Tastes of 2013

Happy New Year everyone, I'm still here! The blog has gone down the pan for the last couple of months for one reason, and one reason only. Here she is:

I'll resist the temptation to start writing blog posts about my baby, this is a food blog after all, and she's a bit rubbish at eating (milk>vomit>milk>repeat being the general scheme of things), so I'll just say that I'm a very proud Dad and leave it at that.

I was going to write a review of last year in the same vein as the previous two years, but there were too few contenders in half of the categories to make it worthwhile bothering. So instead here are twenty things I ate in 2013, from January through to December.

1. Falafel wrap from Cafe Moor in Leeds market. Nice guys, breathing life into the market, and most importantly serving exemplary middle eastern snack food, the best I've eaten outside that region.

2. The cheeseburger toastie at Home Sweet Home in Manchester. Twee place, gimmicky food was what I suspected. I couldn't have been more wrong. Great place, very good coffee, and that toastie is a work of genius (it's the gherkins that make it).

3. The Iskender kebab at Zeugma in Sheffield. A divine mix of tender, charred lamb, spicy tomato sauce, buttery bread and thick, sharp super-creamy yoghurt. Everything else is excellent too at this proper Turkish grill house.

4. The perfect pint, at the Stag's Head in Sheffield. More unusual and exciting styles have their place but for ultimate beery satisfaction I keep returning to a pint of cask bitter (or did months ago the last time I spent any time in the pub). Maybe I'm getting old or maybe this sort of beer is criminally underrated by beery trendsetters. My favourite examples: Ilkley Brewery Best, Marble Pint, Thornbridge Lord Marples.

5. The Crich Square, from the Loaf Bakery (branches in Crich and Matlock). Like a denser, yeastier toasted teacake. Toasted buttery heaven.

6. 2013 brought two Red Chill feasts, both at the Leeds branch. Excellent food and excellent value as always. The highlight: the shallow fried pork dumplings. The aftermath of one of those feasts is pictured.

7. A Sunday roast with a difference, rather than serve up the usual dessicated topside in gravy or whatever, the Wig and Pen in Sheffield came up with this beef cheek offering. Dense moist strands of cowface, cooked for an eternity, reformed into a cricket ball sized lump of joy and served with the darkest most marmitey gravy known to man. Ace.

8. Our tapas crawl in Malaga back in April wasn't a gourmet affair, but these pintxos were simple perfection.

9. The only curry of any real interest that I ate all year was this chicken chettinad at a South Indian caff in Reading. Dark, roasted spice rich and very more-ish.

10. I can't think of a city that conforms to stereotype more than Munich. The locals really do love the whole giant beers, sausages and singing thing. Skip the overtouristed Hofbrauhaus and head to the Augustiner Keller where the beer is better and whopping great plates of bratwurst and sauerkraut mit senf go down a treat.

11. The flat white at Bold Street Coffee in Liverpool. Faultless.

12. Fools, lovely fools. Cold, smooth whipped cream and tart English fruit. Easy peasy puddings for a genuinely warm summer (at least the first half of it). Gooseberry was my favourite, closely followed by rhubarb.

13. Another summer addiction, bread salad. I'd never realised how good panzanella and the like could be. They know what they're doing those Italians.

14. The final of my home made summer successes: watermelon, mint and feta salad. Served chilled on the hottest day of the year.

15. Iberico presa at Bar 44 in South Wales. The high point of an excellent tapas dinner. Pig of dreams.

16. Roast belly pork in soup noodles at Noodle Inn in Sheffield. Decent broth and bouncy noodles in support of beautiful roast meat; tender flesh, rendered melting fat, snappy crackling.

17. Rillettes, cornichons, bread, a glass of local plonk. I loved it in France.

18. Sticky toffee baked apples. A successful alternative to mincemeat, I stuffed these apples with dates and a quick butter and demerara sugar caramel. They were lovely.

