A couple of weeks ago Sandra dined at a restaurant that served what she described as the Best BBQ Ribs ever. The restaurant was a Blubeckers Eating House. It was so good it was worth a text message to me in South Africa. BBQ Ribs are one of my all time favourite meals so of course it became my number one mission to try it out when I get back. The only hurdle was finding out that all of the eating houses were located outside of London with the easiest eating house to get to being located at Hampton Court. Despite how much I love Ribs traveling almost an hour and a half to get there seemed a little OTT so we planned a whole day out that would get us there in a round about way. Luckily for us the weather behaved itself perfectly.

Our first stop of the day was Kew Gardens between Kew and Richmond. I read on wikipedia that these Royal Botanical Gardens took in £44 million last year! Holey Dooley that’s a lot of money! The gardens are huge at over 300 acres which seemed a lot of ground to cover in just a few hours and there are certainly a few different things to see including the Palm House (a beautiful tropical glasshouse), Temperate House (the largest glasshouse in the Gardens and also housing apparently the largest indoor plant in the world), the Pagoda (a 10-story pagoda), and lots of trees, flowers, gardens, and dells. Lots of perfect spots for a picnic too. Sandra was nice enough to go to the effort of putting together a very nice picnic (which I could see a lot of people were jealous of) consisting of quiche (cooked from scratch), salad and dessert of strawberries and grapes. Plus muffins on the side if we could fit it in. She was well organised bringing plates and cutlery (and not disposable!) and everything. A perfect way to enjoy the beautiful spring day. Cheers Sandra!

After lunch we took a boat along the River to Hampton Court. Aside from the fumes of the boat and the random blowing of the horn (which was stupidly loud and shocking) taking the boat is the perfect way to travel thought it may take a an extra hour or two. And it doesn’t hurt when you have guys like this on the right on the boat to check out. 🙂 Before I knew it we’d arrived at Hampton Court.

Its nearly been two years since I’ve been to Hampton Court but it hasn’t changed too much. Interestingly this time around we got to see the Royal Tennis Court which was the weirdest thing I’ve ever seen. Pretty cool to see though. The gardens were as beautiful as ever but we didn’t bother going into the Palace itself. We did go and check out the maze though. It’s a fairly simple one and I think Sandra was a bit disappointed at it because it didn’t take all that long to find our way to the centre and there’s not really a way out – you just sort of exit straight out from the centre. I still find it hard to believe that people pay something like £3.50 to try it out though I imagine most people have it included as part of their Palace/Garden ticket. The gardens are still my favourite part of Hampton Court with the best part being able to lie on the luscious lawns.

At the end of a surprisingly long day we finally made our way to Blubeckers which was conveniently located across the road from Hampton Court. The Blubeckers menu is actually really good and even though I knew I was going for their Ribs I was already thinking that another visit (or two) would be required to try some of the other tempting delicious – good stodgy stuff. However after tasting the Ribs I doubt I could really go past them! The Ribs were as good as Sandra made them out to be – tender (so tender you could literally push it off the bone – we could have eaten with spoons!), juicy, and dripping in a very tasty BBQ sauce. So well done to Sandra! The ribs weren’t the only great thing – the calamari starter was perfectly cooked and served with the most amazing aioli and the dessert – I don’t know how we fit in those gigantic servings but oh boy it was good and sooo rich. The only slight negative, and I’m not sure this is something that happens often, was that the food was quite slow to come out. On the plus side the extra time probably allowed our food to settle so we could fit more in. Ha ha.

Its just a shame that there is no Blubeckers in London. Or maybe it’s a good thing otherwise I think I would start to grow a little curly tail …