We sat outside in The Fat Badger's lovely hidden garden, with a perfect view of York Minster's bell…read moretower--and were even treated to the sound of its bells ringing while we ate. The food was excellent, the beer was cold, and the waitstaff could not have been nicer. A beautiful setting, delicious food, and warm hospitality in the heart of historic York--what more could you ask for?

Love to see smaller plate options on the menu. The pea risotto and octopus salad tasted very nice…read more We also ordered fish and chips. Service was polite and quick. The atmosphere was pleasant.

Yum Yum is a useful place to have in the vicinity. I used to frequent it regularly when I lived in…read moreBrewery Wharf. The deli section sells a full menu of sandwiches, soups, cakes and a delicious selection of hot specials. I had a very tasty red Thai curry with jasmine rice just recently. There is a seating area both inside and outdoors to eat at. They serve a lifesaving full English breakfast at a reasonable price, and can be responsible for reactivating your brain, following a night out. The other side of Yum Yum is a convenience store, selling fresh fruit and vegetables, pastries, tinned goods, various snacks and a range of wines and beers. They are significantly overpriced, but that is the cost of convenience. I also think their nearby rival Simpsons stock a far better range of products. All in all, it is a useful place to have around, but there are superior alternatives in the area.

My options for lunch aren't very inspiring; go to the effort of making my own, a generic…read moresupermarket sanger or risk the cafe at work where I wonder wether the staff have ever seen a sandwich (No, judging by some of the efforts produced...). The saviour of so many lunchtimes has been Yum's. They never fail to have something interesting on offer. There are usually several hot options such as pasta bake, burritos and a roast pork baguettes and a couple of really good sandwich specials. Highlights for me have included pulled pork with salad and chipotle mayo and ham, smoked cheese and onion marmalade both on sourdough baguettes. The footling hotdog was also a touch. You can also have your own sandwich made, they have loads of filling options and the cakes look awesome- its like subway if subway sold proper food! They do a large range of American sweets and drinks although every other shop in Leeds seems to offer these now. Yum's also have a massive selection of beers and I believe they open for dinner in the evenings doing pizza etc, if I lived at brewery wharf I wouldn't need to go anywhere else! They are a little expensive when you consider a meal deal at Sainsbury's is three quid but what you get is vastly superior. One of their daily special sandwiches and a can of coke will set you back about a fiver which is pretty good as you'll get something really tasty you will actually enjoy!

As I used to live only 2 streets down from this Hyde Park treasure, my shopping trips often ended…read moreup here. I can see why those who don't dare cook outside the realms of beans on toast would avoid this shop as it is full of the weird and wonderful, stacked high with ingredients most would not know how to cook or what to cook it with. But where is your adventurous side?! I am a huge fan of curry, whether it is Indian or Thai in origin (or an English equivalent) and Maumoniat's sells everything you will need to rustle up either. They stock the usual brand name curry culprits such as Pataks Originals for Indian cooking, Blue Dragon for Thai and Chinese and many other untranslatable brands from many different origins. They also stock all of the ingredients you would need to cook up a homemade bowl of world cuisine from scratch with various roots and shoots, fish sauce and the like. A true delight for experimental cookers or fans of foreign cuisine. They also sell a wide selection of cooking oils, various breads, health foods, cheeses (mozzarella, halumi, feta..), sausages, fruits and vegetables. If you are looking for ingredients for a special meal you are unlikely to find elsewhere, it is a your most likely outlet, however, if you are just looking for some fruit and veg or the usual shop, you are likely to find a cheaper place elsewhere.

This place, for someone like me, is totally random and yet totally fun. I think that's why it's so…read morevery popular to be honest. It's the supermarket with a difference, that difference being it's an international supermarket. As well as any of the staple items you might require, this place has the best and most interesting ingredients for any curry/asian cuisine fan. They have spices that I've not even heard of, all kinds of rice, naans and other such accompaniments - generally spicy heaven. They have a large frozen section too with plenty of goodies and loads of random strange foreign delights. The sweets are the most crazy! The last time I came here I bought a turkish delight selection box which had some really random flavours, I loved it! For adventurous purchases in the edible arena, this is the place to try. Yum!

