We are delighted to announce that Hi-Life members can now get 2 for 1 at La Tasca. The offer is available 7 days a week and is valid until the 10th February 2013.
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Their 42 UK restaurants invite you to imagine yourself dining on a sun-drenched Spanish hillside, just as they have since the very first La Tasca Spanish Tapas Restaurant and Bar opened its doors in Manchester’s city centre in 1993. Find your nearest restaurant here.

Since then, La Tasca has served its authentic Spanish cuisine in cities nationwide – from Glasgow to Portsmouth and Bristol to Norwich. Each welcoming bar and restaurant has its own distinctive character. Vivid ceramics, rustic cookware and bright prints and posters bring alive the look and feel of the real Spain. Many also have inviting terraces, where you can eat and drink (British weather permitting!) the very best of Spain ‘al fresco’.

Whether indoors or out, there’s simply nothing more Spanish than gathering around the table to share home-cooked dishes, created with the freshest of ingredients and the passion, pride and expertise of our talented chefs.

*1 card can be used for up to 8 people dining, excludes chef’s specials, sharing paella’s & promotional/set menus. Please book in advance online/phone.

The modern British cooking at the Bedford Hotel’s Cartland Restaurant has just been recognised with an AA rosette.

Recently awarded a prestigious AA rosette, the Cartland Restaurant serves modern British cuisine that’s firmly based on fresh, seasonal produce sourced from local suppliers.

It’s open for dinner seven nights a week as well as for Sunday lunch and is part of the three-star Bedford Hotel in St Annes.  The 45-room hotel has been run by the Baker family for almost 30 years and is well located, just a two-minute walk from both St Annes promenade and the town centre.  As well as the main Cartland Restaurant, hotel facilities include a coffee shop, which opens from 10am-6pm every day, and two function rooms which can cater for between 30 and 130 people.

Cartland Head Chef Paul Curran has been at the Bedford for 14 years and diners have a choice between a la carte and table d’hote menus.  A typical evening meal might start with a Lytham shrimp risotto, followed by pot-roasted blade of beef served with spring onion mash and red wine sauce flavoured with rosemary, and then for dessert baked chocolate marble cheesecake.  The kitchen bakes a selection of speciality breads (olive, tomato, fruit & nut, wholemeal and white) and a 23-bin wine list offers plenty of choice to complement the food. As well as the AA rosette, the restaurant holds a five-star food hygiene award while the hotel holds a TripAdvisor Certificate of Excellence.Bedford Hotel’s Cartland Restaurant has just been recognised with an AA rosette.

Hi-life members receive £15 reduction from the total food bill.  For further information please click here

We often get our vegetarian members asking where we would recommend so this is a great review – thanks……..”The food here is fantastic and the menu is so varied! As a vegetarian, I had a whole menu to myself with things I had never eaten before – not something that happens with Chinese food. My partner had the crabs to start which he said were really tasty and the Weeping Tiger marinated steak for mains, and he would be the first to say if steak wasn´t up to scratch! Lovely little place, but hardly anyone in, so more for a relaxed meal with a friend than a posh one. Would recommend though”

Thanks R Smith for your member comments about the Jade Garden, Manchester http://bit.ly/PrO15b

 

A total of eight very talented chefs are celebrating after they have made it through to the final of the Craft Guild of Chefs National Chef of the Year 2012, the most sought after title for chefs across the UK.

On Tuesday, 9th October  at The Restaurant Show at London’s Earls Court 2, the 8 finalists take part in a live cook off and will have to showcase their creativity, flare and technical skills in a bid to impress the panel of chef judges including Philip Howard, Angela Hartnett, Atul Kochhar,Tom Kerridge & Mark Sargean.

Two of the UK’s top culinary training centres  (Sheffield College and  Westminster Kingsway College ) successfully hosted the tense and highly competitive semi-finals, where 40 chefs battled it out to win their place in the final 8 . The live cook off is sure to be a fantastic event.

Winning the title is an outstanding achievement and the prize package up for grabs is worth in excess of £15,000.
The finalists are:

Hayden Groves – BaxterStorey

Andrew Wright – Restaurant 23

John Howie – Sodexo Prestige

Alyn Williams – Alyn Williams At The Westbury

Joe Mccafferty – Roka Restaurant

Justin Galea – Turnberry Hotel

Paul Dunstane – Restaurant Associates

Paul Matthews – Restaurant Associates

 
David Mulcahy,  vice president of the Craft Guild of Chefs, said: “Having had more than 120 entries in the first instance and four live cook offs, we are now a giant step closer to finding the Craft Guild of Chefs National Chef of the Year 2012. Our final eight now have to knuckle down in preparation for a high profile showdown at the Restaurant Show.
“If the semi-finals were anything to go by, our panel of chefs, this year led by Philip Howard as our 2012 chairman, has a real task ahead with such a high calibre of chefs making it through.”
Howard added: “It’s a great honour for me to not only judge but also to watch winning dishes being prepared. It’s fair to say that this year was a challenge to judge and the finalists are reflective of the high standards seen across the board. There has been some clear talent shining through with dishes full of both vitality and flavour as well seasonality.”

