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.

Sometimes it does not take much for the impression of a whole organisation to be let down by a single member of staff. Today was such a day.

Whilst we were out and about today, we needed to call to a supermarket for some odds and ends. As we were nearby Sainsbury’s in Denton, Greater Manchester, we decided to pull in and grab the shopping.

Before going in, we thought it would be a good idea to have a quick hot snack at the in-store cafe. It was 3:15pm and the store is open until 4pm but we were reassured by signage that stated the Cafe is open until 3:30pm.

So we grabbed a tray and got a beverage each and headed to the till where you order your food and pay the bill. There was Mrs Fidget, our two boys aged 4 and 8 and myself.

Looking at the menu behing the girl manning the till I carefully read out each option to the boys so they could choose what they wanted.

It took a minute or two for them to make their minds up and the girl at the till waited patiently smiling at us whilst we chose.

So, we all decided on the food we were ordering and when i relayed it to her she replied “I’m sorry, we are not serving food now”.

She had stood there watching and listening to me get the boys to decide what they wanted, knowing full well we would not be able to order it!

The Sainsbury’s website confirms the opening times and there are no warning that food is not available after a certain time  – only that it’s only available after 11:30am. I asked for clarification on what time they stop serving food and all she said was “the cafe closes at 3:30pm for everything, we stop serving food earlier.”

We were still expected to pay over £4 for the four drinks we had dispensed with the intention of accompanying the food.

I’ve been a loyal customer of Sainsbury’s for many years and on the whole the service is generally good but today’s experience was really really poor.