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Oliver Rowe Pop Up at Norse

I’ve been a fan of Oliver Rowe for years.  Mr Frivolitea and I first discovered him through the TV series Urban Chef and then ventured to London to try his food.  Konstam at the Prince Albert was a real favourite.  It’s where I really discovered the joy of eating out and trying new things. I can still vividly remember the first time I tried lambs heart, skirt steak and spätzle all at Konstam. I also loved the idea of being up close and personal with the food prep, Oliver cooked in front of diners.  I loved it. So imagine my distress when it closed and I no longer had an opportunity to eat his food.  Oliver has been busy doing residencies and pop ups around London but it’s never easy to go when it’s 200 miles away.   So imagine my delight when a cheeky tweet and the bravery to follow it up led to Oliver coming up to Yorkshire and doing some pop ups in Leeds and Harrogate and the double joy of Oliver releasing a book.  The most beautifully written book showing such a love for seasonal produce.  You see that’s what I love about Oliver’s food.  It’s honest. It allows the ingredients to speak for themselves and it tastes great every time.


The pop up at Norse had some of my favourite things: Mackerel, Skirt steak, almonds.

When we arrived Norse provided some beautiful verbena and coriander seed bread with artichoke purée and puffed wheat. 


Then Oliver’s first course arrived. A selection of ‘snacks’: Radishes with anchovy butter, potato with smoked curd and leek ash and quails egg with kohlrabi.  All delicious but especially the anchovy butter, which I could have happily eaten on its own. 


Next course was courgette flower stuffed with Harrogate blue, goats curd and honey. Simply delicious.


Then came the mackerel with a beautifully jammy gooseberry compote, creme fraiche and buckwheat.   


This dish was paired with an unusual and quite superb biodynamic wine that was 100% Sauvignon Blanc grape 2013 Puilly Fume, Alexandre Bain.  I don’t even know how to describe it, it almost had a cider like quality to it. 


Then came the skirt steak, bringing back memories of eating it at Konstam years ago. The steak was cooked on Norse’s Big Green Egg and accompanied by beetroot and onion. The steak just melted in the mouth.


The final course was heaven on a plate: blueberry and almond tart with artichoke creme fraiche ice cream (a particular triumph I thought) and fennel crumble. The flavours of almond and fennel with the artichoke ice cream were simply perfect.


What a wonderful evening. Particularly special for me to eat Oliver’s food again and chat to him about his plans and opportunities.  Now to persuade him to come back up north again….

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Manjit’s Kitchen

Tucked away in a newly developed part of Leeds Markets is Manjit’s Kitchen.  The new bit of the market is still a bit sparse with lots of empty kiosks still waiting to be filled but Manjit’s Kitchen, recently opened, is definitely a highlight and worth the visit alone.  This area of the market has real potential with the communal tables and music spaces too.


We chose to have the Thali plate. £5.95 for three curries, rice, chapati and salad.  It was an absolute delight.  The curries included daal, a chickpea and spinach masala and a curry with paneer ( I was enjoying my lunch so much I forgot to take a photo of the menu!)


This was an exciting and great value lunch and the option of trying three curries really appealed to me as it gives you the opportunity to try different flavours.  It’s definitely worth a return visit!

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Laynes Espresso

Laynes espresso is somewhere we visit anytime we go to Leeds.  Situated just round the corner from the train station, it’s a great place to have coffee. Their regular espresso blend is Square Mile Red Brick and the coffee is always spot on.  Usually we treat ourselves to one of their cakes too.  We have been known to pop in our way back to the station and get cakes to take home!


Today, for the first time, we arrived at breakfast time and  after one look at the menu decided it would be rude not to try some of the dishes.We decided to share two dishes. The first dish was Shakshuka (Arabiata, baked egg, dukkah and harissa buttered toast).  This is the best Shakshuka I have had. The balance of spices was spot on, the homemade dukkah and the harissa butter were a real highlight.

We also ordered the buckwheat pancakes with fruit compote, vanilla mascarpone and crumble.  This was another great dish. The balance was just right with not too much sweetness and the pancakes were lovely and light.


We will certainly plan timings of future visits to Leeds to include breakfast at Laynes.

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The Barn Bistro at Burniston (again!) 

I’ve written about the Barn before and how much I like it.  This time we decided to go for breakfast before a long walk along the Cleveland Way. We were not disappointed!  I had Hartlepool smoked haddock with poached eggs, hollaindaise sauce and fried sliced potatoes. The haddock was really superb and the hollandaise sauce really well made.


Mr Frivolitea had omelette Arnold Bennett with Hartlepool smoked haddock. Really  light and really tasty.


I can’t stay away from great food so we also headed back the next day for Sunday lunch before heading home. The Barn provides such high quality and exciting food for such great value.   Just £20.95 for three courses.

This time we both had the Thai crab and prawn cake, prank hen’s egg and tempura green beans for starter (absolutely delicious) 

For main course Mr Frivolitea had the roast beef and I had pan fried wild sea trout with king prawns and garlic and herb butter

As on previous visits a highlight is the side dishes that come with the main course.  This time we had roast potatoes, celeriac gratin, sweetcorn with Swiss rainbow chard, leeks and streaky bacon and a roasted squash, tomatoes and peppers with feta.  I have not visited anywhere else that puts as much love and attention into the side dishes as to the main event.  It’s one reason why we keep going back. 

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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?!

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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.)

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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.

 

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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.

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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.  

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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!