EDitorial ± 18-Jul-2008

Light Lunches: National Trust, Sutton Hoo

Isn't often that we've had to whip out our membership cards to gain (free) entry into a place of refreshment. Equally, we've not visited a sizeable number of Anglo-Saxon burial sites on our tearoom travels. Best behaviour today, chaps, for this is the National Trust at Sutton Hoo. You can't park that ship 'ere!

Past the visitor centre and into the lovely light & space of the high-ceilinged restaurant, c/w outdoor terrace. Queueing up, I notice the kids' menu (tick) which includes:

Jacket potato longboat, in a sea of baked beans, topped with grated cheese, flying a Sutton Hoo flag -- £3.50

If that spud doesn't impart the true significance of this site to your average 10-year-old, my name isn't King Raedwald. Meantime, mine's the Suffolk Rarebit with a Curiosity Cola: hello again, Mr Fentiman. One of the serving ladies is possibly experiencing her first day on the job: she's flummoxed by Grenvyle's order for a pot of tea and perplexed by Andy's request to find out the soup of the day. Let's hope she's a volunteer.

Not long before the cheese on toast arrives: plenty tasty, though not enough Suffolk chutney -- described as a "generous helping", it ain't no mound. Side salad is as naked as the day it was born, unlike the Dancing Goat. Reasonably priced too, which I didn't think I'd be writing this week. Dessert beckons, as ever: unremarkable coffee and cake slice: maybe should have stuck with the traffic light jelly.

If it was a car -- Volvo V50.
If they were passing by -- Seamus Heaney.