19. The most memorable thing I ate in Amsterdam? The Flemish style chips. Best eaten from a cone bigger than your head, after a few ales, with a ridiculous combination of sauces (cheese and chilli pictured).

20. Christmas dinner sandwich. Christmas dinner itself was really the memorable occasion, eaten at home with my new family, just the three of us.

Food-wise I'll opt for the leftovers sarnie though, as I really cracked that this year. Use crusty white bread (I used ciabatta), butttered, then heat up your fillings and add them in this order: Sliced turkey, crispy bacon, bubble and squeak made from all the leftover veg (ideally roast spuds, cabbage, sprouts and carrots), bread sauce and gravy.

La Tasca, Meadowhall, Sheffield

It's been a while since I've had a rant on here. I didn't go to La Tasca specifically with a whinge in mind, really I didn't. I went because I was hungry and it was convenient and I'd heard rumours of a revamped menu and attempts at doing things properly and I even got invited to a jamon carving shindig there a while back with the promise of genuine iberico de bellota.

So I went to La Tasca feeling vaguely optimistic that it would have morphed into one of those satisfactory-never-going-to-be-amazing-but-will-do-the-job-once-in-a-while sort of chains, instead of just being completely shit. Well I'm really glad I didn't go to the freebie ham carving night, because it's never much fun moaning about free stuff. If this meal was a fair representation of the place, it's still very much in the completely shit camp.

In photographic order rather than level of crapness I bring you: patatas bravas. Limp, mealy spuds in a sauce tasting exactly like tinned tomatoes with stale smoked paprika stirred through without the benefit of being cooked afterwards. The spanish omelette I couldn't fault as I like eating wodges of the supermarket bought ones (Lidl or Mercadona will do nicely) on my holidays and this was the same as those.

Croquettes were manchego and spinach, not a combo I've ever encountered before (what's wrong with ham or chicken?) but they were at least crisp and greaseless. It was just a shame they tasted of absolutely nothing.

We inadvertently overloaded ourselves with more of the same pappy potatoes by ordering a lamb and potato stew and a portion of octopus with potatoes. Given the headline billing you could reasonably expect lamb and octopus to have been the main ingredient in each dish though. Sadly not.

The lamb amounted to four gristly bits of disappointment in a weak broth with lots and lots of potatoes. The bread on the side was that clever sort of bread that looks like good bread until you eat it and realise it's slightlier crustier aerated Kingsmill in disguise (see also: speciality breads from Asda).

The octopus was predictably chewy (except for the occasional random tender bit) and bland, but at least it came with lots and lots of potatoes.

Last and pretty much equally least; the house green salad. A speciality of Navarra, the Spanish region famed for bull-running and manky mixed leaves in a cheap balsamic dressing.

I'd be a lot more forgiving of the general awfulness of the food if we'd had really great service and it was dirt cheap, but neither was the case. The service approach seemed to be grab whoever's nearest and try your luck. The beer I ordered never arrived and it took ages to get someone to fetch the bill. The dubious positive was the literally less than five minutes it took for all the food to arrive. Some sort of turbo microwave system?

The icing on the cake is that La Tasca is actually quite pricey. We paid about £30 for this load of rubbish. That might not be an expensive meal for two, but it's actually quite a bit more than you'd pay for a comparable meal at a proper tapas place.

In spirit of investigation I've checked the menus for a couple of places I like to make sure I'm not talking bollocks here, and an equivalent six dishes at either the splendid Bar 44 or the excellent Salt House Tapas would cost you slightly less, and would be about fifty times more appetising.

Awful in every way. Don't give them your money.


3/10

http://www.latasca.com/ Sadly everywhere.

The Mexican Pilgrim, Leeds

The street food revolution has reached critical mass.

What's that you're thinking? Here comes another Trinity Kitchen puff piece. Nope. The street food revolution has reached critical mass and cannot be stopped because there is now a Mexican street food van with a permanent pitch on Cross Green Industrial Estate. CROSS GREEN INDUSTRIAL ESTATE.

