Al Buco - New Life in an Exhausted Genre

Why has Italian food been done to death in this country?! You can’t walk fifty metres in Newcastle’s city centre without coming across either a half arsed effort at independency or a vulgar, mind-numbingly generic ‘Italian’ franchise restaurant. And regardless of origin, these substandard approaches always seem to offer the same uninspiring menus, addled with inaccurate renditions of pizza (usually completely molested by American influence), excessively creamy pasta dishes or lethargic attempts at steak. However, 2016 has seen someone with a real passion for authentic Italian food finally set up shop in the centre of Newcastle, just a stone’s throw from Monument.   

Al Buco represents a lot of what is great about social Italian dining - its family run, very welcoming, exceptionally comfortable and literally everything is prepared in-house, giving the whole place a brilliant home-grown vibe. And that’s not say they’ve cut corners on delivery, you can expect everything dished out here to be of fine-dining quality and markedly better the likes of the nearby, horrifically overpriced chain restaurants. And better still, they take great pride in the authenticity of their dishes and don’t conform to the Italian culinary normative that our society wrongly expects. Their carbonara isn’t laden with litres of double cream but is crafted with egg and fresh pasta; their pizzas haven’t been overloaded with greasy toppings but are light, crisp and ultimately delicious and their lasagne will make local franchise restaurant managers want to quit their day jobs. 

This café bar naturally lends itself to lunchtime dining, but late afternoon visits and relaxed evening drinks here can also be easily envisaged, and as (or more accurately if) summer develops this venue will serve for a perfect one-stop shop for shoppers and workers alike to indulge in real Italian food and drink. The extra effort seen across their menu, such as the simply outstanding tiramisu, as well as the atypical (assumingly region-specific) additions to the menu certainly haven’t gone unnoticed, as hasn’t their relentless efforts to please customers with warming service and highly competitive menu pricing. 88% 

David Kennedy's River Cafe - Fine Tyne Dining

Although historical naivety in the management of the Black Door might have cost David Kennedy's Food Social at the Biscuit Factory its existence, the highly reputable cuisine brought to the North East by the restaurant chain certainly lives on in North Shields. The slightly more casual venture - David Kennedy's River Café, aptly named for its Fish Quay situation, provides a refreshing outlook on archetypal fine-dining that effortlessly avoids any pretentiousness or need for nonsensical exorbitance. To put it bluntly, David Kennedy's River Café offers delicious British cuisine that is both wholesome and elaborate without being up its own arse.


The restaurant's menus strike the perfect balance between intricacy and value, the well constructed à la carte, set menu and Sunday selections boast robust, classical dishes with sufficient finesse to drive away any sense of pub food culture. In particular, the restaurant does well to avoid the drabness usually associated with Sunday lunch by ensuring every element of their food is perfectly on point. And better still, the kitchen capitalises on their waterfront location by regularly incorporating products from the local fish market into their cooking, resulting in ultra-fresh and expertly prepared fish and shellfish dishes that absolutely must be sampled by avid seafood fans.


As with the menu, the décor here is clean-cut but warming and similarly the service offered reflects that theme very well. It's only major limitation versus other fine dining ventures within its class is probably its location, whilst providing picturesque views and seafood sourcing benefits, North Shields might not be the most attractive prospect for the unfamiliar. However, for those looking for no-nonsense British food, cooked to an exceptionally good standard and almost ludicrously low prices, David Kennedy's River Café provides the perfect setting. 89%


 

Dacantus - Tapas Without the Faff

Dacantus, the self-defined wine bar, signature restaurant and gin lab on Grey street might sound like the wild and confused concept of a drunk Spaniard, but this very pretty place is rapidly becoming a favourite for many, including the Fat Spoon. Why? Because they give you delicious complimentary tapas with every drink you order. EVERY drink! Knock back enough of their excellent gin cocktails and you might even think you're actually in Spain. Dacantus really has done an outstanding job at setting the scene, a stunning venue with a very strong, extensive gin menu and staff that genuinely want you to stay eat all their chorizo-rich delights.

This attractive venue has much more to offer aside from the luxury gins and the persuasive world wine selection, the tapas freebies are there to draw you in for the kill - their excellent contemporary Spanish menu. And it is very much a case of  contemporariness over authenticity, but that's drastically better than the mindless faux-Spanish drivel that the generic tapas chains like to plate up. Although they do offer a well constructed (very) early-bird set menu for a mere £15 (which is possible the cheapest three courses on Grey street), the a la carte menu is where you need to focus your attention. They offer an excellent selection of sea food, pork and beef dishes, many as contemporary versions of Spanish classics, as well as a number of other surprising menu choices. Despite these random features, you can expect every dish to be executed well, in line with the high calibre of their drinks and décor.

