Cafe Lento

I met Emma up in Headingley for coffee and she suggested we go to Cafe Lento.

My first impressions of the cafe were good, there is a really comfortable cosy feel about its small interior. The decor is fairly neutral with stripped wooden floors and bare brick walls, although there are lots of interesting touches like fairly lights, flowers painted in the window and a shelf running along the back wall which is stacked with books, games, and flyers for local events. There are also newspapers available to read.

I first ordered a mocha which was very sweet and didn't have much of a coffee taste but was very pleasant, and then I moved onto tea. Emma had chai lattes which were delicious.

We then ordered some food. The menu comprises of a selection of sandwiches and light dishes. Emma ordered a ham and cheese omelette and I had the ploughmans. The orders came out quickly and the service generally was very good. The portions were generous and the ingredients all nice and fresh tasting. I had maybe too much pickle on my plate but that was the only negative.

This is a lovely little cafe which serves delicious food for reasonable prices. The plougmans was £4.50 and the omelette with 2 fillings included £5. Also I noticed from the menu that the cafe is also not only vegetarian friendly but vegan friendly too.

The staff were all very nice and Em says that they are always very cheerful and welcoming when she goes in. Well worth a visit.

Cafe Lento

*Cosy little cafe
*Lovely staff
*Good value, delicious food

21a North Lane
Headingley
LS6 3HW

07988 660 768

Website

Shaky Jakes

Shaky Jakes in Headingley is a 1950's America themed milkshake cafe.

Similar to the Milkshack in York, the staff will take your choice of chocolate bar or confection and stick it in a blender with a large scoop of ice cream and some milk to make a deliciously calorific milkshake.

I was impressed with the blenders used at Shaky Jakes, as they are very quick, running on an automatic cycle of about 30 seconds. The 2 other milkshake places I have visited take several minutes to blend their drinks which increases the time you have to wait to be served.

I had an After 8 variety this time which was nice and minty with a hint of chocolate. Emma had a healthier option of a berry smoothie which was very tasty but the blend wasn't that smooth meaning an unpleasant sludge of berry skins and seeds was left at the bottom of the cup.

There a few stools where you can sit inside the cafe and some tables and chairs outside too.

Perfect for a treat or an alternative to pudding! Milkshakes start at £2.60.

Shaky Jakes

*Cool themed cafe
*Huge choice of drinks
*Decadent treat

15 North Lane,
Headingley,
LS6 3HG
0113 2179156

Website

The Northern Monkey

We nipped in here for a quick lunch on a day off during the week.

Initial impressions were good, the bar is quite small, with a mixture of normal tables and tall tables with bar stalls. The walls are adorned with cool monkey themed pictures including some Banksy prints.

I ordered a fish finger sandwich, and Liam ordered a Cajun chicken burger (his original choice of fish and chips was not available).

The food came quickly, with generous portions and presented slightly strangely with a wedge of lime on top!

The fish fingers in my sandwich were huge! Unfortunately the fish fingers were of poor quality and they were slightly overcooked, making the sandwich not awful but slightly underwhelming.

Liam found his burger similarly well Meh, and was slightly miffed with his salad that consisted mostly of the bitter yellow leaves from the middle of a lettuce.

One upside of the meal was the price, the bill was less than £10 with the bonus of a 25% discount we got by using a voucher from Team Gopher.

The Northern Monkey

*Small, cool bar
*Cheap food
*Mediocre quality

115 The Headrow
Leeds
LS1 5JW
0113 242 6630

Gevs coffee (and now tea) spot #4: Little Bettys

Here is Gevs report of Little Bettys in York.
On a beautiful sunny day in York, celebrating our second wedding anniversary Tom and I went to Little Betty’s for High Tea.

Located on the gorgeous historic Stonegate, we were draw into the listed building by the delicious looking window display full of everything thing a dessert lover would want!

We went up stairs and were seated in the tea room. We ordered afternoon tea for two with Earl Grey tea.

The food was traditional and home made, all you would expect and delight in. There were finger sandwiches of egg mayo, ham and smoked salmon, an array of petite fancies and fruit scones with clotted cream and jam, all served on a traditional cake stand.

Sometimes you can find popular and busy places disappointing, this can not be said for Little Betty’s, this was my first visit of many I feel, I’m such a sucker for English tradition and this ticks all the boxes, tea and scones just what the British Empire was built on!

The service was friendly and efficient, the layout of the food was inviting. The atmosphere was a little neutral; however Betty’s does attract many people of all ages and nationalities.

Betty’s High Tea is great for all special occasions and treats at £16.00 each for the set menu it was well worth it.

46 Stonegate
York
Y01 8AS
01904 622865

Azucar

On a very hot and sunny Thursday last week, I went with Liam, Gev and her husband Tom for an early tea at Azucar.

Azucar is located in the riverside Brewery Wharf development, which benefits from a continental style, traffic free piazza, providing generous outdoor seating for the hotel, bars and restaurants that surround it.

In this weather the whole area has a lively buzz, with chatter and music. Gev got there first and used a considerable amount of stealth and wit to nab us a good table on the busy outdoor area.

Cocktails are BOGOF on a Thursday, so the free partner to Gevs drink was already waiting for me when I arrived. The boys had beer. The cocktails we had were wonderful, long and fruity, garnished with huge fresh berries.

We were advised by the waitress to order 2.5 dishes each so we took it in turns to pick items from the menu. There was a good range of items, all what you would expect from a traditional tapas menu.

The food and more drinks started to come out after a relatively short wait. We struggled to find room for all of the plates on our little table.

