Graveley's Fish Restaurant, Whitby

I have featured the Leeds city centre branch of Graveley's fish and chips on Leeds Grub before and in my opinion it is one of the best chippies in town- read the review here.

Following this, Graveley's invited me to have a free lunch at their newly opened Whitby branch. I took them up on this offer when I was in Whitby on holiday last week.

The restaurant is a long thin room with large windows that take full advantage of the spectacular views across the piers and bay.

We were firstly presented with a plate of fresh, locally baked bread with butter and olive oil & vinegar.


The main menu of course features mostly fish dishes but there are some meaty options too. The restaurant is licensed and the style of dishes is more restaurant food than cafe making it feel a little more special than your usual chippy.

We were told that unlike the inland shops such as Leeds, the Whitby restaurant uses freshly caught fish, that is served within 40 hours of arriving on shore.

As much as I would have like to tried something a little bit different, I couldn't resist the temptation to have the traditional fish and chips. (With beans as I can't stand mushy peas).
I am pleased to say that the quality of the food is exactly the standard of what I have found in the Leeds branch. Beautifully delicate fish encased in a light and crispy batter and perfect chips- crisp with fluffy middles.

We didn't really have room for pudding but we were tempted by the offer of a home made chocolate orange cheesecake which we shared due to the size of the portion. I'm glad we did choose to have dessert in the end- it would have been a shame to miss out on it as the flavour of the cheesecake was completely amazing!
What with the excellent company and the nice bottle of wine we were given to wash the meal down with, I had a marvellous time. I would happily go back again and pay for a meal there.

Graveley's
*Excellent fish and chips
*Great sea views
*Amazing cheesecake!

Khyber Pass
Whitby
YO21 3PZ

Grub Excursion #18 Whitby

I have spent the week in Whitby enjoying folk week. I of course ate out a few times too. I don't feel it is necessary to do a full review on every last place I visited but here is a round up of places I think are worth mentioning.

Terry's fish and chips on Pier Road does amazing fresh Whitby scampi as well as normal fish and chips. I sat in one day and had take away on another.

Its £6 for scampi and chips to take away, but the quality is excellent and it is fried to order. The restaurant service was friendly and efficient. Other people in my party had dishes such as lasagna and a veggie pasta dish which they seemed to enjoy.

We were warned by the waitress that the chips were fried in beef dripping, and were offered the option of jacket potato to go with the vegetarian dishes.

Greedy Pig is a tiny little sandwich shop on Golden Lion Bank. The speciality is hot roast pork sandwiches, served with stuffing and apple sauce. £2.50 for a small £3 for a large. Completely yummy.

Shambles is a large restaurant/ bar on the Market Place which looks out onto the harbour. Food is tasty pub grub and the portions are enormous for the price- the ploughman's was virtually a buffet for 2 and the chili could have easily served a family of 3. Service was a tad slow but we were warned that there was a 30 min wait on food when we ordered. Website

Elizabeth Botham and Sons is a fab local craft bakery, with shops and cafes on Skinner St and Baxtergate. They sell the usual range of bread, cakes and sandwiches to take away. All of an excellent standard and very reasonably priced (a sandwich and a piece of cake came to about £2.50). Excellent if you are self catering, or are making a picnic to take to the beach. Website

Bits 'n' Pizzas on Flowergate is a pizza take away. Nothing too special, but reasonably priced, delivered quickly and they gave us free cola and garlic bread as the order was over £20.

Cafe Masala on Silver Street is apparently quite a new little curry restaurant. It only has 18 seats inside. We had a take away and got 10% discount for collection. Portions were huge and the prices really good. Take away with all the trimmings for 5 people came to just under £35- with plenty left over for lunch the next day.

Beacon Farm Ice Cream, I have it on good authority, do the best ice cream in town. They have a kiosk on Pier St and I saw their sign in various shops and cafes around Whitby so looks to be widely available. I had the toffee fudge variety and found it to be seriously good ice cream. I foolishly went on my last day so didn't have time to go back to try other flavours.

Sous le Nez

Emma and I were planning to go to Ask to use a 2 meals for £10 voucher that Em had been sent. However it turns out that there is no longer an Ask in Leeds- we searched up and down Bedford St. and found a building site where the restaurant probably used to be. I was really looking forward to trying Shane Richie's Penne Pollo Arrabbiata! Never mind.

