If you know me in real life, you'll know that I don't always get on with my mum. She is, for all intensive purposes, my best friend but we tend to butt heads a lot. Having said that, we had a spooky moment this weekend when I'd been just about to ask her if she wanted to pop up to The Grosvenor Garden Centre this weekend (somewhere we have literally been a handful of times) and she asked me before I could! It got even creepier when we arrived there on Saturday and it turns out four years ago that day we had been in the very same spot. That's fate or something, surely?! For those of you who have never been, The Grosvenor is a big garden centre just on the oustkirts of Chester and, although I used the rouse of them having a decent kitchen shop (which they actually do by the way) and some killer bath products, what I was really interested in was, as always, the food. Now, this isn't your usual garden centre fayre, The Grosvenor has offerings of Fentiman's soft drinks, loose leaf teas and home-made lemonade. Then, of course, there's the food.
They had a lovely set of quiches, sausage rolls and corned beef hash pie amongst their pastries, and although I was tempted by the shoulder of pork, I settled for a sausage roll and Mum settled for the Parma ham and Rocket Quiche. I opted out of salad, but mum opted in for coleslaw, beetroot and what admittedly was a lovely little side salad. I got a diet coke and mum a tea and it came to a very reasonable £14. Oh, we might have grabbed a slice of the gorgeous Victoria Sponge to share too, it would have been rude not to!
The Sausage roll was lovely, fresh herby sausage meat in warm crumbly pastry (dipped into hot sauce, which sounds rank but is gorgeous, I promise you!) but I'll be honest, I all but threw it down my throat without chewing in order to get my hands on that cake. I wasn't disappointed! The buttercream in the layers and used as frosting was light and creamy, with just enough jam that it wasn't overwhelming. The sponge was moist and springy and I fell in love immediately, asking mum questions on how I would get buttercream like this between mouthfuls (she didn't know, and continued looking at me like I was mental whilst shovelling in bites). Except a particularly rude customer sat behind me, the whole experience was lovely; maybe me and mum should go more often!
Even if not for the food, The Grosvenor really is a nice for a day out, with some lovely food, a really nice baking and kitchen department and some gorgeous cosmetics amongst other things. But, seriously, make sure you go for the food.
Have you ever been to the Grosvenor Garden Centre? What was your experience?
S xo.
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