Those of you who have never ventured into the dark underbelly of Leeds may not have heard of this place, but I promise it really is in Leeds. It's actually quite close to the city centre, and is where you'll find all manner of old school industries, essential utilities and such-like. Proper industry, cast products and tarmac and sewage and stuff.

It's also where I've had an office base on and off for over a decade, and where the most exciting ever development food-wise was the arrival of the Wilson's pie van a couple of years back. It's the kind of place where mucky fat sandwich vans are the order of the day, and anything else, other than the pies, is pretty unlikely.

So the people who've suddenly appeared on the scene selling Mexican tortas, are either mad or very clever, or perhaps a bit of both. Whatever they are it's a bold move, not only are they selling Mexican food, but that Mexican food does not include burritos. No burritos! Can you imagine? I thought they were compulsory.

I'm not averse to a burrito once in a while, but I'm baffled by their ubiquity. Their boundless popularity seems out of step with the reality, which in many cases amounts to a great big damp stodgy wrap the size of your head stuffed mostly with Uncle Ben's savoury rice. And why do I have to pay extra for a smear of mashed avocado you bastards?

Anyhow, these boys are selling Mexican tortas, which are a sandwich on a bolillo (oval shaped) roll, filled with all of the same stuff as a burrito, except for all of that rice. This actually works pretty well, a more open textured bread does a better job of soaking up the juices than the flat stuff, and it's a much more manageable proposition without the surfeit of stodge.

Spicy beef with the works (refried beans, sour cream, cheese, lettuce, jalapenos, FREE guacamole) really went down a treat. The whole sort of melded into that tangy, spicy, messy mix you get with this sort of thing. Not subtle but very satisfying, although I think a crustier roll would be an improvement.

£3.50 for the beef torta. They also do a chicken version, and that's it except for the sensible addition of a standard breakfast butty menu served until 11. Mad or clever, I salute the Mexican Pilgrim. If you're ever in the vicinity of Cross Green pay them a visit.


7/10

Lay-by on Cross Green Approach
Cross Green Industrial Estate
Leeds
LS9

Twitter: @mexicanpilgrim

p.s. I will be paying a visit to Trinity Kitchen soon enough, after which I'll almost certainly be writing my own puff piece. The monthly rotation plans for the street food vans are a genuinely exciting new departure for a shopping centre, so well done to the corporate types for giving it a go. And the first round of vendors look ace.

Devonshire Arms, Pilsley, Derbyshire

It can get very confusing round these parts if someone suggests dining at the Devonshire Arms. On the night we completed the sale of my house in Wakefield I wanted to celebrate with dinner at this Devonshire, it being game season and this being a speciality of theirs, but sadly they were full. So we tried to call this Devonshire instead, I'd enjoyed a meal there before so it seemed like a good alternative, but they weren't answering the phone. Maybe we got the wrong number and tried to call this Devonshire, or maybe this one. Who knows?

All was not lost, as we ended up at this Devonshire instead. Panic over. The Devonshire Arms in Pilsley is the pubbier sister to the Devonshire Arms in Beeley, just a few miles across the Chatsworth estate. Both are run by the mini-empire controlled by the Duke and Duchess of Devonshire themselves (which in case you were wondering also includes Yorkshire's Devonshire Arms at Bolton Abbey, and the Devonshire Fell at nearby Burnsall. Must have had a crisis of confidence with that last one. What's wrong with Arms all of a sudden?).

You can tell when you're in a proper Devonshire with aristocratic proprietors, as within five minutes or so of arriving you're bound to see the Duke and Duchess posing on some piece of literature or other, looking all patrician yet welcoming, like a sort of friendlier local royal family. I imagine this is what the Queen's descendants will be doing a century hence, when we've finally gone Republican and you can't travel 50 yards in Berkshire or Norfolk without stumbling upon another Windsor Arms.

I digress. Whatever your views on the future of the monarchy (for some reason the debate never seems to run to whether or not they'd make a killing in the hospitality business) and the aristocracy the Devonshires generally oversee a pretty good quality operation.

