A New Pleasure?

As mentioned here, The White Rose has gone; long live Dhansiri. It's still an Indian restaurant -- thankfully not Yet Another Italian -- and the menu (at first glance) looks broadly similar to the White Rose, but we will have to give it a go and see how it shapes up...

(Dhansiri, 1 Cheam Road, Ewell)

Boxes at Homebase

I don't think it's really worth giving you a full run-down of Homebase in Ewell. It's much like most of the rest of the Homebases out there -- good if you don't want anything too unusual, stock control horrible, fairly long queues on a Bank Holiday...

They did make a good impression when we popped in there earlier on today, though. In an effort to reduce the number of carrier bags they're giving out, they now have an area behind the tills which has cardboard boxes for the taking. I realise this isn't a new idea -- supermarkets used to do much the same, though I've not noticed them doing it lately -- but there are so many things you might buy from Homebase that would work much better in a box than in a carrier bag (e.g. china). It must make life easier (and cheaper?) for them to not have to recycle/dump so many boxes, too.

Down On The Farm

It's no secret that Bemused is a big fan of fluffy animals (see previous wildlife writeups). However, there are no children in the Bemused household, and thus we had lacked an excuse to go and visit Horton Park Children's Farm until this Sunday just past, when we were entertaining friends and their offspring. (Yes, possibly one could visit without children in tow -- but I suspect they might look at you a little strangely. Perhaps elderly relatives would do instead of children, at a pinch.)

Getting out of the house on a damp Sunday morning seemed like a good plan. Horton Park is just flirting with the boundary between Ewell and Chessington, and the Farm itself is well-signposted, even if a fair amount of new building in the area means that the roads no longer bear a lot of resemblance to the map we were using. We arrived, paid our fees, bought some animal food and wandered on through to see what was looking cute...

Just kidding

Horton Park boasts some of the world's most chilled rabbits. Even those currently resident at Bobtails are not this laid-back. You can get into the runs with some of them and make friends, and they seemed perfectly relaxed about being petted by a three-year-old. (She was treating the rabbits very, very carefully, as though they were made of bone china rather than flesh and fur. I approved.)

A pen marked "Incubating Eggs" proved to have moved a little further beyond that and to have chicks in it (one was just being removed to be the guest of honour at a birthday party being held in the play area, when we saw them). In other barns, there were very rambunctious kids of the goat variety (sadly the one who kept jumping on his mother's back absolutely refused to do so long enough for a photo), alpacas, a llama who reportedly enjoys polos, very noisy sheep, a couple of rather shaggy donkeys, and some damp-looking ducks. (Even damper than ducks usually look, that is.)

Demanding Polos with menaces

One should, perhaps, note that the "Mouse House" not only contains mice and hamsters but also some reptiles. I giggled as I watched a father trying to work out how to explain to his young son that the thing protruding from the snake's mouth was in fact a mouse it had been fed for dinner (I'm sure the mice couldn't see into the snake's enclosure... that really could be considered a bit cruel).

A quick run through the playground finished off the morning before we headed back for lunch. The three-year-old didn't want to leave, the ten-year-old seemed to enjoy it, and the four adults were also amused, so I think we'd have to count it a success.

We took around an hour and a half to look round; on a less rainy day that could probably have been extended quite a bit. There's also an option for the kids to go into the PlayBarn, which is a bigger indoor play area with ladders, slides, ball pits and the like -- we didn't really have time for that.

Entry (as at 16th March 2008) is £5.95 for each child and £1.50 for an adult accompanying a child (£5.95 for additional adults, so it cost us £26.80 altogether). The Farm is open from 10am - 5pm during the winter months, 10am - 6pm during the summer months, and they're open every day except Christmas Day and Boxing Day.

Horton Park Children's Farm, Horton Lane, Epsom, KT19 8PT; 01372 743984; http://www.hortonpark.co.uk/

Dragon Den Chinese Restaurant

It was Ma and Pa Bemused who first introduced us to Dragon Den, many years ago, when they lived in this area, and it has been a favourite of ours ever since. Since they introduced an all-you-can-eat menu on Sundays through to Thursdays, we've been even more regular visitors. Then, this week, they have started serving a lunchtime takeaway menu as well...

The food is always freshly cooked and tasty, and the staff friendly (especially the maitre d', Genesis, who is also an accomplished magician).

From the all-you-can-eat menu, we love the deep-fried aubergine, the sea-spicy pork and the tofu in black pepper sauce. If you're ordering from the a la carte menu, give the fillet steak in black pepper sauce a try, or the Dragon Den fish for a special occasion. While the crab in black bean sauce is tasty, it's also a recipe for covering yourself head to foot in black bean sauce -- at least it is if you're as clumsy as we are. The only very slight downcheck is that one tends not to get quite enough pancakes to go with crispy duck, but the staff are always happy to bring more if required.

Dragon Den have occasional special events, too; the last one was a special meal for Chinese New Year back in early February, which featured a lion dance:




The all-you-can-eat meals are (currently: March 2008) £15.90/head for adults or £8.50/head for children in the evenings, and £13.80/head for adults or £6.00. The lunchtime take-away menu, a choice of about ten dishes, is £3.95.

(Dragon Den Chinese Restaurant, 56-58 High St, 8393 3959.)

Indian restaurants

While wandering into Ewell at lunchtime on Friday, I noticed that the White Rose Indian restaurant was "closed for refurbishment." How true this is I wouldn't like to guess, but it has been my impression that it was struggling at least for the last few months; starting to close one day a week, running increasingly-desperate-sounding promotions, and so on.

I'm not really surprised. I've been into the White Rose -- though not especially recently -- and we just weren't very impressed; the food was adequate, but really nothing special. There was certainly better food to be had from some of the local take-aways, and more recently also from Paprika, just across the road. I find Paprika's food a lot more interesting than what was on offer at the White Rose. Paprika is also a nicer environment; the White Rose is -- or, perhaps, was -- an Indian restaurant of the "old school", with velvet-covered benches and flock wallpaper, whereas Paprika is brighter and with more modern decor.

We shall see if the White Rose reopens under this management, new management, or as something else altogether -- although, please, not another Italian restaurant! I think four of them in a village the size of Ewell is plenty.

(White Rose, 1 Cheam Road, Ewell; Paprika, 52 High St, Ewell)

Businesses: Ewell Books

Up until 2007, Ewell had a second-hand bookshop called "Ewell Bookshop" (no prizes for original names here). It was much-loved by your humble narrator, but unfortunately it closed; it has now been replaced by the Gift Gallery. (Sorry, Gift Gallery; I'm sure your stuff is lovely -- in fact I know it is, since I've been in a couple of times -- but there's an important issue here, which is that you are Not A Bookshop.)

In any case, luckily the book-selling business concerned is still alive and thriving in the back streets of Ewell, even if the shop itself has faded into the mists. Ewell Books' website is open for business.