Although much of the menu tends to step away from actual Spanish cuisine, they do still retain many Spanish quirks across most dishes and the dining-drinking hybridity of Dacantus certainly holds true to the Spanish way of entertaining. Despite this place being rather small, an expansion of the venue would almost certainly kill the intimacy of this outstanding gin and tapas bar. The commendable standard of service here also fortifies this welcoming atmosphere, making Dacantus the perfect place for casual drinks, pre-theatre diner or a lavish meal out. RIP La Tasca. 90%

Aneesa's - Curry, Curry...and More Curry

À la carte restaurants are brilliant; often considered the pinnacle of the fine dining experience, providing delicious and elegant food in a sophisticated environment. But sometimes that simply isn't what you want. Sometimes all you want is sheer, glutinous volume. Monstrous portions of fat and carbs that ultimately provide you with an immense feeling of greedy satisfaction as well as strong hints of self-loathing, only achieved by going completely wild at a buffet restaurant. If you're not struggling to breath and walking like you're about to lay an egg after one, then you're doing it wrong. Chinese buffets like Lau's 202 do it well, as do world buffets like Za Za Bazaar, but notoriously, Indian attempts at buffet restaurants are typically disgusting and considered a total abomination in the eyes of the Fat Spoon.

However, Aneesa's buffet restaurant breaks this age-old tradition of repugnancy, offering an encompassing Indian and Pakistani dining experience at a very fair price. Unlike most 'Indian' buffet restaurants, the Quayside Aneesa's presents itself as a clean cut and stylish venue with a huge number of tables and a never-ending flow of good quality Indian classic dishes, including plenty of vegetarian features as well as a beastly amount of meat. Everything from masala fish and lamb seekh kebabs to tarka dhal and palak paneer are available, all of which are prepared to a solid standard. What sets Aneesa's apart from the others is that fact that their starters haven't been re-fried 16 times, their mains aren't drowning in a viscous layer of grease and they even offer some made-to-order speciality dishes. They really do have the Punjabi dining concept right - good food and savage amounts of it.

The only let down for Aneesa's is the lack of traditional Indian sweets available, they've unfortunately taken the general approach to buffet desserts and just sliced up a series of feeble and bland gateaux/sponges, straight from the bargain bin at Iceland. Although this is an understandable business move given the cost associated with producing butter and sugar-rich classic Indian desserts. They've also copped out to some extent with the inclusion of limp pizzas and some dubious attempts at Chinese food - if you come to an Indian restaurant willingly partaking in these travesties, then you need to go home and reassess your life. However, overall Aneesa's provides an accurate selection of Indian/Pakistani cuisine, in an easy to sample format with a professional approach on service. And best of all, you can eat grotesque amounts of food until you're a pakora away from being sick on yourself and somehow that's still totally socially acceptable. 80%

Creams - Ice Cream Meltdown

Shortly after the arrival of Kaspa's Desserts, what appears to be a rival but otherwise identical ice cream and desserts chain has hit Newcastle's ever swanky Bigg Market, this one is called Creams. And the dessert house clone is very much identical in every way, offering the same range of ice creams, waffles and crepes, in the same vulgar American format, sprinkled with the same essence of tackiness and the same drizzle of over vibrancy. Creams even looks and sounds the same, brandishing the same tasteless black and pink styling as well as the same obscene soundtrack selected to draw in teenage girls and chav families in their masses.

To give credit where credit is due, the desserts and ice creams at Creams are tasty. They do offer a monstrously encompassing range of flavours and styles at vaguely reasonable prices. And if you're looking for a filthy fix of waffles and multi-flavour ice cream then Creams has exactly what you need. Like Kaspa's its best to avoid the whipped cream and whippy ice cream doused sundaes and go straight for the un-adulterated ice creams. - where you can tailor make your own combo from some excellent ice creams, gelatos and sorbets. But all that is hardly a revelation, their entire menu is composed of sugar and fat - only an utter moron could get such a cuisine wrong. 