Taste of Dublin 2012 – Delicious and filling!

Chris from PastieBap is a Hi-Life member.  Read about his visit to Taste of Dublin 2012…

PastieBap headed to Dublin for the weekend to attend Taste of Dublin (a foodie
fest). Visitors to the Belfast Taste and Music Fest which has been held in
Botanic Gardens for the last few years will be familiar with the set up: local
restaurateurs set up tents and sell tapas size dishes of their best and newest
creations to willing punters for the in-house currency of florins.

Day 1 – Thursday

It was dry as we arrived in Dublin after a swift two hour journey from
Belfast, but then the rain came and as we all know in Ireland – when it rains,
it pours! As we began queuing to get into Taste of Dublin we soon discovered
that a bit of rain certainly doesn’t put the people of Dublin off a day out and
some good food.

As we arrived on the Thursday we are greeted by probably the world’s
most famous (and certainly the richest) chef, Jamie Oliver. We then watched as
he performed a cooking demonstration (shoulder of lamb) for the crowd before we
headed off for our first gourmet experience.

Becks Vier
Masterclass
We tasted 4 beers and 2 ciders and accompanying foods that went with
each as our hilarious Belgian beer master took us on a voyage of discovery.

One doesn’t usually associate beer being paired with foods, the way wine
is. But here he showed us how different foods can definitely be enhanced with
certain beers. How a sweet food can enhance an amber ale and how a pear cider
can help soften a strong cheese. For being such good pupils we all got a free
pint of Becks Vier as well.

Kanchi
Dine in the Dark

The San Miguel bar was open where you could watch the European football
and sample some of Spain’s most famous dishes – tapas (starter size portions of
any dish). There was a barbecue master class for when (if) the weather gets
better (more about that later) and of course live entertainment – with live
bands such as the upbeat Spring Break, and Smash Hits playing throughout the
four days. This wouldn’t truely be an Irish festival without a little bit of
drink and with West Coast cooler, O’Briens wine, Rekorderlig cider and the
aforementioned San Miguel and Becks beer on hand, the crowd’s thirst was
certainly quenched.

We finished the day off with a wine tasting class run by O’Briens wines, where we
tried a presecco, a white and 2 reds as the owner of the wine company, who had
flown from Italy, talked us through each one.

I have to say that the organisation of this whole event was excellent.
We were given free ponchos on the way in, so that even though it rained it
wouldn’t stop us. Numbers looked high and everyone seemed to be having a great
time.

We were lucky enough to attend the food fest on the Friday also, with a couple of
tickets won from a competition run by Hi-Life (thanks), who also had a stall on hand for anyone wanting to pick up the foodie’s favourite two for one dining card.

Check out more  from PastieBap about Taste of Dublin 2012 and other great articles at www.pastiebap.com

Over the last two weeks we have been running a competition to raise awareness amongst our Hi-Life members about our  in-app membership card.

Tony & Kay Scott were entered into the prize draw after downloading and syncing their membership.  They were thrilled to find out that they had won - here’s what they said;

Dear Niccy,
What a lovely surprise phone call to receive.
We have never visited Paris before and were saying only the other day that we really should go.
The iPhone App is a really useful tool, always providing us with the most up to date Hi-Life locations where ever we are  – and in our case it has proved to be even better than expected!

Thank you so much,
Tony and Kay

Michael Caines MBE , Michelin-starred chef and Patron of Hospitality Action has launched theHospitality Action Restaurant Appeal 2012.

The Appeal enables restaurants to show their commitment to its industry charity and raise much-needed funds, without having to spend a single penny. Hospitality Action, is looking to partner with a wide network of restaurants throughout England during its annual HA Fundraising Week, from 14th – 20th May.

Restaurants can help simply by encouraging diners to add a discretionary donation of £1 to their bill, for just one week, and help support those in crisis in our industry and make a real difference!

About Hospitality Action : As a Patron of Hospitality Action, Michael highlights how important the work of the charity is in offering vital assistance to all who work, or have worked within hospitality in the UK and find themselves in crisis. With ever increasing pleas for help, it is more important than ever that we raise even more money this year only with your help will this be possible.

We would love to have your restaurant on board for this appeal.

To register or to find out more, please contact Emily on 0203 004 5503 or email fundraising@hospitalityaction.org.uk.

 

On Saturday 10th March at the Point, Lancashire Cricket Club there is an amazing night of disco heaven planned!! With 2 original 80′s bands Heaven 17 and Go West, AND Radio 1′s Nihal is the DJ for the VIP aftershow party. This event is bought to you by  Boot Out Breast Cancer, Debbie Dowie’s charity. The Charity is run purely by volunteers ensuring every penny raised goes towards much needed equipment in the NHS.  They have recently purchased 2 items of diagnostic equipment for the Royal Bolton hospital and just placed an order for the Nightingale Centre, University hospital of South Manchester.  They have pledged to buy equipment for the Breakthrough Research Centre next to Christies. Please have a look at Debbie’s website www.bootoutbreastcancer.org.uk