Dodds Restaurant — Restaurant in England

Update September 2014: it seems Dodd's is back to its best again...a minor blip earlier this year maybe. The pasta dish I had was incredibly tasty.

Update June 2014: Quite disappointed on this occasion. I had a special pizza which had the unusual ingredient of black pudding on it. Usually quite a tasty ingredient but the pizza was quite stodgy and rather bland.

We hadn't been for a few years due to a previous bad experience.

After reading more positive recent reviews we tried it again and were pleasantly surprised. The service was friendly and the food was excellent and reasonable in the context of the normal rip off prices here. The only downside was that the restaurant was uncomfortably hot.

10/07/12 Update:

Visited again and had a lovely meal. We had to wait to get a seat as they dont take bookings but if your willing to wait it is worth it. I had a pizza main and tiramasou sweet. Both were extremely tasty. The sweet was sightly heavy but the taste more than made up for that. Would still recommend this place. Sevice was friendly and the restaurant wasnt as hot this time. Price was also very reasonable for the lakes.

September 2012 Update:

Returned once again in September. This time round I went for the tomato soup starter and briskett special main course. For something as simple as tomato soup, this one was amazing, so tasty. I'd never had briskett before so wasn't sure what to expect, but as usual with Dodd's, this was great too, if a little filling!

The restaurant was...

It’s a bliss that the restaurant is walk-in only — a fair game for wanderers in the busy summer season. We were able to register our phone number and waited in the parking lot nearby :P Food is mostly good, rounded to almost 5 because of the friendly service.

Lamb Ragu gnocchi combines two of my favorite things. Lamb is cooked tender with lean and tendon parts, full of flavors. The gnocchis are huge (larger than the lam chunks!), al dente, a little cheesy and bouncy. Makes me so happy.

Special seafood risotto is wonderful too. Rice is also perfectly cooked, with a little chewiness. Chimichurri tastes more like pesto but delicious nonetheless. Shrimps and squid pieces are nice. The mussels can be a little plumper and fresher. It’s probably frozen— acceptable for the price, though it will help elevate the restaurant (and all non-fine dining Italian restaurants) if fresh products are used in pasta and risotto dishes.

Hazelnut tiramisu is one of the best tiramisu I’ve had. The mascarpone layer is supper fluffy and airy— and hazelnut flavored! The base layer is well soaked in espresso. White chocolate biscotti is a little too sweet.

Ice creams are too sweet.

Garlic aroma was wafting out of the kitchen so we ordered garlic bread. It can be a bit more garlic but the good side is that it’s not too oily either.

Honey mustard wings and olives are alright.

Service is very friendly...

The... mess you see before you is lobster ravioli, with black pudding and mussels. It tasted very creamy which put me off but I did enjoy it for what it was. It was just lacking spice? Flavour? A kick? I don't know, just something. There was maybe about 6 large pieces of ravioli buried in there sauce, which I feel isn't enough but for some, might be too much?

Anyway, the reason this restaurant is getting 3 stars are for a couple of reasons, not including the food that didn't "wow" me.

You can't book a reservation! There are plenty of places to eat in a rather packed town but you can't book a table. So you have to show up and hope for a seat. If you're not lucky, you can leave you name and phone number, head off and they'll call you when a table is ready. Rather annoying. If they can do that, why not just take reservations?!

We entered, stood at the door as their sign states and the same waiter walked past us 3 times and didn't acknowledge us. Rude much? A bare with me would have been enough. 3 staff behind the bar, all looked up at some point but took another 5 minutes to wander over. The staff were polite when taking our money though.

Like I said there are plenty of places in town to explore and try, so when they take your name and number go and see if you can get lucky elsewhere, instead of waiting 40 minutes + for...