Cowshed

Another weekend in Scarborough and we thought we would try somewhere new to eat. I asked for ideas on Twitter and Yay Coffee suggested Cowshed for burgers. We just managed to get an early evening table as it was booked up for the rest of the night. A good sign that this is somewhere people want to eat. Cowshed has a bit of a street food look about it, almost as if they have parked their gourmet burger van next to a hipster coffee shop (by the way this is a good thing.) minimalist decor and a small but perfectly formed menu.

This is not a place for the health conscious, it’s about really tasty ‘fast’ food but using locally sourced high quality ingredients. Mr Frivolitea and I both went for the burgers. I had the ‘it ain’t easy being cheesy’, 2 beef patties, choice of cheese (I chose Gruyere), beef tomato and shed sauce (described before it arrived as a McDonald’s style burger sauce which was a spot on description, seriously tasty sauce). Mr Frivolitea had the ‘Bacon BBQ’, 2 beef patties, ‘trotters’ smoked streaky bacon, tangy BBQ sauce, American cheese. I chose to upgrade to he sweet potato fries as my side. Oh my these were the best sweet potato fries I have ever had. The seasoning was something else! It had Chinese five spice and a salt and pepper seasoning. Definitely trying that at home. Mr Frivolitea also chose to get some deep fried gherkins to go with his burger which he said were very moreish.

This place is brilliant value with great quality food. We had mains, sides, drinks and coffee for £30. It’s definitely worth a visit, I mean who doesn’t want really good burger and fries?!

Yay Coffee

If you are looking for great coffee in Scarborough then Yay Coffee on York Place is the place to go. It’s in a basement, it’s small, but it’s a great place to to hang out.

They have a great espresso (try Dr Strangelove) and filter coffee menu and a lovely selection of homemade cakes. The lunch menu also looked great though I’ve not yet tried. I don’t think I need to say anymore. Just go. (And if the rhubarb and custard cake or the brownie is available, eat it.)

Rhubarb and orange cake

We have a lot of rhubarb in our garden and so I make this cake a lot in the summer. It is lovely and moist.

Ingredients:

Rhubarb topping:

50g caster sugar (I usually use golden)

Zest of an orange

300g rhubarb cut up into small chunks

Cake:

150g caster sugar

140 g butter

85g self raising flour

100g ground almonds

1/2tsp baking powder

Juice of half the orange

2 eggs

Method:

Line a 20cm cake tin

Heat the oven to 160c

Mix the cake topping together and leave to ‘marinade’

Put the cake ingredients in a mixer and mix well together (if doing by hand you might want to cream the butter and sugar together before mixing in the rest of the ingredients)

Spoon the cake mix in to the tin and then arrange the cake topping on top. There will be some juice in the cake topping which you can drizzle over.

Bake for 45 minutes or until a cake tester comes out clean.

Raspberry Amaretti cake

This is one of my favourite cakes to make. It’s simple to make and gets great comments every time. It’s lovely warm with cream or icecream as a pudding and just as delicious cold with a cup of tea. This recipe makes one cake in a 20cm round cake tin.

Ingredients:

175g unsalted butter, softened

175g caster sugar ( I usually use golden)

140g self raising flour

85g ground almonds

3 eggs

8 amaretti biscuits

150-200g frozen raspberries (fresh is also fine but I usually keep a stash in the freezer)

Method:

Heat the oven to 150c

Put the butter, sugar, flour, almonds and eggs in a mixer and mix well together ( you can obviously use a hand mixer or do it by hand)

Put half the cake mix in the tin and spread it evenly. Arrange half the raspberries on top and then crush half the amaretti biscuits over the raspberries.
Put the remaining cake mix on top, arrange the remaining raspberries and finally crush the other half of the amaretti biscuits on top.

Bake for 50 minutes or until a cake tester comes out clean.

Cave du Cochon

Mr Frivolitea and I have been waiting in anticipation for some time for Cave du Cochon to open, knowing that if it had even a fraction of the passion and flare Le Cochon Aveugle has then it was going to be a winner. Oh boy, we were not disappointed. We have been in the last few months to a couple of wine bars that offer wine flights, bar snacks and platters. Cave du Cochon offers the same idea but with unique flare. We really couldn’t fault it.

