Review of Ffolkes, Hillington: City-feel pub has unique offering with street food and container golf

What do you get when you combine a vibrant pub, a street food kitchen offering and the chance to play crazy golf?

Somewhere we’re pretty lucky to have on our doorstep in West Norfolk - the Ffolkes at Hillington, where my partner Shane and I spent Saturday afternoon.

We’ve been customers here a handful of times since the 300-year-old coaching inn opened following a revamp in 2017, and not once been disappointed.

So it’s fair to say we had high expectations when we visited, and made sure we booked in advance as we know how popular it is.

When we arrived in the early afternoon, the place was bustling, with a wedding taking place at the Stables on the same site, birthday celebrations in the restaurant and lots of children enjoying the play area outside in the sunshine.

We were greeted by a friendly member of staff who showed us to our table and ensured we were familiar with how to order via the QR code.

The Ffolkes, which is bright inside and out, is decorated in a quirky way. We particularly enjoyed a reimagined portrait by Hans Holbein with a Nike logo.

As Shane said: "It would have been easy to make it an old-style country pub but they've made it vibrant and trendy. It's like a city bar in the middle of small Norfolk village."

It didn't take us long to order, Shane went for a Neck Oil IPA (£6.50) and I chose the non-alcoholic pornstar mock-tini (£4.50), which was sweet and tangy.

On to the food, Ffolkes is certainly a unique venue, as it hosts different resident traders on its menu depending on which day of the week it is.

As it was a Saturday, Asian street food business Oishii Street Kitchen was supplying the food, and as soon as I saw bao buns on the menu, I was happy.

We got two for £10 – mine was seitan (a vegan meat alternative made from hydrated gluten) with pickled onion, crispy onions and vegan sriracha mayo, while Shane got the char siu pork one with pickled red onion, sriracha mayo, crispy onions and spring onions.

These were delicious. The buns were soft, mine featured "meaty" seitan and delicious complementary flavours. Shane said his had juicy pork, and it was the "perfect flavour combination".

We did have around a 20-minute wait for food, which felt about right and it's also worth mentioning that when ordering online, you are told roughly how long the wait will be which is helpful.

Our mains were the Shogun beef burger for Shane and I had the veggie Hot Chick seitan burger (both £11.50). I also have to note here that I didn't read the menu properly, so I ordered a burger that was vegetarian and not vegan, and didn't realise until afterwards. My bad.

Shane said his burger featured succulent beef with fresh pickles and shredded lettuce. "The Korean BBQ sauce was a strong flavour but complemented the burger," he said. "It was slightly out of the ordinary but devoured in no time and would happily eat another!"

The Hot Chick seitan burger had a Habanero and honey (that'll be why it's not vegan) buffalo glaze, shredded lettuce, pickles and a ranch dressing. It was really tasty but is certainly not for the faint-hearted.

We also decided to share the Thai fries (£7) with satay, chilli, crushed peanuts, coriander and Oishii seasoning. These were an upgrade on usual chips, but we couldn't finish them all considering how much food we had.

It was also a shame that we were too full to try the desserts offered by Reesey's - will definitely have to give them a go another time.

Our whole meal came to £45.90 (£22.95 each) as we got a 10% discount with the free-to-join Norfolk Passport scheme.

It's great to see how far Ffolkes has come since it first reopened in 2017. Some of its success must have come from the fact it offers a unique customer experience.

In fact, after our meal, we enjoyed a round of container golf, which was so much fun even if my golf skills leave a lot to be desired.

I can't wait to see what next is in store for the folks at Ffolkes.

Ratings out of five

Food: Everything was delicious and it was great to see multiple options for those with dietary requirements. Other resident traders offer Mexican, barbecue and pies. ****

Drink: Fantastic selection available, my mocktail was very nice. ****

Decor: Very bright and quirky, with some fun takes on classic art decorating the walls. *****

Staff: Really friendly and helpful, lots of staff on hand in case you need any assistance. *****

Price: Considering the current climate, not bad at all - even better with the Norfolk Passport discount. ****