The Pilsley outpost was a case in point. Solid, very accomplished pub grub, not at the gastro end of the spectrum, but very much in the traditional sense.

I considered leaving the photos off this post, as everything looks weirdly rubbish, more wacky warehouse two-for-one in appearance than the enjoyable, well cooked meal it actually was. We shared a bowl of garlic mushrooms to start. A big bowl of sauteed mushrooms swimming in loads of creamy, garlicky goodness. The work of five minutes by a ten year old (theoretically, I'm not suggesting they're exploiting children) in the kitchen, but if it ain't broke.... Just one minor quibble though, the bread could have been fresher.

For reasons I can't quite fathom I ordered the mixed grill. I can't recall ever having done this before, ever (maybe in a Wetherspoon's about fifteen years ago?). I love meat but have limits, and the mixed grill always seems the preserve of men with a death wish. I can remember watching a particularly portly fellow working his way through a humongous one in a pub in Lancashire once, increasingly clammy and red-faced, washing it down with pints of bitter. I'm convinced he didn't make it through the night, dead within hours to a massive coronary on the can, Elvis style.

Anyway that's the mental picture I associate with the mixed grill, so you can imagine my surprise when I accidentally ordered the bugger. You know what? I'm glad I did. Every piece of meat was cooked just right, with a nice bit of char on the outside and deep blush pink, where warranted, on the inside. There was a sausage, a well hung beefsteak, a lamb chop, and gammon and pork steaks. Only the latter, the boring one of the bunch, defeated me.

Chips and salad were proper, in that the chips had crunch (don't trust the pasty appearance on the pic) and were their own, and that the salad was lots of stuff mixed up together with a lively mustard dressing. A completely unnecessary side order of onion rings (it was A's fault, she's pregnant. Don't blame me) were the kind that you could happily eat all evening.

Not wanting to push my luck with that death wish, we retreated, thoroughly satisfied, without pudding. It hadn't been Plan A, but the Pilsley Devonshire came up with the goods. Prices are probably on the high side for normal pub food, but fine when you consider the quality. I'd rather pay £12-16 for an enjoyable plateful than the £8-12 dross that so many of the places round here offer. Orders are taken at the bar, so there wasn't really much in the way of service to speak of. They fetched the food and cleared the tables.

Would I go again? Yes, definitely. Another mixed grill? Probably not.

8/10

On the Chatsworth Estate
Pilsley
Derbyshire
DE45 1UL

http://www.devonshirepilsley.co.uk/

Caffeine and Co, Manchester

I'd heard nothing but praise for Caffeine and Co, so I was looking forward to stopping in for a coffee and sandwich. A flying visit to Manchester the week before last gave me the opportunity.

Service was chatty and efficient, but a flat white and a sandwich were just slightly off-kilter on this visit. The coffee itself was an excellent blend, toasty and fruity all at once. The execution wasn't quite there though, the milk being just a little thin.

The reuben sandwich, despite not being a reuben, would have been a perfectly serviceable lunch option (generously filled, decent quality beef) had it not been toasted to buggery in the sandwich press. I've probably got myself to blame for that though, my default response to the question 'do you want it toasted?' being yes, when some sarnies are clearly better left alone.

Gripes aside I'm sure this is a quality place, and if I'd turned up on another day everything could have been perfect. The coffee is definitely worth a second glance and the cakes and other sandwiches all looked good. £2.40 for the flat white and £3.50 for the sandwich.

7/10

11 St James Square
Manchester
M2 6WH

https://www.facebook.com/caffeineandco/info

Crafthouse, Leeds

The first thing I felt on arriving at Crafthouse was a slight pang of guilt. There are a good number of local, independent restaurants in Leeds at which I've been wanting to eat for years, and here I was rocking up at the sparkling new outpost of a thirty strong London based restaurant group.

