When on holiday, I love to find a hidden gem that’s a little off the beaten track. I wouldn’t normally do a review on a takeaway, but this one is definitely deserving a mention.

It’s becoming quite rare these days to find a traditional fish and chip shop that has not also become a Chinese takeaway or kebab house. Ocean View is as traditional as they come – with a simple menu comprising of fish, sausages, pies, chicken and a selection of burgers.

The place is located on 1 Newport Road, Ventnor and is up at the top of the hill overlooking the main town. It also has amazing sea views (hence the name!).

ALL food ordered at Ocean View is cooked on order – nothing has been sat there for ages slowing drying up, it’s all freshly prepared when you order. Because of this, there is a little wait for your food, but it’s determinately worth it and you can phone orders through.

When we visited they offered a selection of fish comprising of Cod, Haddock, Place, Fish bites and fish cakes. There are a small selection of “pukka pies” and sausages can be ordered battered. They also serve “proper” mushy peas.

Despite it’s location, it gets very busy – seemingly though word of mouth as it’s not in a location I would think many tourists would stumble across.

It’s a “must do” for anyone staying in the area and the only downside I can think of is that it’s not my local chippy!

The Fidgetwith’s have just returned from a fantastic self catering holiday on the wonderful Isle of Wight. We stayed at nearby Whitwell.

Besty & Spiky’s is located at the end of the Esplanade right on the sea front in the BlueOcean Quay building. On first impressions the place looked clean and tidy, the menu looked very good and the prices very reasonable.

The menu offers something for everyone and they also offer an all day breakfast comprising of Egg (cooked how you want it), bacon, sausage, tomato, beans, mushrooms and hash browns. Complete with Toast and tea or coffee for just £4.95. They also do a children’s version for about £3.00.

Service was very friendly and fast – food only taking around 5 minutes to come out. You get a real feel that the team are passionate about what they do and nothing is too much trouble. The quality of the food was also excellent.

A little research about the place shows that they used to be based further up the esplanade at the Ventnor Bay Cafe, a dated looking place next to the Amusement arcade. It seems the owner of that cafe became greedy and saw what a success the lads had made of the place and decided to take control of it back. It seems the locals supported Besty & Spinky and moved their custom to the new place (with good reason!).

If you are ever in the area, make sure you call in for a bite to eat, it’s highly recommended.

The Fidget family have just returned from a fabulous week’s holiday on the Isle of Wight. We opted to stay self catering so we have the freedom to come and go as we pleased. We hunted for suitable accommodation and came across a website for Barn End Cottage in the small village of Whitwell in on the south of the island. The pictures showed a “chocolate box” style two bedroom thatched cottage with a garden. It looked ideal so we booked.

The cottage is available for rent on a Friday to Friday basis and after catching the 12pm ferry from Portsmouth we had a 30 minute drive to Whitwell. We were a little early for the cottage to be ready (3:30pm) so we looked for a place to have lunch whilst we waited.

Whitwell itself is a very small village  comprising of houses, a pub (great food!), a petrol station (no shop attached) and a post office located in the church. There are no convenience stores but there are several stores including a brand new large Spar (with parking) in nearby Ventnor. This is where we obtained most of our shopping during the week.

We finally headed back to the cottage at the allocated time and we were instantly wowed by it’s charm and the attention to detail the owner had put into the place. Stepping inside, it was akin to walking into a museum of yesteryear.

The cottage comprised of a living room, kitchen/utility room and bathroom on the ground floor and two bedrooms on the upper floor. The slightly quirky layout is because having been built in the 17th century, indoors bathrooms were not heard of back then. The bedrooms were very well presented with cushions, red roses and a teddy left on each bed as a welcome.

In the “red” (master) bedroom, there is a large four poster bed (note – the ceiling slopes with the natural line of the roof, so watch your head!).

In the kitchen, the owner had left us a hand written note welcoming us to the cottage along with tea and biscuits and a bottle of wine which was a lovely touch.

Although we had been taken back in time with the decor, modern conveniences were never far away – the living room and red bedroom both had lcd TV’s with SKY+ and the kitchen was well equipped with microwave, toaster, cooker and dishwasher. The cottage also has a payphone in case you need to make a call.

On the subject of phones, I use an Orange mobile phone and the signal in the area was very good – HOWEVER there is little 3G signal in the island (mainly only at the north where you can get 3G from the mainland) so data connections are VERY slow. As the cottage has a phone line, it would be the icing on the cake if the owners were to install free broadband/wifi for guests.

All the literature provided warns of two things – the pond and stream in the garden. The garden was a lovely sun-trap with a table and chairs to sit out on. There was a pond and at the back of the garden is a large drop straight down to a small stream – so heed the warnings and make sure you supervise children.

In conclusion, the cottage made the island stay that bit more special for us and we would definitely recommend it to anyone looking for something out of the ordinary.  We would definitely stay there again!