Rick made someones day, quite unintentionally just now. He'd flicked over to the restaurant to check on the pastry the kitchen team are making for a special dinner we have on Sunday nite - the pastry is different to normal,and while there he got into a conversation with a lady he didn't know, who'd dropped in to grab some licorice icecream becos she had people coming for dinner, and had been caught out over dessert, and had decided on the way home to call in for some licorice.

She asked if there was anything else he could suggest that would be quick and easy for her, and he mentioned the sticky toffee puddings that we also sell, and showed her one ready packaged in the fridge out front. She hadn't realised we had the range of Somerset at Home products, and was delighted to have something that was only going to take some quick re heating and the addition of warm cream flavoured with Heilala vanilla paste and/or icecream. So she bought a pudding - enough for 4, and some toffee sauce.

Dessert sorted.

Perfect. It is exactly that  sort of ease that we are aiming for, so nice to have a happy customer walk out the door armed with the dessert and sauce and brochure with prep instructions, who hadn't been previously aware that she could get anything other than licorice from us for home.

I note that restaurant critics get a bit twitchy about sticky toffee being on restaurant menus - toffee puddings and creme brulees are their two bete noirs at the moment, and to a degree they are correct in that they feature ubiquitously. You do tend to see them everywhere.

And I guess restaurant critics eat out frequently (by virtue of what they do!), and therefore tend to get a bit jaded, so are looking to be stimulated by the new all the time. Which is all very well and fine but therein  lies a conundrum for a restaurant, becos while a critic may want to be wowed, the paying public more often than not want something that they had last time that they loved. And more often than not when it comes to dessert what people want is sticky toffee or brulee.

As a restaurant you want to sell desserts - and we work hard to have a range of diverse options for people to choose from, but it is an unavoidable reality that if we have either sticky toffee or brulee on , they will be the biggest sellers - along with licorice.

Thats just the way it is. So I'm comfortable offering them. We've never stated a need to be at the cutting edge of culinary trends,not with everything that we do, and I don't think its in anyway a contradiction for a good restaurant to have comfort food desserts on the menu.

But I have no doubt that at some stage over the next little while I will read a restaurant review in which the critic will be disparaging about the fact there is sticky toffee on the menu. You get that!