The Roman Lodge, Caerleon.

THE Roman Lodge on Ponthir Road out of Caerleon, consists of a hotel, bar and restaurant offering a choice of Mediterranean-influenced food as well as traditional British fare.

Starters range from soup to escargots and grilled goats cheese; we settled for the calamari (£4.50) and duck bang bang (£4.50).

Choosing the main course became the usual problem for me when given such a wide choice.

But eventually, after at least a couple of visits from the waiter, I could give him our order of a blackened ribeye steak with cajun spices topped with Creole sauce (£11.50) and a Tornados Rossini which came with the promise that this would be an 8oz Welsh beef steak on crouton and pt with a port sauce (£14.95).

The Roman Lodge has an impressive wine list with 29 different wines on offer.

The Friday night we visited the restaurant was really quiet and it did not take long before our starters arrived.

The calamari (unbattered) was cooked to perfection and the duck was very lean and tasty.

My Tornados Rossini steak was cooked to perfection (medium rare) and was balanced on a simply excellent pt and crouton and served with a portion of vegetables and new potatoes (you do have a choice of potatotes or chips).

The Blackened Ribeye was also spot on.

All in all a very good eating experience with some little things just making all the difference. For example if you order a meal with a sauce they are happy to serve it separately, a simple but great idea.

A meal for two on a Friday night with drinks, for under £50, that can't be bad.