We had fishcakes, battered king prawns which were huge and juicy, chorizo and mushroom in red wine which was rich and delicious, tortillas with a slightly disappointing bowl of refried beans, patatas bravas, and jalapenos stuffed with cheese (although it looked more like cheddar than the cream cheese mentioned on the menu) and more things bedsides.

The amount of food we ordered was perfect, we were all happy and full, and nothing was left wasted.

It took a while for our bill to arrive after we asked for it as it was very busy, but we didn't mind as we were sat in the sunshine. Our bill including 6 drinks (and 2 free ones) and the 25% discount for ordering before 7pm and the service added came to just over £60. An absolute bargain!

Azucar

*Traditional, tasty tapas
*Great location
*Value for money

5 Brewery Place
Leeds
LS10 1NE
0113 2435761

Website

Celebrity Interview with James Martin

Celebrity chef, James Martin of Saturday Kitchen fame was in Leeds today to help launch the Leeds Loves Food festival. I was lucky enough to be invited along for the bloggers conference to interview him.

There was a group of about 10 of us, we all got to ask a couple of questions each.

I asked:
What do you look for in a restaurant?

James: Simple food, to me whenever I want to go out around here its Whitby, Trenches fish and chip shop, or Betty's Tea room, I order the same dish every single time, welsh rarebit, with bacon, extra tomato and apple chutney. If its not on the menu, they make it anyway. I don't want anything else. I don't want to eat out in a Michelin star restaurant when you work in a restaurant all day long.

He then explained that for his recent birthday bash, he had 150 guests, most being Michelin starred chefs. What do you serve them?... Fresh langoustine, freshly made pizzas and for pudding 99 cones with flakes from an ice cream van!

What puts you off restaurants?

James: The first thing you notice is service, its justified if its busy, I know what its like as a chef, but bad service is the first thing and then its poor food... steak and chips, its not difficult yet you get 15 million variations of it up and down the country.

Here is a selection of the other Q & A's

When asked 'how do you define a celebrity' James replied 'To me you are not a celebrity, you are a chef, a chef by trade.' he went on to explain that he doesn't have any kind of training in TV and being dyslexic he finds Saturday Kitchen hard work as he struggles to read the auto cue.

He also spent a lot of time talking about his child hood memories growing up in Yorkshire. He talked about his aunties and grandmas cooking and his mums roast potatoes 'Good honest grub'. He said his last meal would have to be his grannies bacon sandwiches. 'She used to melt the butter onto the bread under the grill so that the whole sandwich dissolved in the mouth'.

I also put to James some questions asked by my fellow twitter users.

@alexbcann asked: What is your favourite flavour of Angel Delight?
James replied that he didn't eat the stuff and wouldn't have a clue of the flavours although he did like blancmange!

Emma from the culture vulture asked: If we were to lick you what would you taste of?
With a sniff of his armpits he said: currently at the moment a cross between Christian Dior and sweat and fresh mackerel.

Nice

At the end I had the chance to ask James to take part in the Culture Vultures Travelling Moleskine project. This book was themed 'food for thought' James started it off by drawing (and autographing) an excellent picture of a lobster. I was really impressed by his sketching ability. To learn more about this project and maybe take part see the Culture Vulture website.

Meeting James was a really good experience. He is obviously very hard working, he is still involved with the hands on side of his food business as well as all his TV work and was telling us about all his different projects and jobs he has coming up.

He came across as being extremely easy to talk to, very down to earth. Its clear that he has a true passion for simple, honest, British food.

Opposite in the VQ

The people from the brilliant Opposite coffee shop (located opposite the Parkinson steps at Leeds Uni) have opened a new venture in the Victoria Quarter.

The little kiosk is decidedly up market whilst retaining some reassuring features from the original shop including the home made cakes and cookies and the excellent prices that appeal its usual student clientèle.

There is now a coffee 'menu' serving award winning and seasonal gourmet coffees. They unfortunately don't have decaf at the moment so I had a fruit tea instead. The fruit teas don't come in pre made bags, instead a scoop of the dried ingredients is taken from a jar and left to steep in a paper cone, suspended from a skewer in the cup. Very novel.

My drink was £1.60 and the coffees start at around £2 (although one of the very specialist ones was nearly double this).

The coffees really do look (and smell) amazing, a fellow customer was so excited by her drink that she insisted I sniff it to see what it was like!

I'm so glad that there is a chance to get Opposite coffee in the city centre, all we need to do now is insist that they start serving their white hot chocolate at the new location too.

Added 26/09/2009
I have been to Opposite in the VQ loads of times now, their Mocha is amazing, and I also tried some of the Rwandan coffee. That I sampled black with no sugar, and I actually enjoyed it which for someone with a sweet tooth like mine is saying a lot.
Here is an excellent review of Opposite from Them Apples. They have even made it to the #1 position in this Guardian guide to independent coffee shops. Keep it up Opposite! (Thanks to Paul at Leeds Daily Photo for the link).


Opposite Kiosk

*Exceptional coffee
*Lovely fruit teas
*Excellent value

Victoria Quarter
Leeds
Website

Leeds Loves Food Festival

I'm very excited, the Leeds Loves Food festival starts tomorrow and is running until the weekend.

There will be lots of activities and events all over the city centre including food stalls, cooking demonstrations, a celebrity appearance by James Martin and lots of free tasters of all kinds of food and drink.

There is also a long list of local restaurants that are running very good special offers throughout the festival. The Leeds Loves Food website has a full list of events and promotions, so take a look at that.

I will be Tweeting live from the event over the weekend. If you use twitter follow me, @leedsgrub.

Have fun and happy eating!

Leeds Loves Food website