The Bookworm's Feast

Located on Mardol Street, Shrewsbury, this restaurant serving Smokehouse/American style food is right up my street! Great food, cosy atmosphere, and lovely big tables! The amount of times I’ve felt I need to juggle plates due to small tables for the number of seats… wider tables are now a love of mine.

I popped in for the first time at lunch with my other-half, while on a shopping trip in the delightful town of Shrewsbury in Shropshire. As we went in the week and towards the end of lunch, we practically had the place to ourselves – but this by no means impacted the ambience or the service (I’ve found in the past that when visiting restaurants at quieter times you can either feel moithered or ignored, this was definitely not the case here!).

Now, smokehouses in the past have proven to be pretty pricey. I was pleasantly surprised to find I could have the 5hr Smoked Chicken (with fries and coleslaw) for a lovely £12! I also ordered a Coke Zero on tap for £2.50.

The chicken was cooked beautifully – the smokey flavour penetrated well throughout the meat, and the fries were lovely and crisp (nothing worse than soggy chips!). I had a slight gripe about the coleslaw; the dressing was rather thin and therefore seeped out over the plate, but the texture was good.

As the price was so cheap, we didn’t really expect much on the plate (as you can see, the portion sizes are actually great making the price even better), we ordered a side of Mac & Cheese at £4.50 to share.

Now, this was a little on the small size for the price in my opinion – it came on its own tiny skillet – but to be honest, with the size of the mains (and your waistband in mind) you probably wouldn’t want much more than this. I also have to say, it wasn’t very cheesy. However, it had a really nice flavour, if not quite the flavour you would expect, and I still really enjoyed it. Not sure if the addition of spinach added much to the pasta, but it was nice to trick myself into believing I was eating a bit healthier!

Overall, I think I’d give this 4.5/5. I wouldn’t put it up there with my favourite smokehouse (Red’s True BBQ), but considering the price difference between the two, this is definitely the one I’ll be frequenting more!