This was a good square meal of three courses in Letchworth Garden City.

The usual stats:

• Attendance: 4 men.
• Distance: thousands of calories.
• Time: start 20:00, end 22:05 (sunset 20:17).
• Speed: moving eating average was slow enough to enjoy the food without indigestion.
• Terrain: indoors, on chairs, at a table.
• Weather: dunno. It was getting dark outside.
• Number of sewa… [Ed: no, enough of this, deffo not for a dinner event]

After the Letchworth guided tour, a few, committed, hard-core foodies ventured out into the wilds of Letchworth town on a Saturday night and ended up at the absolutely fabulous Grapevine Restaurant, Leys Avenue, Letchworth (GoogleMaps).

The restaurant is quite small, ~80 covers at a push at any one time, elegantly decorated, and well lit. A warm and welcoming atmosphere provides for a nice cosy meal. The food was excellent. The service was prompt, knowledgeable and very well timed.

Menu selections:

• stuffed vine leaves, a mixture of rice, onion, garlic puree and lemon peel wrapped in vine leaves, stewed and served with cacik, served cold.
• scallops, simply grilled to absolute perfection, “medium-rare”, glorious seafood flavour and good resistant texture (“al dente”), served warm with lemon;
• garlic king prawns, pan-fried with butter, tomato sauce and mushrooms, served with bread;
• kavurma (Turkish-style fajitas), marinated onions, mushrooms and fresh garlic, served with salad, cacik, mozzarella and tortillas, DIY wrap at the table;
• tavuk izgara (chicken shish), marinated chicken breast skewers served with salad, bulgur, cacik and bread;
• karisik izgara (mixed grill), lamb shish, chicken shish, pirzola (lamb chop), kofte served with bulgur, cacik and bread;
• all washed down with 1 bottle of Kavaklidere angora white wine, which uses a grape typically associated with desserts (and eaten simply dried), but which can be brewed up into a semi-dry white wine;
• to end: baklava with chocolate cream, a pile of layered pastries, languishing in a rich, sweet syrup.

The cost was ~£42 per head.

For more pics, see Google Reviews and https://bit.ly/GOC202504LetchworthMeal.