![]() Otherwise, simmer or steam the asparagus separately until tender but not too floppy - 8 minutes at the most for the thickest stems. You could steam the asparagus spears above the boiling eggs - if very freshly cut, they will take about the same amount of time. The price: dinner, bed and breakfast for two adults costs from £150 children sharing parents' room pay for meals only.Prepare the asparagus by snapping off any woody ends (the spears will break naturally where they are tender). The verdict: luxurious retreat, where young and old feel cared for. We didn't like: a double cramped by having two children's zed beds crammed in. We liked: playing dominoes by the log fire in the lounge as darkness fell outside. And when kids are this happy, parents are, too. It's huge fun, with white lions, tigers, giraffes and very greedy zebras, but one couple we met were having to kid their two small sons that the place was part of the Elms - 'just round the back so we'll have to go in the car' - because the boys were refusing point blank to leave the hotel. It's like home, but better, with more space and more toys mum and dad aren't stressed and no one shouts if you smear your eggy soldiers on the dining chairs.Ī popular outing from the Elms is the West Midland Safari Park, a dozen miles away near Bewdley. We all wanted to give our nervous young waiter a hug and tell him that everything would be OK, but I also wanted him to remember that our (very good) bottle of Viognier was marooned in its ice bucket several metres away.īut however the grown-ups feel, children of all ages seem to be delighted with the Elms. The waiting staff, however, contrasted markedly with the pretensions of the food. And mains of duet of pork and fillet of pollack were well cooked and beautifully presented. Things looked up with a starter of goose pressé with wild mushrooms, a paté of such intense ganderiness that it was like several Christmases in one mouthful. But it was perfectly nice - even our son, who thinks celery is the work of the devil, lapped it up. A pre-starter was what Guardian critic Matthew Norman would call 'baby food and cat sick': a coffee cup of 'root vegetable soup with celery foam'. Smaller children had been fed and put to bed and their parents were settling in for a high-end evening. There had been a definite shift towards formality when we headed downstairs for dinner. We left the children in the company of Tickle and George (an eccentric chocolate Labrador and a supremely laid-back black cat) and headed up to a room equipped with everything you could desire, both electronically - flat-screen TV, DVD player, internet access- and otherwise - comfortable bed, goose-down duvet, robes and towels, inconveniently large number of scatter cushions. They even rustled up some yummy meringues for my wheat-allergic husband. Teenagers growing taller and skinnier by the day need meals between meals between meals, so 4.30pm saw us in the lounge eating an afternoon tea that was - even if you're not a hunger-ravaged 15-year-old - delicious: sandwiches, freshly baked scones and the nicest fruit cake I've ever had. Were they on the trampoline? Playing table tennis? On the Xbox? The 10 acres of grounds, pretty even on a dank winter day, have plenty of hidden corners. As they are 13 and 15, this was not as alarming as it might sound. The first thing that happened to us after arriving was that we lost the children. There's a shiny new creche, and a spa and pool complex will open in May. Now part of the von Essen chain as a 'Luxury Family Hotel', the Elms is hoisting itself to the child-friendly heights attained by more famous stablemates Woolley Grange in Wiltshire and Dorset's Moonfleet Manor.
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