Two posts in one week?!?! Yeah I do not know who I am anymore either!! All joking aside I did confirm in my last post that I have once again (finally after nearly two years) found my love for blogging and sharing my love for food. All I do is eat these days and I do not think my brain has quite caught on to the fact that I am no longer pregnant. I have not lost the added baby weight by any stretch of the imagination and the fact I am enjoying incredible food (photos as evidence below) I am not bloomin' surprised.
I have reviewed the Axe & Cleaver on a few occasions (I will link the other posts below for you to check out) and it has long been a favourite place of Steve and I's; after all we did have our first date there. So of course it was going to be the first place we went to as a family of three with little Alexander.
I must admit the first alcoholic drink I had was a glass of red wine and I hated it! Steve has confirmed my taste buds were clearly messed up, because it was a beautiful red wine but I hated it. I really thought alcohol would be ruined for me forever... But luckily the first pint of beer I had tasted great. It was a pint of Big Tree by the Dunham Massey Brewing Company and that is served on tap at the Axe & Cleaver. They usually have a number of local beers and I tend to choose the same as Steve, because he has great taste in alcohol - the first bottle of red not included in that opinion.
Now as sleep deprived parents we really were running off batch cooked food I had made during my nesting days, takeaways or meals out. We had hammered most other meals except for burgers and the Axe & Cleaver usually do a great burger. We had been before and I could have sworn the chicken burger was a chicken breast. I am a bit of a fussy individual when it comes to chicken meat and a chicken thigh burger does not appeal to me. I know it apparently tastes better, but to me it really does not and the meat gives me the ick. I was really dissapointed when the burger came and it was chicken thigh. I ate half of it, because I am a sleep deprived and starving new Mum although I really wished I would have ordered something different. Steve had the other half of my burger and highly rated it. I guess I am just a bit odd and probably should not be allowed an opinion on chicken thigh burgers as I am rather biased. The chips were great though and I gladly ploughed through those in next to no time at all.
Steve chose the Cheese & Bacon Burger. If the item of food includes BBQ sauce it will get a high rating from Steve. Unfortunately, the burger did not come with the BBQ sauce. It was ok with mayonnaise, but certainly needed a little something extra - the BBQ sauce would have really helped. Overall we were satisfied with our burgers, but sadly not blown away by them like we have been previously.
Luckily, we also ordered halloumi fries with a sweet chilli dip and they really did save the mains. There is just something about halloumi cheese, deep fried with sweet chilli sauce - it is a match made in heaven! I am very glad we ordered these as I did not feel as disappointed when we were asked how our food was and with being recently postpartum I figured hormones likely had a lot to do with my interpretation of the food we had so I certainly think this warrants a visit back.
I am not usually one for a dessert or sweet things, I am always a savoury kinda gal, but whilst pregnant I could not eat enough sweet stuff. I would easily plough through a bar of chocolate and a bag of hairdo a night and desserts that were previously off the menu as I would always prefer a starter were now firm favourites. I opted for the Mocha Torte with Raspberry coulis and coconut ice-cream. This was an incredible combination and the flavours really worked together. Steve chose a bakewell tart as we had recently visited Bakewell - We are glad to say the bakewell tart was lovely and we really enjoyed our desserts.
The staff as always were incredible! They assisted us with our pram, were really understanding when we phoned to explain we would be late (poo explosions before leaving the house are not the one) and even moved our reserved table, despite being rather busy, to enable us to accommodate Alexander's pram at the table. We recently visited again, although I did not take photographs of our food, and the chef cut up my meal for me to enable me to eat one handed whilst holding Alexander who was not a happy chappy. The staff also tried to help us keep Alexander entertained and were just lovely despite having a screeching baby in their restaurant. The staff themselves just make the visit very comfortable and you always feel relaxed and taken care of whilst there.
The Axe & Cleaver will firmly remain a favourite pub of ours and it is so close to Dunham Massey and the canal footpath that you can easily walk a lovely loop and stop off for a pint and / or something to eat. Chef & Brewer are also partnered with TESCO and you can treble your club card points and turn them into vouchers. We often do this and find we end up paying about £20 for the family to eat, which is so reasonable and every little helps especially with the cost of living crisis that we are all facing at the moment. We'll definitely be back for another visit very soon to try out their new menu and highly recommend a trip if you are in the Dunham Massey / Altrincham area.
Hopefully this little review has helped you see the quality of the food at the Axe & Cleaver! We love doing food reviews in our local area so please let me know if you have any recommendations and we will go and check them out for our next food review.
Until Next Time
T
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Other posts you may be interested in:
That food looks and sounds really yummy! Thank you for sharing your experience and thoughts!
ReplyDeleteLauren - bournemouthgirl