Restaurant Review: The Mermaid Cafe, Westcliff-on-Sea

Southend-on-Sea - just up the road from Westcliff

Hen nights are a funny thing – you are bringing together several people or groups who don’t know each other, live in different parts of the country, some might have children, or be pregnant, some like to drink and others are teetotal and some are on tighter budgets than others. As a bride-to-be, what on earth are you to do? Outsource the planning to your bridesmaid, that’s what!

  

I don’t think I could relinquish full control and hand over planning of the day/weekend to someone with no idea even of where I was going, but that’s what one friend did recently. She was only told what time she would be picked up, nothing more.

 

We actually went to Southend-on-Sea, somewhere she and a few of her friends used to live, and met at a beach-front café on an unseasonably hot day in late September. We were at the Mermaid Café (which doesn’t have a website) and the waitress was more than happy to rearrange the tables and chairs for our large group and to make room for a baby’s buggy. She was also very patient when we twice said we weren’t ready to order as we were still waiting for more people and overall made us feel really welcome, which isn’t always the case when you are on a hen night!

 

There had been talk of having fish and chips for lunch and the menu had a lot more on it, including some salads, but the idea had been firmly planted in my head so that’s what I wanted. I had a feeling fish and chips might be a pretty large portion though so I had scampi instead; the pieces were much more manageable than the foot or more-long fish in batter than turned up on everyone else’s plates – and that was the medium rather than the large fish!

 

Feeling fit to burst we went off to the pier to play mini golf and enjoy the rest of the afternoon. Southend has a huge amusement park area at the beginning of the pier; it reminded me of Brighton at first but I decided it was much better – even if I didn’t win the mini golf.