Review: Ren's Kitchen - Lyon's Farm

Ren’s Kitchen is a veritable gem amongst the rough foliage of Lyons Farm – an area of outer Worthing characterized by suburban superstores, the A27, and traffic lights. Just off the beaten track - one right turn before All Is Lost Av.  – is Ren’s Kitchen, nestled up cosy to Northbrook business park.

Ren’s itself is a small green cabin with a little picket fence and gardened to the entrance with some outside seating. It looks homemade, like a ginger bread house in an urban jungle. If I could eat it I would, because everything else I have eaten at this place is pucker-pout tasty.

All the food at Ren’s is prepared and cooked by the owner – Rrrr-en!

So far my stomach has dictated that I try their sausage roll, cheese burger, rocky road, and carrot cake – that’s two sweet and two savoury. All four, perhaps bar the sausage roll which was too doughy for my liking (although sheathed inside was the biggest sausage this side of Wiener) – I would have again. I have caught myself salivating over the thought of the latter three on numerous occasions now, and I will go back.

The carrot cake was moist, carroty, cinnamon scented, and cake-like...wait, I can do a bit better...it had a light creamy frosting on the top that was soft and smooth with perhaps a hint of lemon, and the carrot in the cake proper re-established my faith in vegetable ridden confection. Seriously, it put's my Mum’s attempts at producing a credible/edible sprout falls, or her menu muddled ‘Creamed Potato Brulee’ to shame. Sorry Mum.

The Rocky Road, as a form of public highway was a disgrace; bumps everywhere! Pot holes filled with marshmallow! Chocolate tarmac! That stuff melts as soon as you lay it. As a biscuit treat it serves us much better – truly ambrosial, very moreish, and for £1 per healthy (yet unhealthy) portion you can afford to go back for more.

I do amble and dawdle (note: that’s a great name for a Real ale). Briefly though I would like to say that the savoury selection is also very appetising. I spied gnocchi, lasagna,  pies, and quiches et al. They are all homemade, and the cheese burger had a rocket salad upon the patty, which beautifully complemented the cheese. The burger at Ren’s wasn’t as big as the All Beef Co. Burger. Nor was the burger selection as broad, but it had good flavour, not too greasy, and all together delicious and good value withal across the board.

This warm, homely cafe has gracious staff and is a place great for meeting a friend for a bite to eat, a lunch away from work, or as a quiet retreat to escape into a book.

Relax, 10 DONK'S OUT OF 13.