael I will expect a better discount for this mention.  Rich

The fourth regular meeting of the DBLC took place in early October. The Drinking Bat Lunch Club meets regularly to nosebag at local eateries suggested by its members. An elaborate scoring system is in place to rate the food and overrall service. The following restaurants and their ratings are shown :

Gregori’s in Ware 7.6/10 ( try the rack of lamb ) extra score given for copious free gruppa

Jacoby’s in Ware 7/10- great food at reasonable price but no drink on the house ( steak and chips @ lunchtime a must )

The Hillside, Bengeo 6/10 - good food in nice surroundings average service

The College Arms, Hertford Heath 6/10 - superb contemporary surroundings, similar menu to the Hillside as same owners average lunchtime service, probably better in the evening.

Current Members are Richard Davies, Tony Cicchirillo, Ray and Alan Knightly, Tim and Rob Skelton, Mark Armitage.