Lisa Thom's Qype profile

This Tesco express is located on Earlham Road, and offers both supermarket services as well as working as a petrol station and providing a number of cash points.

The supermarket is quite limited in range, but does offer fresh foods, snacks and sandwiches, bread, vegetables and store cupboard items at a reasonable price. The aisles are quite narrow, and the queues are often long due to people queueing both to pay for shopping and to pay for petrol.

Despite the layout of the queuing system which means that there is a single file queue that often leads to the back of the store, despite 5 tills being open, the staff are efficient and pleasant whilst serving you.

Masala is a new all you can eat buffet Indian restaurant that has recently opened on the top level of the Chapelfield shopping centre.

The restaurant offers a range of set menus between £5-7, and an all you can eat buffet price of around £8-9. The set menus include a main dish, rice, and a number of side dishes plus salad, and are very good value for money.

The area is open and spacious, looking onto the rest of the floor court. The staff are all very friendly and helpful, and offer a service expected of an Indian restaurant in what is arguably more of a fast food environment.

Surrey Music Centre, located just outside the centre of Woking, is a shop which sells a range of musical instruments, sheet music, CDs and instrument accessories.

The store is small and crowded, with several instruments hanging from the ceiling or displayed in glass cases. This adds to the atmosphere, but also means that not many people can be in the shop at any one time without it feeling claustrophobic. The range of instruments here is good, from guitars and saxophones, to ukeleles, harmonicas and maracas. The staff are also very helpful when you ask them for advice or are looking for something in particular.

The prices of instruments here are reasonable, given the quality.

L’Aroma is an Italian style restaurant located near Woking train station, that serves a number of traditional pasta and meat dishes.

The atmosphere at L’Aroma is generally quite quiet and secluded, low lit and inviting so is good for a romantic evening or quiet gathering. The food is cooked from fresh and is made to order, so can take quite a while to arrive, but when it does it is obviously good quality and very appetising. There isn’t much of a view outside, but it is attractively decorated within the building.

The waiters are all very friendly, helpful and chatty and most seem to be genuinely Italian, which does add to the experience somewhat. The food is reasonably priced, so overall makes for a very nice night out.

Italian Inspiration is a high quality hairdressers salon located in St. Johns which offers a range of treatments and cuts for women, men and children of all ages. The salon also offers nail treatments and offers services for weddings and formal events.

The staff are capable of cutting edge fashion styles as well as lower maintenance haircuts, and are all very friendly and helpful. The salon itself is light, spacious and well organised with comfortable sofas to sit on while you wait for your appointment. There are also small television monitors by each salon chair which provide a useful distraction during lengthy treatment.

The prices are reasonable to high, but the standard of treatment justifies the little bit of extra cost.

Thorpe Park is a theme park situated in Chertsey that offers rides and entertainment for thrill seekers, young children and the more timid adventurer alike.

There are a number of well known rides including Colossus, Samurai and Vortex, and several rides for those who are not a fan of the traditional intensity of rollercoasters, such as the more subdued Flying Fish.

The restaurants and arcade games also provide variety and a break from the rides, and are all good quality and very entertaining.

A quality tapas bar chain situated in Tombland, within easy walking distance from Norwich city centre. The food here is predominately traditional tapas dishes, with a few paella options as well, so it is not a good place to go if you’re not a fan of Spanish food.

The food is well cooked, good quality and very tasty, although some dishes are slightly overpriced considering the amount you need to order for tapas to substitute a main evening meal. The sangria is also very good, potent and well priced by the pitcher.

The place itself is warm and atmospheric, decorated with traditional Spanish colours to create the ambience of a traditional Spanish pub or bar. La Tasca also do Salsa and Flamenco evenings on certain nights of the month.

Chiquito is a successful Mexican themed restaurant situated near the local Odeon Cinema in Norwich. The restaurant itself is pleasantly decorated, large and spacious, with candles on all of the tables to create ambience.

The staff are friendly, efficient and helpful and manage to be available when you want them but not constantly hover around you while you’re trying to enjoy your meal. The menu itself is varied, focusing on Mexican food such as fajitas, quesadillas, tacos and chimichangas, but also other dishes such as enchiladas, steaks and meatballs. The portion sizes are generous and very delicious, all at a reasonable price.

The music played throughout the evening is a mixture of modern tracks and traditional Spanish or Mexican songs, which can create a very thematic evening. All in all, a very pleasant evening out can be had here.

The Sovereign is an award winning local pub, situated just outside the centre of town. Despite the surrounding location of the place, the Sovereign itself is an attractive place, recently refurbished to include a covered terrace outside for smokers and those who wish to sit outside and enjoy the warmer weather in the summer.

Inside, the pub is welcoming and well decorated, with a mixture of comfortable sofas, chairs and tables. The staff are friendly and helpful. The pub offers a range of food, from snacks to more substantial lunches and evening meals, and a wide range of drinks. It’s a very casual and pleasant atmosphere to be within, and is a good place to go both during at lunchtimes, and in the evening.

This is a large Boots store given the comparatively small area of Wolsey Place shopping centre, that is well stocked and brightly lit. It often gets very busy during peak times, which can make the aisles crowded and unpleasant, but that is more a testament to the store’s popularity than as a criticism of it.

The store offers a range of cosmetics, perfumes, health and beauty products, as well as opticians, babywear and photography sections, all of which are well stocked and organised so things are easy to find.

The Boots point system is often a very postive aspect of the store, and there are a number of points machines around the store so you can check your balance and print off any of their many offers that they have available.

It shuts reasonably early for a Boots, in accordance with the opening hours of the Wolsey Place centre; usually 5:30, but at times they seem to try and pull the shutters down over the shop earlier (5:10 onwards) which can be intimidating if you wanted to nip in and buy something just before the store closes. Likewise at times the queues are quite bad, and despite having a number of tills it is rare that all of them are operating at once.