We decided to go for the wine flight each. This came as 5 X 75ml glasses of wine and we decided to let the barman choose a flight of white for me and a flight of red for Mr Frivolitea. In hindsight sitting in the window was not the best idea as those walking past I fear thought we had a serious drink problem and this looked much worse once the wine was consumed and here was a lot of empty glasses on our table!

I really enjoyed the selection of wines we had, they were all new to me and all interesting and challenging in their own ways. I really like the idea of wine flights and someone else choosing the wines, it’s a great way to try new wines and learn more about wine. The barman was really helpful at explaining the wine to us. Later on in the evening he encouraged us to sample a couple of other unusual wines, his love and knowledge of wine was clear to see and that’s what makes this place extra special.

Our flights consisted of

White :

Picpoul de Pinet, Domaine Morin-Langaran (Languedoc, France)

Costlier de Nimes Blanc, Chateau Vessiere. (Rhone, France)

Soave Castelcerino, Cantina Filippi (Veneto, Italy)

Gruner Veltliner Handcrafted, Ma Arndorfer. (Kamptal, Austria)

Screaming Betty, Delinquente (Riverland, Australia)

Red:

Ciello Rosso IGP (Sicily, Italy)

IGP Saint-Guilhem-Le-Desert, Domaine Coston (Languedoc, France)

Castillon-Cotes-de-Bordeaux, Chateau Beynat (Bordeaux, France)

Beck Ink, Judith Beck (Burgenland, Austria)

Malbec Sin Sulfito, Bodega Cecchin (Mendoza, Argentina)

We chose a selection of bar snacks to accompany the wine including pork scratchings with apple sauce , curried peanuts and pig terrine with homemade piccalilli. The pig terrine was particularly wonderful and I was nearly tempted to order a second!

We also, thanks to the advice of the barman, opted for the ploughmans platter as this enabled us to sample some of the other bar snacks and a nice selection of the cheese and charcuterie. It was a thing of beauty and consisted of beetroot pickled pheasants egg, Scottish smoked salmon, pork rillette, breakfast radishes with aioli, Saucisson, Corsican lonzo, Mimolette cheese and another cheese that I annoyingly can’t remember the name of! All accompanied with their homemade sourdough and homemade butter.

The food offering was delicious, and recognisably Cochon. This is a great place to go whether you just want to pop in for a drink or linger longer. We really enjoyed our evening and will certainly be paying a return visit soon not least to have a glass of the La Amistad we sampled as we were leaving. More of that when I write up the next visit.

The Poacher’s Pocket

One important thing my dad and I share, well two things, is a love of food and particularly a love of seafood. Any visit home will include going out for lunch or dinner somewhere and trying something new. My dad is often telling me of somewhere he has tried on his weekly trips out for lunch with friends and so the list of places I want to try when I visit just gets longer and longer. Somewhere that has been on the list for a while is The Poacher’s Pocket at Lisbane. So on this flying visit (literally) mum and dad took me for lunch en route to the airport.

The main reason for wanting to come here is the pudding but more of that later…

The Poacher’s Pocket is one of a small group of restaurants that Danny Miller is involved in. The Parson’s Nose being one that I have written about already. Like the others in the group there is a real focus on local produce. Finnebrogue venison and local seafood make regular appearances. As you would expect from me (and my dad) we went for seafood. In fact dad and I chose exactly the same things! I am most definitely my father’s daughter.

For starter we had the crab cakes. These little cakes were so tasty. And the lightly pickled cucumber that accompanied it had a lovely sweetness.

For main course, we chose the special: Megrim and triple cooked chips. We both chose this as it is a fish neither of us had tried before. I particularly liked the very light ‘batter’ that coated the fish and the fresh tomato dressing that sat beautifully on the plate. This was a really impressive dish and I would certainly choose Megrim again.

