Caudwell's Mill Café, Rowsley, Derbyshire

What a pleasant surprise to eat a meal, at a place chanced upon with no prior knowledge, where they've actually made an effort.

I'll spare you the lengthy rant about how eating in this country, brilliant though it certainly can be, is still rubbish if you don't plan ahead, about how you could travel the length and breadth of the country dining in wherever was obvious and looked nice, and not eat a single thing worth the money or calories. It's true though.

The particular speciality in this well-touristed part of the world is the 'doing just enough to get away with it café or tea room'. Your choice of mediocre panini served with a small pile of limp leaves? Six quid, thanks. 

So anyway, it's a refreshing change to end up somewhere like the café at Caudwell's Mill (the mill itself is worth a visit if like me, you like old industrial stuff with levers and pulleys and whatnot) where serving food that's worth bothering with is obviously of importance as well as keeping the bottom line ticking over.

They serve vegetarian food, which I only actually noticed after standing in the queue staring at the menu for at least five minutes. For me, it's always an indicator of appetising veggie food when the lack of meat isn't glaringly and instantly obvious.

As well as the usual sandwiches and jackets, there are daily specials served with salads. Homity pie was a cheesy, garlicky, comforting pile of goodness on a nutty wholemeal pastry base. In winter I could eat bowlfuls of this (probably swimming in a whole tin of beans), but it worked well as a summer dish too with all the associated greenery.

The salads were great; simple stuff done well. Amongst them a nice crunchy coleslaw; apple and beetroot; something vinegary with chickpeas; dressed leaves; and sweet carrot and corn given interest with seeds of some sort.

There are home made cakes galore for afters, the chocolate and coffee looked particularly good. We shared a slice of lemon which wasn't the best choice, being a bit overdone around the edges.

Service was quick and friendly, and you can sit by the window with a lovely view of the river that feeds the mill, then the Derbyshire countryside beyond. Meals are eight quid and a far better proposition than your aforementioned six pound panino, cakes £2-3 and a pot of tea a very reasonable £1.50. Worth a visit.

7/10

Caudwell's Mill
Rowsley
Matlock
DE4 2EB

http://www.caudwellsmillcraftcentre.co.uk/Thecafe.htm

Coffee outside the core

Just remembered I have a blog. Once upon a time I used to update it several times a week, with [exciting and informative] [rambling and tedious] (*delete as applicable) reviews of all manner of drinking and dining establishments across the north.

That's gone slightly awry for two reasons; firstly I haven't been eating out much, and secondly I've just moved to Derbyshire, which in case you hadn't noticed isn't in the north. So my blog is now both inappropriately named and lacking in subject material, which isn't a great recipe for success.

The upshot is that I did consider retiring it, but only for about ten minutes. Who cares if it's increasingly off-topic, I like writing it. Onwards and upwards then (or at least sideways, hopefully), to the subject of coffee outside the larger cities.

I know I can get coffee that I really bloody love in Sheffield, Leeds, Manchester and anywhere else you'd realistically term one of our major cities (London, Bristol, Glasgow etc). Beyond those? It seems to me to be more of a struggle. I can usually find somewhere good but not great.

Good is still a far better prospect than the chains though, whose general awfulness I was reminded of on my motorway travels this last week (boobie prize for utter shite goes to a Starbuck's flat white: burnt coffee, cheesy milk, wrong texture, almost three quid).

Here are two of the better places I've found. Both are good, neither are great. Suggestions welcome for great coffee away from the city?

Coffee Evolution, Huddersfield

A single shot cappuccino was a pleasingly small size and made with a dark, strong espresso blend. Bitter but not burnt. No flat whites on offer.

Coffee cake had properly buttery icing but was a bit dry. Good value at less than two quid for the coffee and around two quid for the cake.

7/10

9a Church Street
Huddersfield
HD1 1DD

http://www.coffeevolution.co.uk/

Peli Deli, Matlock

The sign above this place proclaims 'amazing coffee' which sadly isn't true. It's well-made, pleasant coffee but a couple of notches below amazing.

The flat white started with a good, velvety texture but reverted into latte territory before the too large cup was finished. Flavour-wise there's a hint of fruitiness, but it's too gentle and needs more oomph.

A mini Victoria sponge was a great little cake; moist sponge, fruit-packed jam and a generous wodge of buttercream. £2.40 for the coffee, £2 for the bun. Just realised I wrote about this place back in January, this time round it was better.