We had to think on our feet. As it was only about 6pm we decided that we should try and find a restaurant with an early bird deal. We settled on Sous le Nez.

So at £23.95 each it wasn't quite the cheap Tuesday night tea we had ventured out to find, but considering for the price you get 3 courses and half a bottle of wine each it is still a total bargain!

The restaurant is in a basement on Quebec street. The décor is simple but smart. Menus are written up on a board on the wall in the bar.

Even though this was a early bird menu there was a really broad selection of dishes on offer. As you expect the menu is broadly speaking modern French cuisine.

You sit and choose your dishes from the board over a drink and the order is taken in the bar area before you are shown to your table. I think that this is a terribly civilised and social way of doing things and I found it led to much more discussion about the dishes as we were both reading from the same place.

I decided on smoked trout for starter which came with a salad with (I think) a crème fraiche dressing. It was delicious, the fish was really tender and full of flavour. Emma had the deep fried brie with mango chutney sauce. This is quite a standard starter found in a lot of places but the rich sweet fruity sauce was a nice twist.

For main course Emma had a great piece of hake and I had pan fried pigeon with chorizo and mustard mash. The mash went really well with the strong gamy flavour of the pigeon.

Puddings were a light as air white chocolate mouse and a classic French apple tart with honeycomb ice cream. Delicious!
All this was washed down with my share of a bottle of the house white- a delightful crisp, fruity, Chilean Sauvignon Blanc.

Service was very efficient and polished and the courses came out promptly but we did not feel rushed.

Like all of the earlybird deals of the same sort, this is an excellent way of having a meal in a great restaurant without the worry of how much it will all cost. The food was spot on and we didn't at any point feel like we were getting the cheap deal. Highly recommended.

Sous le Nez
*Quality French style bistro
*Excellent earlybird deal
*Good service

The Basement
Quebec House
Quebec Street
LS1 2HA
(0113) 244 0108

Website

Grain

I met up with Kirsty for lunch yesterday at Grain. Kirsty is in the middle of an amazing project for light night- read about it on her blog.

Anyway the cafe is pretty small and basic inside. It is on Great George Street nestled among the other half dozen or so cafes that seem to survive on the business from the hundreds of staff that work in the LGI across the street.

We found a fridge full of ready made sandwiches and a chiller cabinet full of all sorts of delightful looking savoury items and cakes, and a hot plate stacked up with Croque-monsieurs ready for the lunchtime rush.

We were told that all of the items were made in the shop fresh every morning. I had a feta and spinach pie. I was offered extra salad with a dressing. I was a little shocked by the price when I got to the till -£7.70. The pie was priced at £2.95 but was actually an extra £1 for eating in, £1.80 for a cappuccino which is actually quite reasonable which means the side salad was charged at £1.95.

Kirsty chose to have a Croque-monsieur. It was absolutely loaded with cheese and she commented that the ham was real sliced ham not processed stuff.

My pie was bought out after a few minutes, it had been warmed up. The salad had avocado and olives in addition to the usual things you would find.

The pie was nicely seasoned, and contained nice big chunks of cheese. It was really filling and more than enough for lunch.

Ok so the price is probably a bit more than what you would want to pay every day for lunch, but its not bad for a treat, and the food was really good. The pie to take out was just under £3 which is good value as it was probably more filling than a sandwich.

Grain
*Small basic cafe
*Quality home made food
*More expensive to sit in

61 Great George Street
LS1 3BB
0113 243 3133

Website

Ikea

If you have ever been to Ikea you will know that there is a big canteen in the middle of the store, which like the rest of the store is Swedish inspired and cheap!

I have eaten here a few times on previous shopping trips, and had the staple- Swedish meatballs and Daim bar cake.

Yesterdays shopping trip was earlier in the morning when only the breakfast menu was being served. For a mere £1.55 (99p with a family card) you get a 6 piece breakfast, a small rasher of bacon, a (questionable meat content type) sausage, beans, hash brown, scrambled egg and half a tomato.
Ok so the quality is not that great, and the portion size is restrained but it still tasted pretty good and is no worse than you would get in some cafes in town.

Hot drinks are 85p (free! with family card) and unlimited refill. I was surprised to see the teabags were actually organic and fair trade.

Ok so you are not going to go here just for the food, but its a cheap and cheerful pit stop. The one thing I have noticed is that it is incredibly family friendly- there is a play area in the dining room, stacks of high chairs, microwaves and bottle warmers for baby food and a discreet breast feeding area. Well done Ikea- more places should take this example.

