Liverpool Community College

Its a bit off piste, but the way I was treated here last night, they deserve a bit of publicity. Trouble is SWMBO just wanted this best kept secret to stay that way.

Like many catering and beauty treatment colleges, Liverpool Community likes to try out on joe public from time to time. So last night I found myself  along with about 30 other people sitting in a small dining room in the college campus not far from Chinatown and Liverpool 1.

There is a bar selling bottled beer, spirits and wine, and the house red Rioja was very passable. Last night the theme was the four nations, so the starters were Cumberland sausage and black pudding, Irish shrimp salad or leek and potato soup. This was followed by scotch salmon and the mains were steak and ale pie, Welsh lamb, Irish pork or fish and chips, with mushy peas. A composite of deserts finished off the evening. They were bramley apple pie, strawberries with victoria sponge and egg custard tart.  All for £18 per head plus drinks, it was excellent quality and a bargain.

I enquired of the maitre de, who is a lecturer at the college, how it all works as I was surprised the waiting on team were all fairly mature students. They have a wide range of age groups working the restaurant at different times,he said,  and there are five kitchens in the college, all backing a commercial enterprise, be it a bakery or a lunchtime snack bar. People are retraining after losing their jobs, or choosing a different career move.

The chef, also salaried, then took me into the kitchens to show me how he worked with the students. One of them was off to specialise in corporate hospitality, others choose, to be chef's or menu planners. The one poor chap serving us the lamb was on his first night of silver service and struggled a bit with the delivery, but at least he was giving it a bash.

Claire Lara, the professional masterchef winner,  is an alumna of the college and cooked in the restaurant as a thankyou a few weeks ago. She is about to open her own restaurant , La Mouette, in the Royal Hilbre Hotel in Hoylake, shortly. I am sure it will feature here in due course. She is looking to give Fraiche a  bit of Michellin competition in the area. SWMBO attended the Chinese night last month and by all accounts it was fab.

Wirral Community College also has a student run restaurant at its Conway Park campus in Birkenhead, called The Birches, so that's another to be looking at next term.

Oxton Bar and Terrace

Sounds quite grand doesn't it. It is a bar, but the terrace is really a patio beer garden clawed back from the car park and bordering the main road through the village. It does give the smokers somewhere to go though.

The OBT, as it is called by the trendy locals who frequent the place, is a late night must be seen sort of place in the middle of Oxton. In its former life it was originally the Talbot Arms, however, nothing remains of that establishment or the parade of shops it was part of. It was rebuilt and renames the Talbot Hotel and then the Oxton Arms, before the latest owners renamed it yet again and restyled it to fit more with the bohemian lifestyle which is Oxton.

The clientele are wide and varied in age, looks and ego's, but it does a fair pint of Timothy Taylor's Landlord so I am fine when I go in there.

Its best to eat early in here for two reasons, the availability of tables, and the fact that the cocktail crowd can be fairly noisy as their tipple of choice takes hold.

The food we had when we tried it last week was very good quality pub grub. The fish and chips were substantial, and the batter crisp, the steak was cooked as required, and everything else that it came with was fine. The prices were reasonable, so no problem recommending it for anybody looking for a night out in Oxton. if you want to do the 2am close as well then good for you.

The place has a waitressing policy for food and drink so once we had the table, we were kept well oiled with drinks until we decided to 'make our excuses and leave'.

So a place which has had its fair share of critics in the past, but with good food, attentive waitresses and mean cocktail waiters, I would give it a go.