7/10

Crown Square
Matlock
DE4 3AT

http://www.pelideli.com

Create, Wakefield

If there's one restaurant in Leeds that I really regret failing to dine it while I had the chance, it's Create. At this point I could launch into a lengthy and fawning report on the Create organisation, explaining the great work that they do and why you should all give them your support, but given that I didn't bother giving them mine up until now, I won't. It would be patronising and I'd probably be preaching to the converted anyway.

On the off chance you didn't already know, Create are a social enterprise, widely lauded for their work with vulnerable people, sort of like Jamie Oliver's Fifteen without the super-celeb backing. Their Leeds restaurant recently closed for a refurbishment and restructure, from which I hope they return as soon as possible. News of the closure did seem a little ominous though, with talk of 'today's harsh economy' and 'tough commercial realities'.

The honest and truthful reason I hope they're back soon, any guilty feelings aside, is that the food sounded bloody wonderful. Praised by bloggers and critics alike, I don't think I read anything negative about the place, and the menus always read beautifully. You know the kind where deciding becomes a chore as it all sounds so damn good?

From the most recent menu, still online at the moment, how about 'Salt cod fritters, sweet pickled onion salad, radish, sourdough' to start, followed by 'Char-grilled skirt steak, wild mushroom gratin, chips, watercress'. And for pudding: 'Sticky toffee pudding, parkin crumble, caramel sauce and milk sorbet'. If that doesn't get you salivating there's something wrong with you.

So the Leeds restaurant may be on hiatus, but Create have also opened a new cafe in Wakefield One, the new building housing a range of council services including the city's museum and central library. First thing to mention: well done to Wakefield Council for giving the concession to Create, and not going for the obvious choice of either a) Costa, or b) one of the anonymous but equally crap giant catering co's.

I stopped in there for coffee and a snack last week, and was pleased to discover it lived up to the high expectations I had for the brand. The coffee, a flat white, wasn't particularly well made, coming from one of those funny auto-espresso machines, but still tasted pretty good as they're using quality beans from local roasters Grumpy Mule.

To eat, an Eccles cake. It might not look much, but what do you expect from currant stuffed pastry? Reassuringly mis-shapen, and a buttery delight to eat, I think it's safe to assume that they're making the food from scratch so I'm keen to return and try the lunchtime offerings.

The guy who served me was also lovely and friendly, and prices are very fair (cheaper than both the big chains and the more upmarket independents).

To sum up, let's hope Create can continue to succeed, and here's to the re-opening of the Leeds restaurant. I for one won't be missing out next time around.

8/10

Wakefield One
Burton Street
Wakefield
WF1 2DD

http://www.foodbycreate.co.uk/restaurant

Tea Hive, Chorlton, Manchester

On a brief visit to Chorlton last week I ended up having lunch at Tea Hive completely by chance. I was planning on picking up a few bits from Barbakan deli and it just caught my eye as I'd almost walked past, the white on black signage meaning I almost mistook it for the Marble Beer House a couple of doors down.

I'm glad I took the time to investigate further, as lunch there was very good. A flat white was well made if a little too large for my tastes. I've definitely come to the conclusion that the smaller 6oz cup size is the best, anything larger (this was an 8oz I think) and it verges into latte territory where the milkiness starts to drown out the character of the coffee. Bonus points for the novel artwork though!

My sandwich took an age to arrive, but the tardiness was acknowledged and handled well. An apology and a free drink to tide me over were offered before I'd had the chance to chase up the order.

When it did arrive, the Cheshire smokehouse hot smoked salmon with lemon mayo and rocket on granary bread was well worth the wait. Generous quantities of rich, firm fleshed, moderately smoked fish was balanced perfectly by the acidic dressing and peppery rocket.

A really fine sarnie, with one additional plus point: good butter. It's surprising how many otherwise quality sandwich shops and cafes think it's fine to use cheap sunflower spread. Don't do it. Butter or nothing at all please.

The side salad was also a proper salad, with multiple components and a balanced dressing, and as a result the £4.95 price tag for the sandwich seemed fair. The flat white was £2.35 so all in all not a cheap lunch, but a very good one, served in pleasant surroundings by nice people.


8/10

53 Manchester Road
Chorlton
Manchester
M21 9PW

http://www.teahive.co.uk

Mrs Atha's, Leeds

After a brief hiatus over the last few months Katie at Leeds Grub is back. This is great news as she's always quick to spot anywhere new and interesting on the Leeds food and drink scene. Very helpful if, like me, your finger is nowhere near the pulse.

