£5.95 for lunch can't be bad!...

TonbridgeBlog has just taken his first lunch break in over four years, honestly! I've just taken my wife to Mama Mia's, what was the Grapes, and before that, the Office Wine Bar on the High Street in Tonbridge to try out their "Rapido" lunch menu. I put a notice on the door of the shop, again for the first time ever, saying "Closed For Lunch" which seemed a little strange since lunch is usually a sandwich, often with a bag of cheese n onion crisps or sometimes prawn cocktail flavour, but never anything as frivolous as smokey bacon. Off we went, all of fifty yards from Mr. Books, in fact, from our table, I could still see the front of my shop and keep my eye out for if I needed to rush back to serve the disgruntled queue of customers, by now anxious to get in to the shop. The Rapido menu looked very nice and, apparently, changes every day, but I have to say it was a little limited having a choice of only two starters and two mains, but then what can you expect for £5.95 these days? That said both choices sounded, and by this time smelt dislish. I plumped for the chicken salad starter (it was called something fancy and Italian sounding, with the word Pollo in there somewhere) followed by a lingini course with sausage, mushroom, cherry tomatoes and, curiously, peas. I'll be honest, being a fairly large chap, I was a little disappointed with the size of the portions, but frankly, at lunch time, it was just about enough. I washed that down with a glass of Montepulceano D'Abruzzo and some sparkling mineral water, which obviously cost extra. My wife had the other choices, which were soup followed by a tomatoey pasta dished, which was, she told me, equally tasty. I felt very satisfied afterwards, not too full, and happy to have got out for an hour in good company (well I have to say that in case she reads this blog!) The total bill was about £17.20 and I must have felt good because I gave the waitress a £1.80 tip. Actually, thinking about it, maybe I'm not feeling well!...