The only table for four at this popular and crowded restaurant was at 5pm or 9pm so we went for the latter. I say crowded because it wasn't just busy - it was packed. We had to wait for our table so had a drink at the bar, which by 9pm you need to get in minutes, then nice starters (onion rings and Moons Green beer sticks, a delicious and great value biltong) Another wait for mains to arrive so that eventually we asked where it was, and then huge disappointment... (I think we were really a bit over-excited, Mark) Meat with little flavour, over-cooked chicken, a rare steak that was ordered as medium, so went back to be done again. A rare rib of beef (for two to three people) that we were told 'takes a long time to cook' and 'is best served medium to melt the fat marbling the meat', which I thought was gristle, but why not tell us that when we order? And the ensuing feedback to the concerned front of house staff that we feel will contribute, is embarassing and pointless for a restaurant of this calibre. Yes we like the cow in formaldehyde artwork but the meat could have come from the case hanging above us. The only good thing was the bill, at £35 a head it was a lot less than we expected. But then we're from Suffolk - where some of the steaks are proper good.

A late arrival got us both in for a fiver (you have to pay for this one...) but most of the food people were still there. What a proliferation of pickles! Lots of the same thing (of the chili jelly/home-made tomato ketchup variety) with one or two interesting exceptions - home made drinks and hot food, and lots of suppliers from Essex. But we love Abroad, and of course Essex gave us Jamie Oliver. We tried ice-cream, crisps, chocolate, strawberry and raspberry vodkas (although they weren't keen on Inspector X's horseradish vodka suggestion...) rhubarb and ginger cordial, fresh lemonade (so easy, so nice) and a shark kebab (very close to my Caribbean heart...shark kebabs...)

From the Pump Street bakery -  a Bear's Claw - something I had never heard of or tasted before, orginating from the northern USA and Canada.  It's so hard to choose from their selection of amazing bread, cakes, pastries and patisserie that we bought a box full of different things and half a dozen crisp fresh doughnuts filled with rhubarb jam and lemon custard. It made me want to say 'au revoir' when I left the shop.

Oh the choice? Where to go first? With so many foodie things on one day we did an extensive expensive dash around the county - first to Orford where we knew we were going to find treats because they have the Pump Street Bakery and Pinneys and then to the Greene King Beer Festival (they may have had food but it was more about the beer...)

At Orford I spent £80 in as many yards, starting with a fab strawberry tart (well, half of one, because even Inspector X and I can only eat so much in one day...) followed by (half) a pulled pork wrap with coleslaw, the best salami we have tried in a while, an oyster, a Bloody Awkward (which regular followers of suffolkfoodie will know is an espresso with hot milk on the side - ie a SMALL coffee not a GIANT coffee, in fact I think it's called a cafe con leche Abroad, but is still to catch on here...) Where was I... a chocolate mousse and a dessert wine. What we couldn't eat we bought home - two bottles of Hill Farm oil, two Hill Farm mayo, a pheasant scotch egg, a fennel salami, honey-salted caramels, peanut brittle; doughnuts, a bears paw (more later on that one...) portuguese tarts and some other little tarts with almond and plum whose name I've forgotten, hot mint jelly, three crabs and two huge skate wings. The only thing missing at Orford was hot food and a home-made drinks.

In the next few days we will tell you what we bought in BSE and show you ALL the sumptuous pictures of the food we found.