You'll find Mrs Atha's exactly as described in Katie's review, it really is a very nice space. It's obvious that lots of time and effort (and money too I would imagine) have gone into the fit out;- I could imagine whiling away a good few hours in there, especially during the dark days ahead.

A beautifully made flat white was smooth and strong with quite a pronounced but balanced bitterness. Excellent stuff, I could drink one hell of a lot of these.

This was a breakfast visit, so of course a bacon sarnie was in order. This wasn't so great, the two very thin rashers being a bit meagre in the presence of thickly sliced granary bread. Unusual choice of bread for a bacon sandwich too, though I quite liked it.

The staff were also very friendly and eager to please, and prices are about par for the course for a good quality coffee shop (£2.30 for a flat white I think). I'd highly recommend this place despite the slightly underwhelming sandwich, it's really all about the coffee and that was fantastic. They have some good looking cakes too.

8/10


18 Central Road
Leeds
LS1 6DE

North Tea Power, Manchester

There are so many cafés popping up all over the Northern Quarter I'm not sure where to start. I'm not in Manchester very often these days so I've not had the chance to check out many of them. There's been plenty of praise for North Tea Power so it seemed like a good place to start when I wanted coffee last week.

They specialise in tea, but the coffee is definitely not an afterthought. The flat white I drank was excellent, strong and smooth but not bitter and with quite a pronounced fruity flavour. I'd rather have my coffee in a cup than a glass though, but maybe that's just me.

To eat there are sandwiches, soups and cakes. A Viennese whirl had a nice homely feel to it, collapsing into a pile of lovely, buttery crumbs.

Prices are quite high, my coffee and cake cost over a fiver (£2.40 for the flat white), but no more expensive than the chains and for a far superior product. Very good.


8/10

North Tea Power
36 Tib Street
Manchester
M4 1LA


http://northteapower.co.uk/

Opposite Café, Leeds

Lazy blog post alert. It's been a rubbish weekend food and drink-wise so I've really got nothing to shout about. Yesterday afternoon hunger impaired my powers of reason and I accidentally went to KFC. I then spent the evening out in Wakefield in a procession of bars geared towards lager and Jägermeister, and I didn't even have a kebab on the way home. This morning I managed to burn sausages by completely forgetting that they were cooking. A poor effort all round.

The only decent thing I've consumed in the last 36 hours was coffee and cake at Opposite in the Victoria Quarter. The cappuccino was well made and a banana, walnut and raisin cake was moist and packed with nuts.

Worth a pit-stop if you're in the area. Less than four pounds for coffee and cake.

8/10

Victoria Quarter
Queen Victoria Street
Leeds
LS1 6AZ

Also opposite Leeds University

http://www.oppositecafe.co.uk/

Northern Food on tour: Festival food at Standon Calling

The food offering at festivals has improved immeasurably over the last decade or so, of that I'm sure. I remember at my first full festival there was the curry bus (which may have been sponsored by Sharwoods?), and not much else other than grotty burgers, chips and the like. That was the Leeds festival in the Temple Newsam, toilet burning era.

Fast forward ten years or so, and there's much more variety and often better quality food available too. You'll find many of the same stalls at loads of different festivals over the summer, so here's my guide to the good, the bad and the ugly from last weekend at Standon Calling.

From best to worst, here is what I ate. Or at least what I ate and remembered to take photo's of.

I also drank lots of cider. Lots and lots of cider.


Chicken paella, from Jamon Jamon (£5.50)

Positives: The most reasonably priced substantial meal I ate all weekend. Generously proportioned (there are 2 fat chicken legs hidden in there) and well seasoned. Granted most of it's just rice but bloody good rice, rich and garlicky with loads of nice crispy bits scraped from the bottom of the pan, just like a paella should have. Yum.

Negatives. They don't sell Jamon. Probably a good thing really. With festival mark-ups they'd probably charge £20 for a small plate of hand-carved iberico, then I'd get drunk and spend all my money on it.

Chicken curry, rice, salad and chilli chutney,  from the Thali Cafe (£7.50)

Positives: All parts made properly and with care. Distinctive spicing, of a general South Indian persuasion, with loads of mustard seeds.  A very good curry. They also do very good cakes, £2 at the stall but £1 from some nice women roaming the site with some in a basket. Here is the carrot cake:

Negatives: Slightly dry chicken, pieces on the bone would be better. Pushing it a tad pricewise, and charging £1.50 extra for one chappatti straight from a packet is really taking the proverbial. They don't sell Thalis. Probably be a bit daft to try that at a festival though eh?

