After an early start and a busy Saturday morning my Mum and I went to The Bridge Inn, Wakefield back on the 18th October for a late lunch.

It is safe to say by the time we went there I was so ready for some food as I didn’t have any breakfast before I headed out the door and it was already after 1pm when we walked in there.

It made for a fantastic change and it’s always good to go somewhere new. The card machine/app for ordering still shows as its name from years ago of The Ruddy Duck which made me chuckle way back then and make me chuckle as my bank pinged me about it too.

The pub itself is incredibly large and has well divided sections; A bar area more just for drinking and watching various sports on the TVs and a large lounge area that had some TVs dotted around but far less obvious and designed more for sitting down and eating. It also had a large outside seating area but it may come as no surprise to know that on a gloomy October day nobody was sitting outside!

I loved the décor as well. It had a lovely warm and inviting teal wallpaper with animals and vegetation across it and this paired wonderfully with the darker wood tones of the shelving and tables. Whilst the building itself was huge the careful dividing shelves, walls and this colour matching made it feel cosy, inviting and quiet.

As mentioned, I didn’t have breakfast and in the end I opted for a meal that meant I wouldn’t need to cook or eat anything in the evening either! I could have gone for something slightly less in calories such as a burger, pizza or a variety of pub classics like pie or fish and chips but then I knew I’d want something later on but only have a small calorie allowance left.

So I went for a “big plate” of the mixed grill coming in at £17.99 excluding the drink (I had diet lemonade).

All the big plates come with chips, onion rings, peas, mushrooms and half a tomato and these were all pretty standard but I will say that the chips did have that good balance of fluffy on the inside but a little crispy on the outside. The onion rings probably could have done with a minute or two less cooking but they weren’t greasy and still delicious.

The mixed grill itself came with two sausages, these made me miss the sausages I get from the butchers, they were edible and tasty just the texture of them felt quite loose and they didn’t taste hugely packed with pork.

There was also half a chicken breast, that was moist and not overcooked despite the grill marks, hiding underneath a runny yolked fried egg.

There was a nice piece of gammon that was only lightly salted and I think unsmoked as well, it was well cooked and delicious but certainly needed a bit of pepper thrown across it.

And finally it included a piece of rump steak. They asked how I wanted it to be cooked so I went for rare because normally by the time it gets served up, sits on the hot plate and comes to the table it falls to medium rare. It came back somewhere between rare and medium rare which means it was probably cooked to the request initially and that left me impressed. The steak itself was a bit on the harder side to cut, it could have done with a steak knife rather than a regular knife that’s for sure, and it was a little bit chewy. Not chewy in the gristly sense just in the way of it could have perhaps done with marinading or being cooked in a way to relax some of the proteins up a little bit. It wasn’t bad, I’ve just had better.

The plate came in at 1600kcal, over 100g protein, over 20g fat and around 12g sugars. This is certainly not something to have for lunch if you are trying to lose weight and have already had a hearty breakfast or know you will be eating a hearty dinner in the evening. I knew that it would keep me full and it came in at the rough calories that I’m aiming for each day and knowing it was loaded with protein was my justification.

I think I would go back to The Bridge Inn again but there are so many other places that I want to go to in the local area that it might be quite some time. It was a decent meal and a nice atmosphere and had others in there eating, just having drinks (both a table of just soft/hot drinks as well as people just having alcohol) and a few families in there too and they have seasonal events too to keep people in the spirit and through the doors.