The second thing I couldn't help but feel was a little bit impressed. They really have got the best location in town up there on top of the new Trinity development, and it's maximised to full effect as you rise up in the glass fronted lift and views of a compact, surprisingly complete looking urban skyline appear.

So it was with mixed feelings that I approached the meal. Good quality places to eat are always welcome, but would I have rather been somewhere else, maybe somewhere with a long standing commitment to the Leeds dining scene (although I should point out that the Head Chef here is from Yorkshire, even if the backing isn't)?

Things started on a positive note with some lovely mini loaves of warm, nutty wholemeal and too much butter. Then salad to start; chicory and Yorkshire blue, watercress, poached pear, roasted walnut. An assemblage of decent ingredients, though I'll stick my neck out and say that Yorkshire blue isn't my favourite cheese. I'm sure I should be praising the use of local products, but it's not got the depth of a good Stilton.

The best bit of my meal came next, a beautifully cooked sea bream fillet with uniformly crisp skin that split from the flesh like a delicate fish scratching. Generously proportioned too for a pre-theatre menu offering. Cauliflower puree, leek (or leak according to the menu) fondue and light shellfish sauce didn't really offer much in support other than being vaguely beige and creamy.

The set menu puddings were fancier in plating than starters and mains, caramelised white chocolate mousse and cherry sorbet looked and reportedly tasted fantastic. Iced lemon curd, blackberries, meringue and crispy pastry didn't quite work for me though, the intensely sharp and cold lemon rather drowning out the taste of the blackberries. Good pastry though, like what you'd find at the base of a well made vanilla slice.

I finished, as I'd started, with mixed feelings about Crafthouse. It's a very professional operation as you'd expect, service was good and there are obviously some talented people in the kitchen (that fish really was spot on, and the bread was great too), but I didn't love all of the food and the atmosphere, despite the views, feels a little corporate and calculated. I'd return, but not before making the effort to visit some of those other places on my list.

Almost forgot to mention prices (it was a work meal so I wasn't paying); the pre-theatre set menu is £22.50 for three courses, a la carte around £30-35. Wine? Not bad actually, plenty by the carafe at under twenty quid.


7/10

Level 5 Trinity Leeds
70 Boar Lane
Leeds
LS1 6HW

http://www.crafthouse-restaurant.com/

Noodle Inn, Sheffield (revisited)

I've eaten at two of the restaurants in Sheffield's Noodle Inn mini-empire before (see here and here), enjoying the meal on both occasions but finding it tricky to work out what they're actually best at, the almost novel sized menus proving a challenge.

A repeat visit to the original Noodle Inn on London Road enlightened me further in one regard: their roast meats are very good indeed, especially the belly pork.

Three roast meats and noodles in soup brought a competent broth, bouncy noodles, plenty of greens and a ridiculous quantity of meat for the £7.50 price tag. The belly pork was a dream, the thin layer of crackling fracturing on the bite to give way to melting fat and tender flesh. Spot on, and it didn't even lose the crunch after sitting in the soup for ages. Many a gastropub charging twice the price for the stuff could learn a thing or two from these lot.

The duck and char sui pork were also good, but it's the belly pork that's sticking in the memory, and that I'll definitely be back for.

Service was brisk and to the point, but that's fine by me. You come here to get fed not for someone to be all nice to you. £7.50 for a huge bowl of noodles, or £11 with a beer and service.

8/10

156 London Road
Sheffield
S2 4LT

http://www.noodleinn.co.uk/

Edit: The website has disappeared. Surely they haven't closed down in the last fortnight or so since I was there? http://www.noodleinncentro.co.uk and http://noodleinnhotpot.co.uk/ are still online...

Bar 44, Cowbridge, Wales

Completely off-piste from my normal neck of the woods, and probably any of you who happen to be reading this too, but should you find yourself in the Vale of Glamorgan I'd strongly recommend you dine at Bar 44.

It's a tapas bar of rare quality. I dined alone there last week while working away in the area, and everything was bloody brilliant.

