Kid’s Review: Café Rouge at Center Parcs Woburn
If you ask any member of the Nair clan what their Top 3 favourite foods are, you are almost guaranteed to get a roast dinner in there somewhere. And for 4.5-year-old junior critic, Alfie, it is number one. For him, nothing can beat a Sunday lunch and he is a particular fan of mama’s crispy roast potatoes (the crunch is all in the fat dontcha know). So imagine the absolute GLEE on his little face when we told Alfie that we would be going out for a slap-up Sunday roast during our recent family holiday to Center Parcs Woburn.
And before we get into the details, a little note about Center Parcs itself… We have only ever been once before — almost exactly a year ago, and had such a fabulous time that we went back again over fireworks weekend. Yes, it’s pretty pricey, and yes you have to pay for all of the activities, but it is worth every penny. It’s only a 40-ish minute drive from Berkhamsted, and very easy to get to, plus the lodges are lovely, spacious and very homely. You can walk everywhere (with the added option of cycling) which is brilliant for us country bumpkins. And the sheer volume of activities on offer is mind-blowing. This year the kids got to drive 4x4s, go sailing, hold a couple of baby owls, watch some pretty spectacular fireworks and of course spend hours and hours in the fabulous swimming pool (which included jet skiing!). They even got to become mini chocolate chefs one morning (whilst mum and dad got a well earned kid-free hour in the spa!). So we highly recommend it for a quick and easy family trip, especially if you can either go during term-time or have any weird inset days that you can take advantage of.
Anyway, back to the kid’s review! By 12.30pm on Sunday the kids had already been on a woodland walk, run around in the adventure playground, and spent 3 hours in the craft den becoming chocolate chefs. That meant decorating their own aprons and chefs hat, making various chocolate goodies to bring home, and sampling the delights of a chocolate fountain. They had also learnt a delightful choco-tune (choco-latte, choca choca!) and were RAVENOUS by this point. And so we headed over to Café Rouge…
We’ve been to Café Rouge before. In fact there used to be one in Berkhamsted when we first moved here from the big smoke. However, it closed down soon after we moved in and became the wonderful Giggling Squid (which you can read about in another kids review here!). But this is the first time we have been there as a family of four, and the first time we’ve been there for Sunday lunch. The restaurant itself has a small (like, really, really small) soft-play area, and kids are also given double-sided activity sheets at the table. So there is plenty to keep them occupied whilst we look at the menu:
To be completely honest, at first glance, and compared to a lot of other family eateries, it is pretty expensive… £8 for a meal and drink for a 3 and 4.5 year old seems a little excessive. Especially when there are 4 of you to feed. So we decided to get one kids meal and split it, in the hope it was one of those places where the kids meals are huge. Aaand, we were right! The roast came out and was smaller than ours, but way too big for either of our gannets to eat by themselves.
The kids chose roast beef, which was served with carrots, broccoli, peas, sweetcorn, roast potatoes, parsnips and a MASSIVE Yorkshire pudding. They were generous with the gravy too, which makes a change for roast lunches out! We also had horse radish and mustard on the side, which the kids loved.
All in all the food was okay… The meat was nice, as were the veggies and Yorkshire puddings. But the roast potatoes really let it down — which is so often the case when we have roast dinner out at restaurants. They weren’t particularly crunchy, and just had a bit of a floury texture. But the kids still liked them (as you can see from the above image!).
But, as always, it really doesn’t matter what I think! What did the main man Alfie think of Sunday lunch at Café Rouge?
VERDICT: Not one, not even two but THREE thumbs up!
Yes, the kids thought it was so good that Alfie drafted in his little brother Rocco for use of his thumbs. Thanks so much for having us, Café Rouge! We hope to see you again next year. (And if you want a recipe for super crunchy roasties so that you get FOUR thumbs up next time, please DM me!)
#ihertkidsfood
