A good meal is a key component to any good vacation and we ate like kings at Center Parcs Elveden. Center Parcs has a huge variety of restaurants and we tried several during our week stay.
Bella Italia was a family favorite.
Italian food is an easy choice with kids. At Bella Italia they could order their favorite, plain pasta with butter or if they were feeling a bit more adventurous, pizza. They kids actually participated in a pizza making workshop at Bella Italia, where they kneaded their own dough and picked their own toppings for an individual sized pizza. All of the kids making pizza, while wearing chefs hats and aprons, were so cute.
I enjoyed the spaghetti bolognese and the meat lasagna. While the kids were happy coloring on their placemats, we adults enjoyed pitchers of cocktails. Nothing says vacation quite like pitchers of beach drinks!
I'm not a huge fan of pancakes, especially when they are outside of breakfast. However, the kids love pancakes, so a trip to The Pancake House was mandatory. Oddly, The Pancake House opens mid-morning and is more of a lunch/dinner restaurant. I don't know if this was a cultural difference in Europe or only limited to this restaurant.
I ordered a crepe style pancake with roasted potatoes and peppers. It was delicious. Really, one of the best meals that I ate on the trip. I was surprised by how much I enjoyed my lunch. I also learned that unlike in America, regular cups of coffee do not come with free refills! Dan had baked beans on his pancakes, which is an English concept that I can't quite wrap my mind around.
Two evenings we tried the food delivery service. The service is fantastic, as long as you decide on it early in the day. We have discovered that if you order any later than mid-afternoon, you risk all of the delivery slots filling up. It's popular, order early.
We tried a selection of curry from Rajinda Pradesh and Chinese food. Rajinda Pradesh is a physical restaurant, where you can also dine-in, but the Chinese food was take-away only through a phone order. Both were average in taste and quality. The nice thing about our Indian night, was the discovery that my step-son is a fan of curry. He absolutely loved make a "curry burrito" out of naan, rice and tikka masala sauce. Discoveries like that are priceless.
Vacations have to include loads of sweet treats. In addition to daily ice cream runs, we bought these animal shaped treats from the sweet shop.
Center Parcs Elveden has the only revolving restaurant in England. Unfortunately, we just couldn't fit it into our visit. Next trip!