UK – Page 2 – My Kind of Food

Newcastle, in the North-east of England is a fascinating city, known in the past for ship-building and football and today, as well as Premiership football, also for the locals not wearing coats when having a night on the ‘toon’. No matter the weather, T-shirts and short skirts or shorts are the order of the day and the night! Its also home to Newcastle Brown Ale, a local brew that I’ve drunk all around the world, even as far away as Sydney, Australia.

*Picture form Newcastle University Website*

There’s another connection with Sydney and that’s the Tyne Bridge, linking the cities of Newcastle and Gateshead and sitting 59m above the River Tyne. The bridge was opened in 1928 very close to the site of the Pons Aelius, the very first bridge across the Tyne built by the Romans in the year 122 A.D. The present bridge was built by a Middlesborough firm, Dorman Long & Co Ltd in the same style as their other, larger work, which opened in 1932 in Sydney. Having visited both I know which I prefer and it’s the original Geordie version!

The roads rise steeply away from the river in Newcastle, towards the castle and city centre, but in the shadow of the bridge, one block back from the river, is an array of small independent pubs, cafes and restaurants. They’re in sharp contrast to those that can be found in the more hip Quayside area which are typically large chain bars and restaurants catering for the many stag and hen parties which fill the city at weekends.

My nephew and his girlfriend are good guides to the eateries of Newcastle and, during a recent visit, we went together to a couple of interesting places. Of note is a very small Thai restaurant, called Old Siam in a road called Side. It has a sister restaurant, of the same name, in York too. From what we could see, the waiting and kitchen staff are all Thai, ensuring authenticity in the preparation of the food and in that smiling Thai welcome front-of-house.

It’s a simple place with friendly staff and the food is very yummy indeed, although I suspect the Tom Yum soup is toned down a bit for western tastes. I’m going to remember the soft-shell crab starter I had for a very long time, in fact, next time I go, I’m going to have a double portion as a main course. The restaurant is open for lunch and dinner and you can also have a takeaway.

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The North-east of England, like the North of Italy, has its particular local delicacies and maybe there will be the opportunity to write about some of them on this blog in the future, things like Singing Hinnies, Pease Pudding and Panackelty For now though, a call out for the Stottie Cake, which despite its name, is a form of bread, not a cake, in the way we understand the name nowadays. Its a flat round loaf 20-30cms in diameter and about 4 centimetres deep with a small indentation in the middle. Its name is associated with the dialect verb to ‘stott’ which means to bounce. The stottie cakes, if dropped, should therefore bounce! It’s a true taste of home for north-easterners who’ve moved away and made all the more special because it’s almost impossible to find outside of the region. Split in half and stuffed with boiled ham and pease pudding or with bacon for breakfast it’s delicious.

Stottie cakes exported to Italy – they got a bit squashed in transit.

Come back to the blog soon for more about my recent visit to Newcastle, including my review of a Michelin 1 Star restaurant and breakfast of Craster Kippers!

When people ask me to tell them what is my favourite restaurant I hesitate for two reasons. Firstly I hate the ‘favourite’ type questions such as what is favourite colour, music, TV programme and secondly, how to decide. Always for me the answer has to be ‘it depends’.

There are restaurants that I return to time after time, or would if I could, so I suppose they could in some way be classed as favourites. The first of those is a restaurant in London where I first went 15 years or more ago. Le Caprice is legendary in certain circles and has been around in one form or another for 35 years with a host of celebrity, royal and hip clients. For sure the former husband of the Queen’s late sister could always be certain to get the best table but Le Caprice serves its ‘ordinary’ regulars exceptionally well too. After only my first couple of visits I was always ‘known’ and my Bloody Mary preferences always anticipated. The food is a fusion of modern American, British and European cuisine, the service friendly and relaxed but uber efficient. It’s not cheap but it’s not too expensive either (this is Mayfair!) but it is consistently good and I miss not being able to go as often as I used to do.

Over the years I’ve eaten in one or two of Rome’s ‘best’ restaurants but have always, in some way, left feeling disappointed because they never quite lived up to my high expectations. The higher the price the higher the expectation is my thought. Trattoria da Luigi though has hardly ever disappointed. It has no pretensions whatsoever. It is what it is, a simple family run Roman trattoria frequented mostly by Romans and those visitors to Rome who like me have been eating there for decades. My first visit was probably 30 years ago and every visit to Rome since then has had to include one, two or even three return visits. The staff are always welcoming and whilst the food could never be described as ‘fine dining’ it is undoubtedly fresh local food cooked well and served with enthusiasm. I’ve seen the generations of the family grow up in the business and work hard to ensure that nothing much changes from year to year. Perhaps occasionally the umbrellas or table lines are replaced or the wall re-painted but the abbacchio al forno or the fiori di zucca stuffed with mozzarella and anchovies remain delicious.

A relatively recent addition to my list of places to return to requires a bit more commitment in terms of cash and advance booking. Osteria Francescana in Modena is owned and run by Massimo Bottura in the streets where he grew up as boy. He’s a remarkable chef with a social conscience. During Expo Milan in 2015 he organised Refettorio Ambrosiano to ensure that the chefs working at Expo didn’t forget the poor by using their talents and excess produce to feed the poor. Osteria Francescana is Number 1 in the World’s 50 Best Restaurants 2016 and boasts three Michelin Stars. “Our Cooking is collision of ideas, cultures techniques and gestures” says their website. For me my dinner there was visually challenging – one of the presentation techniques is to throw the food onto the plate – and deeply rewarding in terms of flavour and especially the combination of flavours.