My favourite restaurants nowadays are Sardinia (an Italian restaurant in Broadstairs) and Il Tricolore (an Italian restaurant in Ramsgate). If I had to eat Italian food every meal from now on, I wouldn’t mind at all.

But, Italian food really didn’t enter my mind – or my tummy – in 1955. As children, we accompanied our mum and stepdad whenever they went to the Busy Bee, where we ate ‘chicken in a basket’ or ‘shrimp in a basket’. The aforementioned meat/seafood was deep fried and served with ‘French fries’ – also deep fried. As far as I remember, the only vegetable we had, at least with the shrimp, was tartar sauce which has some vegetable product in it – I believe it’s capers. The Busy Bee was my favourite restaurant in Cincinnati – and the only one whose name I can remember.

In Zanesville I never (knowingly) was taken to a restaurant. My favourite place to eat was The Hut, a place where I could buy ice cream in many forms – in a cone, in a soda, in a milk shake, in a sundae. I probably visited The Hut every day of a visit to our Grandma who lived just a block or so away.

We moved to London in 1958 and ate in restaurants fairly often at first, because we lived in a boarding house for the first six weeks where we were given breakfast but evening meals were to be taken out, somewhere. We learned about Indian food, Chinese food, and occasionally about French food. Judy’s favourite was definitely Indian curry but with chips rather than rice. I seem to remember that I quite liked curry but I also liked the kind of foods we had in the Chinese restaurant. Sadly, I don’t remember the names of those two but I do remember the name of the French restaurant – The Villa d’Est. I imagine that it, too, has disappeared from its spot somewhere in Paddington or Lancaster Gate but it served delicious food – I can’t remember what actual foods we ate there, though.

Another favourite which we rarely visited was the restaurant in the Columbia Club, a place which American officers could use. Patty was a ‘Lieutenant‘ in the US Navy, though she was always, too, a civilian. We were allowed to visit the Columbia Club and use their PX, which stands for Post Exchange, I believe. The PX was really cool but quite small. It was the place to go to buy the ‘fags’ we smoked – Kent, Pall Malls, whatever, but mostly those two. We could also buy American sweets and sundries – like mascara, make-up, or beer. When I turned 16, I was allowed 200 cigarettes a week at very reduced prices. I suppose they didn’t have any tax (American or British) on them. At 16, I didn’t smoke much and 200 cigarettes lasted quite a while but, later…….

Anyway, back to restaurants.

We really missed American hamburgers and ice creams and tried Wimpy Bars – once.

In 1971 we moved to West Malling but rarely could afford to eat out so there weren’t any favourites among the few restaurants that were in the town or nearby.

Then, I met Julian. We married and had two incomes so we did go out to eat occasionally but nowhere sticks in my mind as a favourite until around 1997 or 1998. At some point, then, a new restaurant was opened in West Malling, called MacKenzies. Though it had a Scottish sounding name, and the staff wore a dark tartan uniform, the food was based on Italian cookery. There were pizzas and pastas on the menu. Everything they sold was great and, between us, I think, we tried all the items on the menu during the next few years. Even when we weren’t really earning much, we went to Mackenzies and if we really couldn’t afford it, we went to The Five Pointed Star and had egg and chips!

Now we have come full circle – back to Sardinia and Il Tricolore.