I love this place and go out of my way to go there. An…read moreAlladdins cave of treasures from shoes to fabrics..kitchen ware to religious icons..suits to saris.Balti trays and cooking utensils are very reasonably priced compared to any cook shop. This store is massive! It packs a lot of stuff all under one roof! Lovely sari fabrics from around £15.99. I often buy the plain white silk ones for £15 and cut into smaller pieces and dye for other things.Ornate saris make wonderful furnishing fabrics too. A great selection of haberdashery..lovely ribbons and trims. A bargain bin with short pieces of amazing fabrics at about 8 pieces a £1. Some stunning jewellery as well and indian cosmetics and hennabindis, henna tattoos and I also stock up on incense. The huge emporium is a gleaming bazaar with rolls of silks in every possible shade. Racks of spangled shoes and sandals seem to come straight from Bollywood. Yet there are also racks of little girls' organdie dresses like those worn by Shirley Temple in the 1930s. Indeed, something about Bombay Stores is very comforting for English people: it is as if time has stood still. For the Asian community is a taste of home. There is order and calm, no pressure selling and plenty of space to wander from the boutique, selling Bollywood pop hits and videos, to the cafe, en route to the fabrics, suits and shoes. I always keep carrying armfuls of stuff to the checkout but now they have also devised a new idea. In fact there's so much that the only way to shop for larger goods is to browse the store and pick up tickets for each item that you want to purchase, and when you're done you go to the checkout, give in your tickets and all your items will be ready to pay for and collect. I bought a huge, thick fleecy throw for about £20 and everyone wants to steal itit is so soft and luxurious! The brains behind Bombay Stores is 68-year-old Abdul Kader, who came to Britain in 1957. He knew nobody, and started with nothing, but there were jobs. He worked on the London buses and in the Bradford mills. By 1963 he had bought his first business, a former fish and chip shop. His capital was only £100 and his wife, Maryam, worked long hours in the shop making dresses while he drove buses on a double shift to pay for the enterprise. He expanded to the present premises in Shearbridge Road in 1983. Today, annual turnover is £10m and he employs 70 workers. Very efficient and helpful service. They have a cafe for wonderful samosas, coffee and good western style kids meals too. Bombay Stores in Bradford not only sells fabrics that attract customers from all over the world, it also brings together a multicultural community. It is the UK's largest Asian department store. They have a web site with a small online catalogue and various department goods. Opening times: Mon to Fri 10:00am till 07:30pm Sat 10:00am till 08:00pm Sun 12:00pm till 06:00pm

A great place to find interesting and colourful fabric/trims, Bombay stores has stacks of the…read morestuff. The wide range offers everything from simple plain white cotton to the most heavily embellished and luxurious satins perfect for wedding dresses. They have a dedicated bridal section and I believe they do custom made wedding dresses these do not come cheap but you get what you pay for. The extensive trims section offers glittering diamantes and a fantastic selection of buttons. They really do have everything you need at Bombay stores. The only thing that does start to get irritating after a while is the music as Bollywood tunes really aren't my thing but it's an INdian store so it fits well with the shop.

As far as little supermarkets go this modest co-operative is a fair shout. Housing everything you…read morecould possibly need in a pinch it's a really handy store for those living nearby, despite the prices being just a little bit higher than most other supermarket chains. I nipped in here for some basics and was really pleased to find that they sell Clover, a small and very specific point I know, but it seems all other places nearby to me have ceased to sell this most coveted butter brand! I was really pleased. They also have a grand fruit and veg section, though not as wide and fresh as Oakwood fruits, a good selection of handy quick meals, cereals and more. There are also feed 4 for £4 deals, which seems to be their answer to Sainsburys feed your family for a fiver deal, which isn't bad! As well as all this the shop assistant was really sweet and friendly, offering up a bit of harmless banter as I purchased my goods. All in all, a pretty fair place to purchase some goods!

Now these sorts of shops aren't really the sort to get excited about but I just had to give this…read moreone a mention. The store has managed to cover most of my emergencies, from desperately needing a sewing kit to cough medicine to a birthday card. There seems to be an awful lot hidden away on the shelves. The food selection isn't bad and it's of the same quality as a big supermarket. They always ID me even though I am approaching 30 but I don't mind as it means you don't have the usual drunken kids hanging out side. What is great is the staff, they are always very helpful, keen to chat and makes buying your tea bags a little bit fun.

Spacious bar that I have never been to for a proper night out but is nice enough for a low key…read moredrink and even better for lunch. Think it's part of the taste card scheme for 2 4 1. Pretty sure there are plenty of voucher offers that float around too. It is a bit of a random shape inside so lots of little areas separate from each other to suit your mood. Tables, Benches, Big chairs and seating outside for you smokers. Now then not the best to end a review on but the toilets are so random I have to mention it. You go down a winding corridor and stairs with bits of furniture leading the way and mirrors on the walls. Well confused me the first time thinking I'd gone the wrong way but fear not there are perfectly functional toilets down in the midst of the wild streets under Henry's.

Spice Centre is a strange little shop, often nicknamed 'the mosque shop' due to its proximity to…read moreone of Hyde Park's more prominently visible mosques. It sells an assortment of reasonably cheap and decent quality fruit and vegetables piled a little haphazardly outside on wooden pallets. They have also somewhat neglected the notion of a sign denoting the name of their shop...an attitude I rather admire! Inside they stock odds and ends of essential groceries, some unusual and yummy spicy crisps, Asian deserts and hardly any chocolate to speak of! The interior always has a slightly empty feel with shelves never appearing fully stocked...but it certainly has character! Top tip: they also sell probably the tastiest vegetable samosas I have ever tried (which I have decided earns them an extra star!). They are usually displayed ready to eat in a box on the counter.

