Ask and you will be fed

Bath city centre has no shortage of restaurants to offer, but many of them close between 2.30pm and 6pm. We had to catch a train just after 6.30pm and realised that we would have to settle for a chain restaurant that stayed open throughout the afternoon. My younger son had taken his girlfriend to Ask a few weeks before and recommended it. I had never been to Ask as we don't have one locally, so I was all in favour of trying somewhere new.

When we arrived at 4.30pm that Saturday the place was fairly quiet and as there were three of us we were shown to a table that was intended for four. Before I had even had chance to sit down the waitress was handing out menus but warning us that several things were not available. These included all the main course specials, salmon and ciabatta. I was a little peeved about the salmon, but I presumed they had had a busy lunchtime and had run out.

The waitress was soon back to take our drinks order and I asked for a Fruitiser. She went off to check and came back to regretfully inform me that that was not available either. Not a good start. My elder son and I ordered Appletiser (£1.95 each) whilst my younger son went for a Peroni Gran Riserva beer at £3.65 plus a glass of water. These were soon brought by a different waitress.

Turning to the food menu, I didn't want a starter, not wishing to spoil my appetite for the main course, but my sons decided to share the prosciutto and mozzarella crostini at £4.65, which is served with fresh rocket salad and a balsamic glaze. We also ordered some marinated olives for £1.95. I noticed on the specials board that there was a king prawn starter that day for a whopping £7.95 as well as mushroom and marsala soup which was under five pounds.

The main course menu has sections for pizza (including calzone or folded pizza), salads, pasta and risotto as well as oven-baked dishes. My younger son had had a pizza on his previous visit and thoroughly enjoyed it but decided to try something different this time. He chose a Milanese oven dish, polpette al forno, made with penne pasta, beef meatballs, fire-roasted peppers, caramelised onions, chillies, garlic, pomodoro sauce and melted cheese (£8.25). My elder son is very partial to risotto and liked the sound of the vegetarian one made with cream and white wine, courgettes, caramelised leeks, peas, oven roasted tomatoes, artichoke and black olives (£8.95). Still lamenting the lack of salmon, I decided on ravioli burro e pesce – large ravioli parcels stuffed with crayfish, crab, smoked salmon and mascarpone cheese with a white wine, spring onion and dill sauce topped with fresh rocket (£9.25).

The starters arrived promptly and the crostini certainly looked very appetising, although I declined the offer of a taste. The green olives (of which there were eight, along with a couple of black ones) were huge – the biggest I've seen. The taste of them definitely lived up to expectations. When we had finished it was only a short wait until the main courses were served. The ravioli and risotto were served in round dishes whereas the pasta came in an oval-shaped oven dish. Grated parmesan and black pepper were offered, and the parmesan was a very generous serving if you did not ask the waitress to stop grating. The main-course portions were not overly large and anyone with a big appetite might want to order a side salad, but we all felt that our main dishes were just enough. My elder son said that his risotto was the best he had ever tasted, and I know he's sampled a good few. My younger son can be quite a fussy eater but he had no complaints, polishing off every last mouthful. I was equally happy with my ravioli, which had plenty of dill and sliced spring onions in evidence on top. The ravioli itself was just the right consistency and there was plenty of filling which tasted delicious. I was satisfied that I'd managed to get some salmon after all.

Perhaps the fact that we were celebrating my younger son's birthday a few days early encouraged us to ask for the dessert menu. It was a different waitress again by this time, and she explained that they were short of particular things that day because they had not had a food delivery for some reason. She said it would actually be easier to tell us what was on the dessert menu rather than what was not available. We had a choice between profiteroles, two flavours of ice cream, a tempting chocolate pudding with an orange sauce centre (on the specials board), chocolate cake with vanilla ice cream or lemon and mascarpone cheesecake. Two of us decided that the cheesecake, at £4.95, was the slightly lighter option and one ordered the chocolate cake (£4.75).

It was about 5.30pm by this time and the restaurant was filling up quite quickly. There was a slightly longer wait for the desserts to arrive, but we were happy to have a bit of a break after our main courses. The cake looked very indulgent, covered as it was in chocolate sauce with a scoop of ice cream to the side. The verdict was favourable except that the sauce could have been a little warmer to contrast with the ice cream. We did feel we had made a good choice with the cheesecake, which had a gorgeous lemon flavour and was topped with flaked almonds. We certainly felt full by that time and did not order coffee as we needed to make our way back to the station.

