misshollyparish

misshollyparish blog

The Bay at Jarrold

It’s been a while since my last post but I’m extremely excited to share with you the newest and most fabulous eatery in Jarrolds called The Bay, a gorgeous open plan wine bar and seafood restaurant!

I have visited 3 times already, once for the launch night too where I got to sample many canapés which gave me a taste of the shape of things to come and a couple of times to have a nibble and a drink!

The decor in itself is so beautiful, its situated on the second floor and has launched along with the new look homewares department and The Bay gets its name because of the stunning bay window that the restaurant wraps itself around and the design is that of hanging industrial lighting, exposed brickwork, cool toned neutrals and grained wood with lots of foliage scattered around, its modern, classy, airy and just gorgeous. It’s a great addition to not just Jarrold but Norwich and has really filled a gap for me especially.

Food wise the menu is heavily focused around salmon and has sharing platters, a caviar menu and other hot dishes and brunch style dishes too. I tried the gorgeous salmon sharing platter which for £10.50 per head is an absolute bargain in my opinion for the quality, selection and quantity you get.

They are planning on doing various seasonal specials and have an oyster bar as a special too! In addition to all of this there is the most lovely and carefully curated wine list too with champagne by the glass and one of the loveliest house reds (a pinot noir) which would not feel wrongly paired with fish for the red lovers out there.

I hope I have tempted you in for a visit! Currently The Bay is only opening for lunch but I think it’s a bit of a case of wait and see how it takes off to determine the finalized open times but please if you are a seafood fan put it top of your list to visit!

Thanks for reading, H x

misshollyparish cooking

Chickpea and White Bean Curry

I love a good curry and exploring different flavours and styles dependent of origin is great fun in the kitchen! This sweet, spiced, North African inspired curry is cheap, quick, easy and healthy and with the great flavours from my Buy Wholefoods Online turmeric powder and cinnamon powder it will having you transported away to a Moroccan rooftop by flavour in under half an hour.

Prep time- 5 minutes

Cook time- 25 minutes

Serves 2-3

Ingredients

-An onion

-A tin of chickpeas

-A tin of white beans

-1 tablespoon of Medium curry powder

-1/4 teaspoon of Buy Wholefoods Online Ceylon Cinnamon Powder (pure)

-1 teaspoon of Buy Wholefoods Online Organic Tumeric Powder

-A tin of chopped tomatoes

-Cumin

-Chilli flakes

-Passata

-100g of sweetcorn

-A handful of baby spinach

To serve-

-Microwave wholegrain rice or pitta

-Fresh coriander

-Mango Chutney

Start with a spritz of spray oil over a medium heat and add your onions, white beans and chickpeas, stir fry for a couple of minutes to soften and then add a tablespoon of curry powder fry for a further 2 minutes until the legumes are coated and the flavour is absorbed.

Then gradually add your in tin of chopped tomatoes and passata followed by the turmeric and cinnamon stirring as you go. Add the 100g of sweetcorn and stir in and the wilt in all of the baby spinach, simmer for 20 minutes on a low heat and you will be ready to serve, this gives time for everything to soften down.

Then serve with your chosen accompaniment and enjoy! I have gone for a pitta, mango chutney and fresh coriander today but rice and yoghurt works great too!

I’ve linked Buy Wholefoods Online so you can grab some ingredients too and recreate at home!

Tag me in your dishes on insta! I can’t wait to see how you serve yours!

Thanks for reading, H x

misshollyparish beauty

The Style Show

Hey readers! It’s been a while! I’ve been really active on Instagram but not so much on the site so apologies for the break but I’m here, I’m back and I’ve got just the post to share to end this hiatus!

Several weeks ago I was invited to an evening at The Style Show in Eaton, Norwich. The Style Show is a a boutique where you can shop but it’s not just your regular clothes store! The lovely team in store are qualified stylists and can really give you some incredible, styling recommendations and advice!

That’s not all! They are also available to book in for full colour and shape analysis which you can do privately, off the shop floor. Chrissie the owner did a mini session on the evening to give us a taster of the kind of info that they share and how it works and what is involved in determining what suits you best.

With the colour analysis, I particularly love that the team will not say to you “you can’t wear ***”, if you really want to wear a colour that isn’t on your palette, they will advise you how to style it and make it work for you! Working in beauty, I see a lot of ladies who are told they can’t wear a certain colour and it almost puts them in a box which they are afraid to deviate from but Chrissie and the team won’t do that.

For example, I am ‘light/cool with a touch bit of bright’ so neutrals like camels and beiges are not on my palette, however I have a beige blazer which was my mums and is vintage Cerruti and to make it work they advised colour blocking with a black top to break away from the camel and add a statement lip which is from my palette to lift it and it works!

With the shape analysis they really teach you how to make clothes work with your shape and discuss length, cut, style, accessorizing, how to accentuate and minimize too, its extremely fascinating!

Clothing wise in the boutique they have some lovely items, age range they say would be 30+ but for any of my younger readers (and even me too as at 31 still trying to dress like I’m 21) if the clothes aren’t your style the specialist and detailed advice will cater for everyone who wants to take their fashion knowledge and ability to enhance their own personal style. I would highly recommend a visit. I know it’s certainly made me think very differently and look at things in a new way! It’s so so interesting!!