This long-standing fruit and vegetable shop is like a market on the outside and an abandoned…read moregeneral food shop on the inside. On Fridays there is a mass of men who spill out from the mosque next door and have a good natter on the street and in the road. Vegetables and fruits are stacked on top of wooden pallets. You can get fresh herbs such as coriander and mint for a very decent price, the usual fruits such as apples, bananas and oranges as well as fairly priced spices such as ginger. And a large variety of vegetable from Chinese radish to sweet potatoes lay here waiting to be selected. Inside you can also buy freshly made vegetable samosas for only 25 pence. A refreshing change from the expensive chain corner shops such as 'One-Stop' and 'Londis' and more choice than is available at 'Sainsbury's'.

Just got back from a meal out (on work's behalf) and it was absolutely delicious. I'm so full, but…read morethe three double espressos have kept me perky :D I had delectable mussels, then tender, velvety fillet steak (you have to order veg/chips etc as side orders - that's how you know it's posh), then blackcurrant sorbet. And half a zabaglione. Then the espressos. And some champagne. And house red. Ooooh it was so tasty. If I could afford to eat here off my own steam, I would. Starters are between £5.00 and £8.50, mains go up to £22.50 and puddings are around the £5.00 to £7.00 mark or something. I think the bill came to about a grand for 18 of us, including drinks. Worth every penny. Of my work's money. Nomnom. PS I liked the spinny doors. And the service was ace. One of our waiters had very cool specs and was super nice to me after I mentioned them.

I'm not quite sure why I've never tried Piccolino before, I've walked passed it a million times and…read morenothing has every lured me in. I eventually decided to try it after I was trying to book a table for twenty on a Friday night at another Italian place around the corner but they said it was too big a party. A friend suggested Piccolino and so we went with that. There ended up being thirteen of us for a hen-party meal (not THAT kind of hen party, it was all very subdued, honest) last Friday. I'd told them beforehand that we had a smaller number than previously planned and they were fine about it. We arrived just before our booked time of 8.30 and it was full. Very full. We waited in the small waiting area for over half an hour before they squeezed us in somewhere. When I say squeezed I mean it - there was no room to move and as I was on the end I had my elbow nudged a number of times by waiting staff pretty much running by. So I'll go with the positives first. They gave us some free breads and olives because of our wait (we had been there over 45 minutes before our order was taken). The food was gorgeous I had the baked mushroom and goats cheese starter (£7.50) followed by a spiced aubergine pasta (£9.50) for my main which they made with penne for me rather than the spaghetti it comes with on the menu (I try not to eat spaghetti in crowded restaurants as anyone in my vicinity will be covered in it). Portion sizes were great and it was all really, really tasty. I'd also sampled a gorgeous limoncello bellini while we were waiting to be seated which was very tasty. Now for the not so positives. As a veggie I was a bit gutted at the lack of veggie options on the menu (one veggie pasta, one veggie pizza and two veggie risottos for the mains). I found the whole atmosphere quite stressful. As I've said it was a Friday evening and was full but I've been in plenty of busy restaurants that have been nowhere near that noisy. I mean really, really noisy where I could barely hear the person sat next to me. I don't know if it's because they had so many parties in or if the ceiling is low or what but it really ruined the feel of the evening and made me want to rush my meal. I was also not at all impressed with the service. We'd asked for a jug of water four or five times before some of us (not all) were given a glass of water each. The waiter didn't bother coming round to each of us to take our order but stood at the opposite end of the table so we had to shout across (I've already mentioned the noise level so this wasn't easy). Now my friend and I have a bit of a weird food thing and we don't want the world to hear what we are ordering so we weren't impressed with this. When a different waiter brought the food out we couldn't hear what he was shouting and he wasn't the one who had taken our orders so we all just looked at him and tried to guess which meal belonged to who. So far so bad. It was really difficult to get the waiter's attention at any point as they were all rushing around and if one of us got his attention and asked for something, he would run off before anyone else on the table could ask for what they wanted. My friend attempted to order a glass of Merlot for about 10 minutes and then had to wait about that long again before she received it. Merlot-gate then started when she thought it tasted foul and when we compared it to what was allegedly a glass of the same that someone else had ordered it was obviously off. The waiter replaced it with a glass that was drinkable but didn't seem very happy about it. In the end we didn't bother sticking around for dessert (not something I'm in the habit of doing!), we got the bill and left. It was a real shame that the service was so bad, I don't know if they were short staffed (although the staff weren't particularly apologetic so maybe not) or that's just how it is there. The crazy noise level, rushing around of the waiting staff and having to shout our orders across the room made for a stressful evening so I won't be back on a weekend evening again. Having said all that, the food was gorgeous and I accept that you need to try a place more than once before you write it off so I may try it again through the week and report back on whether I come back out with a headache and grumpy face again!!!