By 6pm the restaurant was almost completely full. My son said that on the previous occasion they had arrived about 8.30pm, again on a Saturday, without a reservation and had been asked to come back in an hour. (They had drinks at the Pig and Fiddle just across the road whilst waiting). Ask is obviously a popular place, serving good food at reasonable prices in very pleasant surroundings. One thing that did strike me was that the tables were not too close together in the area where we were seated, so it was possible to have a conversation without feeling that others could hear or being aware of conversations at nearby tables. The music was not so loud as to be intrusive either.

The décor is mostly white with arty vases on windowsills and the occasional abstract painting. The bar is a contrasting black, and bottles of wine are displayed in profusion. Potted palms dotted here and there provide more privacy between neighbouring tables. Lighting is provided by spotlights on a frame in the ceiling, and these were lowered quite a bit at around 6pm. One reservation I have is that the toilets are situated in the basement down two flights of stairs.

Ask does have a special children's menu and there were several young children there when we arrived. One tiny one, however, escaped and was playing with the chain in the middle of the two sides of the large specials easel – if mum hadn't come to the rescue fast enough, he could have pulled the whole thing over and perhaps been squashed in the middle. Not a pleasant thought.

Our bill came to £55.25, so you could say £20 a head after adding a tip. That seems very good value since my sons almost had three courses each, bearing in mind that they shared a starter.

I came away feeling that I wished there were an Ask restaurant in Portsmouth. (My nearest would be Chichester or Petersfield.) The waitresses were polite and friendly, the food was enjoyed by all three of us without a single complaint, we liked the place itself and felt that prices were very fair. Had there been a food delivery that day, we would have had even more choice on the menu. I am sure that I shall be returning to Ask when I have an opportunity, and I would recommend it to anyone who enjoys Italian food.

Ask Restaurant

The Royal York Hotel

George Street

Bath

BA1 2AF

Tel. 01225 789997

Who are you calling an oddball?

Although situated just round the corner from Southsea's main shopping precinct, Oddballs restaurant and wine bar had somehow eluded us for almost ten years. I was meeting one of my sons for Sunday lunch and was determined to try somewhere new, and Oddballs seemed to be the obvious choice, especially since it offers a reasonably priced, varied menu.

We arrived just after 12.30pm and were told that we could choose any table we liked, apart from one that was reserved. We picked a small table by a window, and menus and a wine list were brought straight away. Soft drinks were not listed, but the waiter reeled off a list and we both chose cranberry juice (£2).

We decided to skip starters, but there was a good choice available from, for example, a vegetarian soup of the day (£3.95), warm salad of chorizo, bacon and mushrooms with parmesan and balsamic dressing (£4.75), or toasted garlic focaccia (£2.95).

Main courses ranged from pasta of the day (£6.95), salmon and spinach fish cakes with salad (£7.95), spinach, tomato and pine nut tart with new potato and spinach salad and kalamata olive oil dressing (£7.95) to wild boar sausages with creamy mashed potato and port wine jus (£7.95). I was very tempted by the fish cakes, but roast beef and chicken were on offer too since it was Sunday. I hadn't had a roast for so long that I opted for the chicken (£8.95) and so did my son.

It was roughly half an hour before our food was served, but we were not in any hurry. We each had three good size pieces of chicken breast, one of which was wrapped in streaky bacon. As well as this there was stuffing, a mini Yorkshire pudding (which I hadn't expected with chicken), several small roast potatoes and plenty of gravy. A dish of vegetables to share was served separately; this consisted of cabbage, broccoli, leeks, one cauliflower floret, a couple of slices of carrot and one large slice of courgette. The waitress asked if we would like cranberry sauce, and we said yes.

We both agreed that it was an excellent roast. The was a generous amount of chicken, and it was very tender. The roast potatoes were very crisp and crunchy on the outside but still soft inside. I appreciated the variety of vegetables, and they certainly were not overcooked. The gravy and stuffing were both delicious. I had no complaints about the Yorkshire pudding, but I just couldn't finish it.

