I could have been in Italy….

With the sun blazing down, the clear blue skies, sitting in a private restaurant paved courtyard, enjoying fantastic cuisine and sipping delicious chilled Prosecco… I felt like I really could have been in Italy.

Sadly, I wasn’t.. but it was lovely to meet a friend for lunch in the cathedral city of Exeter and enjoy a few hours relaxing over a lovely Italian lunch and soaking up the glorious sunshine.  After a very hot bank holiday weekend in Devon, I thought I would be out of luck by the time Thursday came around but after a couple of cooler days the sun decided to grace us with it’s presence once again and it was lovely to have a lazy day and soak up the atmosphere.

The city was bustling, and there were crowds sitting around on the cathedral green..

We decided as all the restaurants with cathedral facing outside seating were looking fairly full to go for the nearby ASK Italian restaurant which had a small courtyard area with some tables and chairs.. we were certainly not disappointed.  Armed with a voucher code offer on my mobile phone for a starter & main course for £ 10.95 per person we were expecting to be presented with a limited choice menu – so we were pleasantly surprised when the friendly waitress said that we could have pretty much full choice from the menu for this deal – I do love a bargain !!..  Made even better by the fact that if 2 of you are having main courses (even with our voucher offer..) a bottle of Prosecco had 25% off making it cheaper than a normal bottle of wine, that made that decision easier.

I chose the  Butterfly King Prawns to start, and they were truly divine..  Followed by the Risotto Pescatore – with more King Prawns.. and Mussels, clams and squid it was a beautiful bowl and I enjoyed every mouthful..

Now I should have stopped there but was too tempted by the theatrical sounding Chocolate Lava Mountain.. Where my waitress poured Hot Toffee sauce over the dark chocolate cup to reveal a hidden scoop of vanilla Gelato on top of a heavenly hot chocolate fondant…mmmmmm, drooling just thinking about it again.  I did attempt to video this but sadly it did not work too well, and I didn’t want to keep my waitress from pouring the sauce. But put it this way it was not just theatrical – it was delicious too..

Italy is very high up on my list of future holiday plans as I would love to cruise out of Venice, and if this taster of Italian cuisine and hospitality is anything to go by I can’t wait.  In the meantime I will just have to make a few more trips to this lovely restaurant during the summer !!