Ikea
*Cheap and cheerful canteen
*Interesting Swedish meals
*Very family friendly

Holden Ing Way
Batley, Kirklees
WF17 9AE
0845 355 2261

Northern Monkey, Revisited

I visited Northern Monkey just over a year ago and was left feeling slightly disappointed by the quality. You can read that original review here.

Sometime after that review was published I received an email from the managers telling me that things had changed- kitchen staff replaced and ingredients improved.

I went back this week for lunch with my mate Emma to see if things really had changed. The bar is the same, small and cosy with the cool Banksy pictures on the wall. The bar staff were really friendly.

The burger I had was really good- nice home made juicy burger and packed with fillings including onion rings, cheese, relish and bacon. The portion was huge and the fries really crispy.

Emma had smothered chicken- a chicken breast covered in salsa and melted cheese and bacon. Served with a huge portion of chunky chips, her only criticism was that the dish may have benefited from a bit of a salad garnish.I am please to say this time I was not let down by the food (as you can see from the photo, nice green salad, and no lime wedge!). The small improvements that have been made have gone a long way, and we had an enjoyable lunch. My burger was just £6.50 and they offer a really good student discount to NUS members.

The Northen Monkey

*Cool little bar
*Tasty pub grub menu
*Generous student discount

115 The Headrow
LS1 5JW

0113 242 6630

Website

Juice Junkie

Juice junkie is a small shop in Thorntons arcade where you can get a huge range of smoothies made freshly to order.

Drinks are not that cheap- its £3 for the large size- although it is completely packed with fruit.

Great for a health kick or a sweet and fairly guilt free treat.

Juice junkie also sells wheat grass shots if that is your thing!

Juice Junkie

*Freshly made smoothies
*Huge range to choose from
*Quick service

11 Thorntons Arcade
Leeds,
LS1 6LQ
0113 247 0110

Box Pizza- Reader Promotion

You may have noticed that I have a link to St Georges Crypt on the blog. This local charity provides accommodation and support to the homeless and vulnerable living in our city. I don't need to go into detail about how obviously worthwhile their work is, but you can read more here (and make a donation) if you like.

The excellent take away/ delivery pizza shop Box Pizza (review here) are this month donating 50p to St Georges Crypt for every order received over £15.

In addition to this the Box Pizza guys are offering a 10% discount throughout August to anyone who places a telephone order and mentions 'Leeds Grub'!

Box Pizza Website

Piazza by Anthony

I have visited Anthony's at the Corn Exchange a few times now but this is the first occasion I have gone for an evening meal.

I was dining with a large party group so the organisers had picked a few dishes off the menu to be made into our personalised party menu to make service quicker and easier.

I has the ham hock terrine for starter which was really well presented, and although small I felt an adequate size for a starter. Both the terrine and the piccalilli were delicious.A lot of other people had baked Camembert, which was simple and obviously fail safe but a huge portion in comparison to the terrine starter- most people shared the cheese between two.

I had the supreme of salmon on a bed of Moroccan spiced potatoes, red chard and chick peas. It was a simple dish, that was tasty. The salmon fillet was a good size but there were very few potato pieces which means the dish ended up not being particularly filling.For pudding I ordered Eton Mess. Served in a tall glass the thick cream was swirled with a lovely berry sauce. Unfortunately there was barely any meringue in the glass, meaning that the pudding was basically a pot of cream with a few strawberry pieces in it.I pointed out to the waiter the absence of one of the key components of the pudding. As we had already finished the dishes (I kept eating in hope that I would find some more meringue at the bottom of the glass!) he provided us with a round of sambucas by way of apology.

If you don't already know, the restaurant location is amazing, under the huge domed roof of the Corn Exchange which by night is lit up with scores of LED lights. It has a special, unique ambiance that really adds to the dining experience.

Prices are fair considering the quality, my starter was £5.95 and the main £8.95. Although the food was all nice enough I felt that the meal was just slightly pedestrian- it didn't have the wow factor I was expecting from such a grand venue with the acclaimed 'Anthony's' name above the door.

Piazza by Anthony's

*Amazing location
*Nice food
*Slightly underwhelming compared to expectations

The Corn Exchange
Call Lane,
Leeds,
LS1 7BR

0113 2470995

Website