If you have the Sunday roast you can have two courses for £10.95, so the idea of dessert did seem tempting. The problem was that neither of us really had any room left. We did look at the menu, which tried to entice us with three scoops or ice cream or sorbet (£3.95), cheese and biscuits with red onion chutney and grapes (£5.25), or various other desserts including cheesecake, chocolate brownie, fruit sponge pudding with custard or raspberry crème brulee with shortbread (all at £4.50). We managed to resist all of these, however. Instead, my son ordered a brandy (£3) and I decided on a cappucino (£2.35) having studied the various coffees listed on a board at the bar. I am not easily pleased where coffee is concerned, but this cappucino turned out to be a particularly good one.

Our bill came to £27.25, so with a tip added it worked out at £15 each for an excellent roast and two drinks. For those with larger appetites, there is a set menu at £12.95 for two courses or £15.95 for three. A board on the wall advertised Saturday lunch at £5 for dish, which surprised me as restaurants offering special deals usually exclude Saturdays.

A couple of weeks later four of us visited Oddballs at around 4.30 on Saturday afternoon and were pleased to find that the £5 a dish offer was available until 5pm. We each ordered a glass of fruit juice and chose from a varied list of main courses. The pan-fried liver was off, but none of us would have wanted that anyway. Pasta of the day was linguine with chicken, bacon and mushrooms. I decided on chicken caesar salad with crispy pancetta, one of my sons went for chilli beef nachos with cheese and jalapenos, the other opted for roasted vegetables in pitta bread with hummus and salad, and his partner chose deep fried hake in beer batter with home-made chips.

We didn't have such a long wait this time as we had had on the Sunday. All of us enjoyed what we had ordered, although the roasted vegetables (courgette, aubergine, onion, pepper and tomato) weren't very filling, and another dip was substituted for the hummus. My salad included anchovies as well as the crispy pancetta, and a small serving of salad came with the fish and chips. It was very good value at £5 a head.

Not having overspent on the main course, we decided we would have dessert this time. Two ordered a chocolate brownie with chocolate sauce, one was unable to resist the temptation of vanilla and chocolate cheesecake, and I picked cassis sorbet as the lightest option. All of these were beautifully presented with a strawberry, another unidentified small fruit, and a dusting of icing sugar. They were delicious too. My sorbet had one or two whole blackcurrants inside and came with a sprinkling of grated chocolate to complement the fruit flavour. The sorbet was £3.75 whilst the other desserts were £4.50 each. Our total bill came to just over £47, not including service.

I would gladly return to Oddballs again one day, and my son felt it would be the ideal place to bring his partner's family, especially since the menu offers a good varied choice. The atmosphere of the place is welcoming and relaxed. We liked the combination of the open brickwork and the deep pink walls, although I think a few prints or paintings would improve the décor as at the moment there are rather too many blackboards around. The chairs are rather an odd assortment of old wooden ones, so if you like extra comfort you might not be impressed. Two or three large plants intertwine with fairy lights, and the main lighting is very soft, coming from wall lights rather than from the ceiling. If the music were any louder it might disrupt conversation, but as it was I did not find it objectionable.

The waiter and waitress dress very casually but are welcoming, polite and efficient. They asked us both during and after our meal if everything was to our satisfaction. I have to admit that the restaurant was not particularly busy at the time of our visit, but I had the feeling that they were out to please in whatever way they could.

There are three steps up to the toilets, which would obviously not suit anyone in a wheelchair. There were also two or three tables in that raised area, but a carved wooden screen made the door to the toilets more discreet. The ladies was not luxuriously decorated but it was perfectly clean.

I did notice a couple of highchairs, so babies are presumably welcome. Whilst we were there an elderly lady was having lunch on her own. I got the impression that she was a regular customer and the waiting staff were certainly being very friendly towards her.

Oddballs may not be the smartest or most stylish restaurant in the area, but neither is it the most expensive. It is very close to Southsea's Palmerston Road shopping precinct and just a few minutes' walk from the Southsea Castle area of the seafront. I would recommend it to families, couples or single people looking for a welcoming atmosphere, a varied menu and reasonable prices. The restaurant is closed on Mondays.

Oddballs

12 Clarendon Road

Southsea

Hampshire

Tel. 023 9275 5291