The Smokehouse, Ormsby - My first Tasteem Review

We packed the family up for the second time this week for a bite to eat at the Smokehouse in Ormsby, Norfolk. You can probably tell the outcome of this review on the basis it's our second visit in a week!

The Smokehouse is located in the Grange Hotel in Ormsby which consists of a hotel, bar and touring (camp site). We'd visited the bar previously and had walked straight back out again as … well on that day it didn't really feel nice. However, I love American style BBQ food and had heard some great reviews so thought it was worth visiting again.

The Hotel itself is in an old farmhouse style building and it's all pretty confusing upon arrival. You enter to a tiny reception desk with a bell to ring if you're eating in the Smokehouse; we booked on both occasions. Upon ringing the bell we were met by a smiling face and escorted to the restaurant to the left. I personally love the style of the place.

From what I can gather there are two dining rooms downstairs and another on the 1st floor.

Firstly I'll mention the staff who all seem to be very young - you get used to this living in a seaside resort and in many cases this means services can be a little...well shit. I'm not for a second saying young staff means shit service but in my experience in these surroundings there are plenty of jobs about and restaurant staff can easily move from one place to another. I think a simple case they'd rather be on the beach than working. However, here they staff were all very friendly, attentive and I was jolly impressed.

The menu is bought out to you on a single sheet of paper and a drinks menu is located on the table. They have a good selection of the usual stuff with their own Smokehouse Lager (and IPA) and an interesting selection of milkshakes. These are a little expensive at a fiver and far too big for the kids. However, they do keep them quite for a while! So far we have sampled bubble gum and peanut butter. Both jolly nice.

The Smokehouse IPA is also mighty delicious and likely to be dangerous on a lovely hot day.

The menus is fairly varied with the usual suspects for the kids (fish fingers, chicken nuggets, burgers and hotdogs...with a few others). The main dishes are mostly BBQ cases with half a chicken, smoked brisket and ribs - I had the latter.

We had our starters bought out at the same time … we really didn't need them and walked away with a massive doggy bag that will keep us going through tomorrow. I had chicken wings in spicy sauce.

The wife had the sliders (buttermilk chicken, burger and pulled pork) and said they were very tasty. It isn't all meat - there's also mac and cheese, three bean chilli and a veggie lasagne. The full menus can be found here.

Price wise it isn't too bad and is comparable with steak type restaurants but the quality seems to be a better. 4 mains, two starters, two milkshakes and small coke and two bears was £68. They don't add gratuity to your bill and there isn't an option to tip on the card machine. Thankfully I had some cash so could leave a decent tip as they well deserved it.

A family favourite that we'll definitely visit again and I've no concern about recommending to others.