Catalan bread with tomatoes and serrano ham. Just very good bread, toasted and topped with a mush of tomatoes with actual flavour and a generous covering of glistening, gorgeous ham. This stuff reminded me how good serrano can be, how you can get something of the intense, lingering taste of the finest iberico de bellota without the scary price tag. Full marks for serving it at room temperature too, fridge coldness is the enemy of good ham but is often what you end up with early on a quiet weekday.

Crispy hake with alioli. Why isn't hake more popular? I rarely see it on menus and it's practically never sold in chip shops. I've no idea why as it has the right attributes; pearlescent, sweet tasting, flaky flesh in thick fillets that survive a good battering. The batter on these was spot on and the garlickiness of the mayo was judged just right too.

I think it might be the injudicious use of olive oil that makes veggie tapas dishes seem so luxurious. Chickpeas and spinach was a plate licking triumph of paprika laced deliciousness.

Finally, from the more ambitious dishes on the specials menu, iberico pork presa (shoulder) with apple puree and hazelnut crumble. I had to get something from an iberico pig in there somewhere didn't I? The apple brought a subtle hint of acidity, the hazelnuts variation in texture, but the meat was the star. Cooked blush pink, tender but not meltingly so, it had a sweet, lingering flavour not dissimilar to the ham but sort of milder, fresher. Marvellous.

The bill for this little lot came to around £25 including a glass of properly chilled Manzanilla. I couldn't fault the service, and didn't get any sense of my having 'outcast freak' status for dining alone (always a worry especially in smaller towns).

Excellent, and judging by the steady stream of punters arriving, the locals know it too. They also have another branch in Penarth, closer to Cardiff.

9/10

44c High Street
Cowbridge
CF71 7AG

http://www.bar44.co.uk/cowbridge/home

Derby Pyclet Company, Derby

Resurrecting and reinventing great local food; - that's the tagline on the Derby Pyclet Company's website. The great local foods in question are pyclets and Derbyshire oatcakes, the latter essentially the same as the famous Staffordshire variety.

But what the hell is a pyclet you might ask? If I wrote pikelet instead perhaps that will help, as that's what I'd always known them as in Yorkshire. Think of a flatter, broader crumpet.

They have a stall in Derby's original market hall (the city has two, an enormous modern one and its Victorian predecessor which has somehow miraculously survived redevelopment as something other than a proper market) where you can buy the goods to take away, or sit at the counter and order them to eat there and then.

I did both, pyclets for lunch and a bag of six (£1.50) for breakfasts and snacks in the week. You can keep it simple with butter and jam or go all out with a more substantial topping. Two with stilton, walnuts and honey (£4) made for a hefty lunch, they're not small these pyclets, that's a large dinner plate they're sat on.

If I'm a honest a little too hefty. The cheese was excellent stuff, rich and creamy, but a bit overbearing with the sugar hit and the soft, doughy innards of the pyclets. Not that I didn't wolf down the lot. The pyclets are still great though, they just benefit from an age in the toaster. Toast the hell out of them (twice on a medium high setting should do the trick) until the edges are lovely and crisp, the insides chewy and yielding, and they're a delight. Spread with butter, butter and jam, or butter and cheese.

I'll be back to try the oatcakes.

7/10

http://www.derbypycletcompany.co.uk/

A summer round-up

I've been too lazy/busy (delete as appropriate) over this summer to blog about everything liked I used to. This is probably a good thing in many respects, fewer boring posts about nothing much of interest being the outcome, although it does mean that I've tended to focus only on the positive, lacking the enthusiasm to write about the mediocre or downright bad experiences.

To redress the balance a bit, here's a round up of some recent eating and drinking. Some of it good, most of it not very. A theme if there is one: why put something on the menu if you don't know what it is or can't be bothered making it properly.

Stay tuned for the next thrilling instalment, in which I dine at Noma, go on a pintxo crawl around the backstreets of assorted small Basque towns, cook barbecue in Kentucky, hang out in Dalston's latest dens of vice/burgers, and buy a sausage roll from Gregg's in Stockport on the way home. Only some of this is true.