And then came pudding… The main reason for coming here. We didn’t need the menu, we knew exactly what we wanted. Pannacotta. My dad calls it the best pannacotta in the world and I think he’s right. It is the most deliciously creamy pannacotta I have ever had. It came with lovely minted strawberries and crushed cookies but they could have just brought a simple plain pannacotta and we would have been happy….If I had not been so full and having to get on a plane I would have ordered another. In fact typing this I now have a pannacotta craving.

Next time I visit I will definitely be having pannacotta and I will also leave room in my suitcase for a visit to the Poacher’pantry adjacent to the restaurant and stock up on all the amazing local produce they sell!

The Ship Inn, Low Newton on Sea

Mr Frivolitea and I make an annual pilgrimage here for one simple reason (well two) a crab stottie (Mr Frivolitea usually has Swallow’s fish cakes) and a pint of Ship Inn beer. This is a short blog post as there’s not much to say. It’s perfect. A free house that doesn’t faff about. Short simple menu, beer brewed on site and a fantastic view. That’s all that we require and it’s why we keep coming back!

The view towards the beach

Crab Stottie

Swallow’s fish cakes

It’s worth saying that they do an occasional special and on this visit they had chocolate mousse cake with cardomom honeycomb. Wow! It was amazing. Mr Frivolitea has decided all honeycomb should be cardomom flavoured from now on.

The Old Boathouse, Amble

Northumberland has been generous to us this weekend both in terms of the weather the bounty of seafood on offer. We decided as a last adventure to head to Amble. Somewhere on my list but not yet visited. I had heard that the Old Boathouse was the place to eat and we got lucky. We called in. No table but they could give us a table in 45 minutes. Excellent! A wander around the lovely harbour pods that showcase local food and artists then we would eat. 20 minutes later they rang to say it was ready early. Even better. This service alone impressed me before we even got to the food.

We realised how fortunate we were when everyone else who arrived that afternoon without a reservation walked away disappointed. The great thing about this place is that it really focuses on local seafood. They have a regular menu but the excitement lies in the specials board based on local catch available that day.

We decided to share a portion of salt and chilli squid to start. Simple and delicious. The crumb on the squid was beautifully light.

When we had walked in earlier I had spotted a lady with a huge bowl of langoustines. I couldn’t get them out of my head so that’s what I ordered.

I was not disappointed. They were deliciously sweet and juicy. I made a mess but I thoroughly enjoyed my dinner!

Mr Frivolitea had whole wood roast seabass stuffed with orange, chilli and tarragon and served with an olive and sunblushed tomato salad. This was also really beautifully cooked and full of flavour.

One thing I do know is that on our next trip to Northumberland we will be booking a table here. What a discovery!

Beaches Seafood Shack

You have probably worked this out already but I absolutely love seafood. Any opportunity to eat it I will take. Today we spent the morning birdwatching on Staple Island and decided to go somewhere different for lunch in the afternoon. We decided on Alnmouth. Not far south of where we were staying and the promise of lovely views and the beach. A quick search led us to the Guardian and an article they posted last year about cheap eats in the area including mention of a seafood shack. So off we went and I am REALLY glad we did.

This place is very unassuming with a hand painted sign and hand written notes and menu outside, but it delivers in abundance.

The note on the door sealed it for me….read it for yourself….

The hand written menu inside made me grin from ear to ear, the only difficult bit was deciding what to have. Actually it wasn’t that difficult.

They had half lobster and fries for less than a tenner. Decision made. (Ten minutes later they sold out) We chose to eat in as there were three little tables inside and watched a number of people come in for takeaway. It is clearly a popular place.
My lobster and fries was perfect. That’s all I can say. It really was.

Mr Frivolitea ordered the smoked haddock Mac n cheese in a pot. He was delighted and is planning his next visit.

What a find this place was! I can’t wait to see what is on offer next time we visit.

Babushka

Babushka is exactly the sort of place you want to while away a few hours on a Saturday or on holiday. A wonderful host (George’s love of coffee and Babushka is infectious) Fantastic coffee, a small but perfectly formed menu and one of the best views you could ever wish for of the beach and the sea. Even on a bad day the view is wonderful. There isn’t really much else to say. This place is perfect. It’s why we keep coming back.