Although some of the staff at Cream's are very friendly and charming, others are clearly menaces to society. On the Fat Spoon's recent visit, one member of staff thought it would be wise to use a red hot sundae glass, straight from the dishwasher, to serve ice cream. It's ice cream you complete imbecile. Even a rabid chimp could probably see the error in this, yet the concept of melting ice cream clearly escaped at least one member of Cream's team. All in all, Cream's is at least honest, it knows exactly what it is and is correctly placed at the corner of the Bigg Market. And being completely indistinguishable from it's carbon copy - Kaspa's, it can only receive an identical meagre rating. 57%

No. 28 - The bar-restaurant anomaly

A pseudo bar-club that serves average food at elevated prices - a fairly standard scene in Newcastle. A pseudo bar-club that delivers great food at fair prices - don't be ridiculous! Actually, one of the Fat Spoon's favourite watering holes, No. 28, just by Grainger Market, is just that place. Believe it or not, before the lights get dimmed and the animals of Newcastle ascend in this rather pretty bar, they not only sell food, but they offer a bistro menu that is interesting, (almost overly) varied and largely delicious.

Most bars that dabble in food usually make an utter (crispy) pig's ear of it, offering weakly constructed dishes usually based around soggy pulled pork, uninspiring burgers or desiccated roast dinners. The alternative approach, greedy restaurants that try their hand at a cocktail menu, are equally as shameful. Nobody wants your version of a long island iced tea, "special" because you've dropped the alcohol content with dodgy spirits. Responsibly, No. 28 is neither of these. They really are a dedicated cocktail bar with a great atmosphere, some nice cocktails and a surprisingly strong eatery.

No. 28 boldly holds no allegiance to any one (or two or three) form of cuisine, a strategy that would usually result in a disastrously confused menu and a vulgar variety of substandard dishes. But somehow, No. 28 pulls off culinary diversity really well, across their tapas sharing starters you can expects some brilliant flavours and inventive takes on classics, such as nacho crumbed quesadillas and curried butternut croquettes. They've also been known to serve a welcomed experiment with pulled pork - a giant filo parcel ram-packed with the stunning wet meat and black pudding, served with yet more pork, mashed potato concealed within greens and a whisky sauce. They're probably enraging chefs of Newcastle daily with their boundary-crossing Restaurant Week menu; and they genuinely don't give a monkeys! An approach the Fat Spoon certainly applauds. All in all, at No. 28 you can expect warming table service, some great food accompanied by money saving deals in pleasant surroundings. 85%

Ice Cream Showdown - Kaspa's Desserts versus Mark Toney

Kaspa's, an American-style ice cream franchise beast has recently arrived in Newcastle, but this city already has it's long standing king of ice cream - Mark Toney; and this old school café has no intention of moving over. Kaspa's is a hugely exciting concept that has already conquered fifteen locations across the country. The Newcastle site, like the others, is an aggressively colourful American style dessert diner, offering a variety of ice cream sundaes as well waffles, crepes, milkshakes and distasteful cakes - bubble gum cake simply shouldn't exist.

The three Mark Toney cafes of Newcastle couldn't be more different to the American giant, they exist as micro time warps, with 60's styling throughout and a classic café menu to match. They offer an excellently greasy full English for a mere £5 as well as great cakes, pasties and pastries. But Mark Toney cafes are largely renowned in Newcastle for their outstanding array of quality ice creams, particularly high valued on the scarce sunny days that we get. They offer a variety of cones, tubs and excellent value large takeaway tubs, where they're more than happy to let you go wild on ice cream varieties. And you can be confident that every scoop is of outstanding quality and flavour; well deserving of their multiple 'great taste awards'.

Kaspa's do have some excellent ice creams to offer, but as is typical of money hungry franchises, they do what they can to cut corners. The great high quality flavoured ice cream is usually diluted with flavourless 'ice cream factory' style ice cream as well as ridiculous amounts of whipped cream. Whereas Mark Toney will always give you a full pot of the real deal, and won't douse their desserts in sugar-rich fake chocolate sauce. And although the portions at Kaspa's are pretty hefty, they also seem to think £7+ is an acceptable price for their short cut sundaes. Where good old Mark Toney is a fraction of that cost. What's more, once you look past the initial bright lights and vibrant colours of Kaspa's, you quickly realise its nothing more than a vulgar, plastic coated, over priced McFlurry station set up for greedy kid's birthday parties and those hoping to eat their way out of the woes of their life.

For variety, flavour richness and sheer quality of ice cream, there can only ever be one winner here - Mark Toney cafés. Proving that old school really is the best school. Kaspa's can take their soggy pancakes and whippy pretend ice cream back to the states.

Mark Toney cafés 76%
Kaspa's Desserts 57%