Thanks so much to the team for inviting me, educating me, opening my eyes and for the lovely goody bag too!!

Head over to their instagram here and check it out and give them a follow!

Thanks for reading all!

I’m back! Hx

misshollyparish Travel

10 things about Secrets The Vine that you won’t know until you get there

They are super environmentally aware, they encourage people to not use straws but the straws which they do have are biodegradable. They also advise people on the impact of washing their bed linen and towels daily and encourage not to do this.
Every single restaurant has a full vegan menu!
All of their toiletries and cruelty free and have the leaping bunny logo
When you order room service for 2 during normal hours (i.e not late night dining) they bring your food up on a table which you can sit at! There’s also the option to have breakfast in your room and the same goes for this so you can eat on the balcony! I saw load of photos of people eating on their balcony on instagram and we had a junior suite so I thought we should have all bells and whistles and this is what I was seeing!
I read quite a few posts enquiring on whether to tip in pesos or USD and we asked our butler, they 100% do not mind what you tip in, we had both, anyway point 5- there is no pressure or obligation to tip in this hotel the staff will still give you amazing service either way! They are so incredible we wanted to tip but don’t feel pressure!
If you aren’t one to read through things there is a pillow menu, however the pillow on the bed is amazing either way!
The gym provides earphones if you forget yours, there is yoga daily in the morning, a super mini spin studio in the gym and the equipment in there is pretty up to date!
The hotel is only 6 years old so everything is quite brand spanking new as far as the lifespan of a hotel goes.
All of the a la carte restaurants are first come first serve so no need to worry about booking, they have a beeper system if you have to wait. You can eat at them all as many times as you want! The sushi is absolutely incredible and I had 3 fillet steaks that week at the grill! Tacos daily on the lunch buffet and the guac is NOT extra and it comes by the barrel! The food is incredible here!
There is USB connections in the rooms for charging so do not fret if you forget you plug adapters!

misshollyparish Travel

Tips on how to book a great trip with Love Holidays

I always get asked how I find such good deals for things and how it always looks like I’m going lovely places and if there is something which I want to do I will find a way of making it happen in the best way possible, it just takes patience and persistence. Apart from my most recent holiday to Mexico which was booked through British Airways I have always gone through Love Holidays. For me and my personal financial situation their low deposit and installment option works best for me and I find it the most affordable way to book something several months in advance and not have to pay the full balance up front or put anything on a credit card. I’ve booked many different trips with Love Holidays now and I have come up with a bit of a system that I wanted to share.

First up if possible I would really recommend doing this on a computer instead of a phone if possible it makes it a lot easier.

So go in to the site and set where it is that you want to go. When looking for a beach holiday I normally put anywhere in and then filter it down by minimum temperature and take it from there, if you know where you want to go then you can put in your specific location or you can also put in multiple locations too so its really flexible.

The next most important thing for me is to filter by star and filter by trip advisor rating, star rating of the hotel is something that will be different for person to person, I generally go 4* or above as in many countries the star rating standards are never as good as in the UK but that is of course each to their own, however Trip Advisor rating for me I find non negotiable, so filter it to 4 or above. 4 out of 5 really is the lowest I would go, 4.5 or higher and you know you’re playing it safe that its going to be pretty good.

There’s lots of different things that you can filter out for your requirements- that you do or don’t want on your holiday and once you have set the parameters sort by ‘Trip Advisor rating high to low’

This is a good way of those hidden gems coming to the top of the list instead of the most popular statistically, the cheapest or the biggest saving. I would do this first and then filter by price after if you wish and then you can cross reference against the ones which you saw high up the TA rating list.

Then in a separate window pull up trip advisor and have a little look through recent reviews, maybe read some of the bad ones to see if it’s people with way too high expectations or if they’re being ultra picky or just generally if their issue is something that wouldn’t bother you or the bad reviews genuine red flags about this hotel or resort. Have a look through the traveler photos too to give you a bit of an idea of what to expect.

Then lastly for good measure because I’m ridiculously anal and hate being disappointed when holiday time is so precious I go and see if they have an Instagram and have a nosy at what’s on there, have a look at people who have tagged them and also shots which are tagged at that location.

By this time you should know if you want to go to this place or not so if you do go through to the payment screen and select which deposit option you want to do as there is a few and you are good to go! Make sure when you select the room you pick the option with deposit option otherwise when you go to pay it won’t be there.

You can log in and pay more at anytime outside of the scheduled options and can pay off early too if you wish to, just got to ‘manage my booking’

Just a note to be aware of with flights-

Ryanair’s current baggage policy literally includes a small handbag- like the kind you would use day to day for phone, keys, makeup etc. If you want to take a hand luggage case as well the cheapest way to do this is add priority boarding, this adds a standard size hand luggage case per person.

With Easyjet it includes a standard hand luggage case with no weight restriction, however, if you have a handbag on you with you purse/passport in etc it must fit into your case before you board as to have 2 bags you must be an Easyjet plus passenger and this is a yearly membership.

For further info please check the airlines websites!

Love Holidays have a really good January sale too and other sales throughout the year so keep your eyes peeled for booster deals!

I hope this helps and you find some amazing deals!

Safe and happy travels!

Hx