Baked, Derby

A bakery with café in Derby city centre. The bread is certainly worth another look....

..but the coffee was just ok. The flat white wasn't a flat white.

Soup, half a sandwich and slaw for about six quid. Half a sandwich isn't an unreasonable idea, but it seems a bit stingy to stick to it rigidly when it's cut from a very small loaf. a lovely nutty wholemeal loaf by the way, but nothing to write home about otherwise.

6/10

http://www.baked-derby.com/


The Swan, West Malling, Kent

Hi friends from work, this one's for you! The Swan was the dinner venue for our team meeting at the end of June. As with the previous dinner back in April we chose from the early bird set menu, but unlike on that occasion it was evident throughout that we'd gone for the budget option.

An asparagus starter was notable only for having hardly any asparagus in it. Three spears or thereabouts. Of the mains neither cooked to grey burgers nor a dry pork dish impressed much.

And Eton Mess for pudding was fine but had blueberries in it. Why put the only non-native berry in a dish that's supposed to show off the best of the English summer?

On a more positive note they have Curious Brew lager on draft, which is a wonderful beer. Beautifully clean, crisp and balanced. A glance at the website suggests the people in charge of the Swan and the people brewing Curious are one and the same; their core business being the Chapel Down Winery that arguably produces Britain's finest wines.

Maybe we were just unlucky at the Swan, the undoubted booze pedigree of the business might suggest they know a thing or two about food as well.

5/10

http://www.loveswan.co.uk/westmalling/bar/index.html


Smythson's Deli, Nottingham

A load of old rubbish.

The espresso in the coffee was good, potent yet smooth. Shame the milk was a mess. And it wasn't a flat white either (it was supposed to be, I'm not laying into a latte for not being a flat white).

A poor excuse for a sandwich. One word sums it up: meagre. I can't be arsed elaborating.

3/10

https://www.facebook.com/smythsons


Queen's Park Gelateria and Café, Chesterfield

This place is run by Frederick's, the dominant force in the ice cream world around these parts. Their vans are all over the place, which is no bad thing as their ice cream is good stuff.

They run the park caff in Chesterfield, which is also no bad thing. Instead of the tea and cakes set up you might expect in a park it's more of a pizza and ice cream and beer arrangement.

Pizza and ice cream and beer in the park? Don't mind if I do. A shared ham, pepperoni and mushroom (good chewy crust, surprisingly good pepperoni) and a double scoop pistachio sugar cone makes a very fine lunch. Pizzas 6-7 quid, ice creams 2-3.

7/10

http://www.fredericksicecreams.co.uk/page/queens-park-cafe-and-gelataria/


Harvest Moon Espresso Bar, Chester

A coffee that meets its description! About bloody time.

The flat white here was properly made and properly proportioned, so I'll excuse them serving it in a glass (maybe they've been to Manchester, they do that there).

I'm not really sure what to say about the food though. I can't work out what they were thinking. A not really a Reuben sandwich was still quite nice in spite of not really being a Reuben. The bread was top notch and it was as stacked as you could reasonably expect for the modest price tag.

Why smearing the inside of very good bread with cheap sunflower spread seemed like a good plan is beyond me, and why serving it with stale tortilla chips and a completely undressed salad of lollo rosso, bits of cucumber and carrot and some damp cous cous seemed like a good plan is even further beyond me.

6/10

https://www.facebook.com/HarvestMoonEspressoBar

Cool River Cafe, Matlock

A recent opening in Matlock, could this be the local coffee shop of my dreams?

In a word, no. A moist, walnut-packed wodge of carrot cake with a pleasingly cheesy icing was spot on, but the coffee was crap, the advertised flat white turning out to be an oversized bucket of weak latte. 

They're still finding their feet so I'll give this one another try. The savouries looked on a par with the cakes, but the coffee needs some serious work.

6/10 (8 for the cake, 4 for the coffee)

http://coolrivercafe.co.uk/