Restaurant review: Turtle Bay Norwich

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Back in August I wrote about going to the amazing Turtle Bay Press Preview. It was my first experience with Caribbean food and I couldn’t wait to go back. Luckily, we were invited to do a review of the full Turtle Bay experience. John and I were so excited to go for a meal together and even better that we did it for our third anniversary.

Turtle Bay
Turtle Bay

We arrived just before 12pm and there were already people sat at the tables! I thought we would have been one of the first there. We were seated by quickly by the lovely Gabrielle and we had a great view from the large window. Erin with us and there was plenty of space for her pushchair. We were also brought a pushchair quickly for Erin!

Selfie!

Erin was starving when we got there so unfortunately she didn’t eat with us. Turtle Bay’s website shows a children’s menu although we were not offered one. I actually would have ordered for Erin had we been shown a menu. We had a bit of trouble feeding Erin the food we’d brought with us as she was absolutely transfixed by the twinkly lights and colourful interiors!

Erin

John and I started with some lovely drinks, a Passion Fruit Cooler and a Peanut Butter and Banana Smoothie!

We were a bit rubbish at deciding what we wanted to eat so we ordered our starters on their own before deciding on mains. I ordered the Jerk Glazed Ribs with coconut glaze while John had the Jerk Pit Prawns. Now, I thought having the coconut glaze on my ribs would mean they would be a little milder than the regular jerk glaze. I would hate to think how hot the regular glaze is because my mouth was on fire! John happily ate both of our starters!

After the heat from the ribs I decided to play it safe with a Street Burger, which comes with pulled  jerk pork and spiced fries. John had the Jamaican Browned Chicken which comes with rice and peas and Caribbean Dumplings. I also had my own Caribbean Dumplings because I remember loving them at the Press Evening.

Although the Jamaican Browned Chicken comes with scotch bonnet in the mix, John actually found it quite bland compared to the heat from his earlier ribs. My Street Burger was absolutely delicious though. The burger itself was really juicy and cooked exactly how I’d want it. I hate a pink burger and this was done to perfection. The jerk pulled pork gave the meal a bit of warmth but nothing too hot or unmanageable. Neither of us left any of our food so that goes to show how much we enjoyed it!

When we finished our mains it was about 12:50 and the restaurant was quite busy. Georgina was running around like crazy and Tom, the manager on that day who had also been looking after us, was busy too. Unfortunately, we had to wait about 30 minutes before our plates were cleared. I had to ask a different server for a dessert menu so I kind of felt as though we’d been forgotten about a little bit by this point. We’d also run out of drinks too.

When we did get to order dessert we went for the Dark Chocolate Brownie and the Banana & Toffee Cheesecake. John ordered a Latte while I went for another Passion Fruit Cooler. Tom made sure our desserts came out a couple of minutes later and they were AMAZING! John and I shared because neither of us could decide and I’m glad we did. The chocolate brownie was so moist and was teamed so well with some vanilla ice cream. Banoffee is my favourite so the cheesecake was a bit of a no brainer for me really. I would order this again in a heart beat!

Our whole experience at Turtle Bay took around 2 hours and Erin was very grumpy by this point. She was annoyed and wanted to sleep but wouldn’t settle because there was so much going on. This could have been avoided easily had we not had such a long wait between the main and the dessert.

Even with the long wait between courses, Georgina and Tom did a good job of looking after us. They had smiles on their faces the whole time, were super friendly and made us feel extremely welcome.

I can’t wait to go back to Turtle Bay for another meal. Thanks for having us!

16 thoughts on “Restaurant review: Turtle Bay Norwich”

  1. I am sat here reading this and drooling at the pictures – I could just eat it right now (and I haven’t even had breakfast). Shame that it took so long for them to clear your plates – they sound rushed off their feet, but good that you had a great experience overall!

  2. There is a turtle bay in Newcastle that opened a few months ago. I have been wanting to visit as I have heard such great things about the food, I have never ate Caribbean food before. Your meals look lovely, I think I will have to visit the Newcastle branch soon x

  3. Turtle bay sounds amazing! The Street Burger you tried sounds and looks delicious as do the deserts, yum! I hope next time they offer you a children’s menu 🙂 Lovely post. xx

  4. The wait doesn’t sound great with the little one, but ohhhh this looks so delicious! I love Caribbean food. I’d definitely have eaten your starter. x

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