A St George's mushroom and Welsh onion cake, while crisp and buttery, was oversalted and the soft-boiled duck's egg served with asparagus was less than dippy.
This way they could stop by and browse on their way to or from lunch at places like the nearby Alliance Gourmande, which serves plates of tortilla (the potato and onion cake that is a tapas mainstay) and more elaborate meals; La Belle Epoque, a great stop for a beer or coffee; and tiny Amaretto, with a selection of bruschetta and salads.
From left to right: Maine seaweed with "frothy ocean broth" and tapioca pearls; the onion; parsnip cake with pear and cashew-milk sherbet; and the black-plum terrine.
The bar menu is good value (seafood platter £9.95, half a dozen oysters £9.50, grilled mackerel £9.50) but for a summer treat eat on the restaurant's sun deck terrace (bouillabaisse with saffron new potatoes and sauce rouille £13.95, fillet of turbot with spring onion potato cake, broad bean and wild mushroom jus £17.95), then walk it off on the quiet, vast sandy beaches.
"I was intrigued that Roy kept choosing items from the dim sum carts that I really liked," said Ms. Walsh, whose cravings range from onion rice cakes to cheeseburgers.
Alongside the usual breakfast fare (full English, vegetarian, monster or farmhouse), they do a soup of the day (broccoli and stilton, perhaps, at £3.50) and a couple of homemade specials (smoked haddock and spring onion fish cakes or salt and pepper prawns with chilli mayo – both served with chips and salad at £4.50).
It's accompanied by an equally large platter of curly strips of green onion, fish cakes, mushrooms, tofu and plenty of cabbage.
She is a caterer who travels as far as Florida serving native specialties such as venison and onions, corn cakes, and snapping-turtle soup.
Char siu and/or minced pork are great additions, as well as green onions, kamaboko (fish cake), bean sprouts, white onions (cook well), and nori (seaweed).
Davos is an onion, a layer cake, a Russian doll.
The variety is mind-boggling, but a never-fail child option is the potato, onion and egg cake called a tortilla.
