If you asked me before yesterday if I wanted a Chirstmas dinner at a Norwich American burger restaurant… I can tell you my answer would definitely be no.

Actually I probably would have just laughed. In my experience chain burger places have always been pre-heated nasty food with staff clearly not caring. However after visiting Coast to coast America dinner in Norwich last night on their Christmas meal preview night as a guest blogger I can safety say all the staff clearly cared a lot about their food and extremely passionate about giving their best customer care. To be honest when the coast to coast in Norwich said the event was going to be all bloggers I remember thinking that is really brave. 8 people reviewing a busy chain restaurant. It definitely reflects how confident they are in their food and cocktail list. Tonight was the only time a bunch of 8 people can be on their phones and taking pictures on their camera and tweeting and hash tagging and no one saying anything about it! ‪#‎c2cmoments‬

The night began with warm cider, which was divine and actually did instantly start to get me feeling a little Christmassy in October! Me and my husband Andy Dane photography quickly got chatting to the 6 other guest bloggers at this blogger event based at Coast to coast Norwich branch. It was really lovely to chat to other local bloggers.

The first part of the planned event was held by Andy Pearson a professional mixologist. From just talking to Andy for a short time you can tell that Coast to Coast have the right person for the job. Andy was extremely passionate about his career. I think he would of happily chatted about the art of mixing the perfect blend of alcohol all night. Coast to coast have long discussion groups about creating new menu and their Christmas cocktail menu clearly well thought out. They have a cocktail from the start of the day right until the end! My favourite cocktail was the mid day treat of a chocolate ‘not Terry’s chocolate orange ;-), (unbranded) cocktail. It really was like liquid chocolate orange and instantly took me back to past memories of Christmas day. Andy went on to chat about many many other cocktails and how he created the idea etc. All really interesting and amazing to get an insight of how much they really do care at Coast to coast. Normally I can say that if me and my husband planned a night out if would be at a small independent restaurant. I think we have definitely been missing out here!

cocktail master class — Halloween special cocktails as it is October after all.

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The food was to follow. We got to try 2 starters, 2 mains and 2 desserts! We were all stuffed and very happy by the end of the night. Radek the chef who has been with coast to coast restaurant from the start was just as much in love with his job as Andy the mixoloist. Radek talked in great depth about how they create and plan a new menu at C2C. He prides himself and the restaurant in making 80% of the food fresh. This really surprised me as having been to other chain restaurants like Wetherspoons or similar, coast to coast was on a completely different level. I can honestly say I believe Radek would throw down this chef’s hat if he was asked to deep fry the roast potatoes! Sadly yes I have had deep fried potatoes for my roast dinner in Norwich before and they do taste as disguising as they sound!

Radek talked about how they soak the bacon and the burger in maple syrup to give it that Christmas feeling. It tasted great and brought a regular burger into the Christmas menu well. The Christmas roast dinner was by far the best bit for me. Carrots were cooked to perfection. Why do so many restaurants boil them for 45 minutes in Norwich? These were still lovely and slightly crisp. Gravy was just right too. The whole roast dinner was perfect and I normally do have something to moan about! You can ask my friends 😉

IMG_20141030_204106 — Christmas roast dinner

The night finished off with me behind the bar making a Christmas snowman cocktail whose eyes and nose slowly started sinking into the drink! Andy’s cocktails however were like all the others he made, perfect. However I have been informed that they do have some shifts next week, so my cocktail skills can’t be as bad as I imagined them to be.