Arancini chilli wrap, from Arancini Brothers (£4.50)

Positives: Rather cocked up the photo with this one. Oh well extreme salad close up it is. The arancini were really good. Crisp exterior and really creamy, grease free centre. Livened up with some chilli chutney and loads of salad I enjoyed eating this. A good lunch, filling but healthy too.

Negatives: Maybe a bit small for the cash. The chutney was tasty but not very spicy. Not their fault whatsoever but the stall was infested with wasps. Mind you so was the whole festival.

Steak and stilton pie, mash and gravy, from Pieminister (£6.50)

Positives: Generously proportioned, decent mash and gravy.

Negatives: Not much steak in the pie, which had been sitting around for about 2 hours too long. Guess that's understandable though at a festival. I don't really get the Pieminister thing. They seem to have grabbed a large swathe of the gourmet, expensive pie market without having a product that's all that good.

Fish, chips and peas, from the Sea Cow (£7.50)

Positives: Generously proportioned, nice peas. Fish cooked ok.

Negatives: Terrible chips. They were a bit chewy and mealy on the inside. Although the fish itself was cooked well, the batter was limp and greasy. Predictably the skin was on the fish. Someone else had the plaice goujons the following day, and they were better, being encased in a crunchier batter. The chips were fresher but still shit though. They have a restaurant in East Dulwich, which surely must be better than their mobile effort.

Veggie burger, from the Veggie stall (exact name escapes me) (£5)

Positives: It had houmous in it. The bread was fairly fresh.

Negatives: It was Sunday lunchtime, so perhaps I was losing my mind by this point. I've nothing against the type of veggie burger that doesn't pretend to be meat (some kind of patty or fritter made from say mushrooms or sweetcorn or something) but this was one of the pretending-to-be-meat soya burger things. It had a strange mushy texture and a vaguely meaty artificial flavour. Imagine a sort of low-grade meat paste in a bun with houmous and salad. Doesn't sound very nice does it?

Sausage and egg sandwich, Tasty Tamworth's and somethingorother Hereford's (£3.50)

Positives: It wasn't really called somethingorother Hereford's, I just can't recall that bit of the name. Something alliterative (horrible? hefty?). Whatever the name they were supposed to be selling top quality sausages. This was supposed to cost £3.50 for the sausage sarnie, plus 50p for an egg, plus £1 for a cup of tea. The chap serving wasn't really awake or paying attention and charged me £3.50 for the lot.

Negatives: The unexpected discount was the high point. The sausage was practically shredded having seemingly been hacked to bits with a blunt spoon to make it fit in the bread. It was both dry and mushy, any succulence having long departed the scene as the woman cooking them was obsessively prodding every sausage with a temperature probe about every three seconds, releasing all the juicy goodness. It tasted weird too. The egg was cooked solid throughout except for a thin layer of uncooked egg snot clinging to the top surface. I still ate it though, 'cos I was hungry and hungover.

Earl Grey Tea Rooms, York

York on a damp Bank Holiday. The Shambles. Probably the most touristy street in a very touristy city. Afternoon tea here could well have been rubbish, but it turned out to be very good. I'm allowed to complain about tourists by the way, I was in York with the folks and my parents live there so technically that means we're locals.

Five of us shared an assortment of goodies by ordering a couple of high teas, an afternoon tea, and some extra pots of tea. Plenty of tea.

Starting off with the savouries, the sandwiches were very good. I'm not really a fan of the overly dainty afternoon tea sandwiches you usually get (no crusts, I like crusts!), and these were a more substantial affair. Generous quantities of thinly sliced ham or chunky egg mayo on thick cut brown bread.

Next up, scones and cake. The scones were light and served with plentiful clotted cream and jam. Anything served with clotted cream is inevitably going to be lovely, and these were no exception. Of the two cakes, carrot was beautifully moist and spicy but a yorkshire curd tart was the only duff note as it was very dry.

All told a most civilised way to spend an afternoon. The tea was a good strong brew as well, and some of the food being served up to the group of Oklahomans at the next table looked appetising. Our bill worked out at £6 apiece, not bad at all. Service was pleasant too. Who needs Bettys?



8/10

Earl Grey Tea Rooms
13-14 Shambles
York
YO1 7LZ