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Check out my new page. It’s there to add a little excitement to your visit when you have some time to kill and perhaps I haven’t updated in a while. Push the button and it’ll take you to a random post in my archives; there’s nearly 1 and a half year’s worth of posts to delve into and my journey of thoughts has been interesting to say the least – in that time I have considered relationships (past and present), anxiety attacks, novel writing, body confidence, my time in Newcastle UK, emigrating to Wellington New Zealand, job hunting in a recession and a newly discovered obsession with small and furry critters. Definitely so random.
On Monday I decided that since Kiwi had spent all weekend working (whilst I had been out having fun and frolics) that he needed a day off. So I told him I was packing a picnic and to decide where he wanted to go. Kiwi chose to drive out to the Wairarapa coast, where I’d not been before.
So I made us lamb and stuffing sandwiches with mint mayonnaise and salad (by the way, my sandwiches are awesome – you should try my chicken tikka sandwiches with hot mango chutney, raita, onions and salad. Oh wow, I think I just dribbled a little). The sandwiches came with a side of crisps (or ‘chippies’/'chips’ to my NZ/US readers) and a flask of hot cream of tomato soup.
Anyway, we hopped in the car and drove out towards Martinborough. Kiwi had chosen a place called Lake Ferry, which has a wharf where we’d stop for our picnic. So at the intersection where the signs pointed left to Martinborough and right to Lake Ferry, we took a right. Ten minutes down the road, we realised we were very close to ‘empty’ on our petrol meter, and that there were no shops for miles. So we turned around and headed back towards Martinborough where we knew we could fill up.
After turning back around in Martinborough and starting back out to Lake Ferry, we instead decided to take a road which led to Tora beach, because the scenery looked so much nicer and what we’d seen of the road to Lake Ferry was dull. The Tora beach road was surrounded in hills which appeared to be covered in lush green carpet. Lambs were skipping about everywhere, cows were ‘wild and free’ (or rather they’d escaped the fenced fields and were walking on the road beside us), and the whole place just encapsulated ‘New Zealand’ on a postcard.
It was a good thing we had stopped for petrol, because the road went on, and on, and on, and on, without any sign of a beach – we couldn’t even see the sea. But there was a river running alongside the road so we figured it’ll lead us to the ocean. At one point the road turned into a gravel path, and still it went on, and on, and on… It was nearly half past 1 (we’d left the house around 11am) and I was thinking let’s pull over and eat on the road side, there’s obviously no beach around here, but Kiwi spotted a speck of sea water between two hills (it looked another million miles away) and so we kept on truckin’.
Eventually we turned a corner and there was beach alongside us. Gorgeous beach with beautiful green-blue sea. Kiwi got all excited because he saw a few cars out in what was otherwise a deserted place, and saw men dressed in wetsuits holding spear-guns and cray bags (for keeping crayfish in). And so our little picnic turned into a full blown plan to go camping out there for a night with Cat Woman and Wetsuit Man, so the men can hunt and the women can cook their catch on a barbecue. Sounds good to me, and I think we’ll be doing it soon cause Wetsuit Man has some surgery ahead which will put him out of spear-fishing action for a while. Only trouble is we’ll have to ‘rough it’ properly because there’s no amenities out there – no power, no toilet (well, there’s a long drop but I’d rather go in the bush than hover my bum over a pile of tens of other people’s sh**…) Oh I am *such* a princess!
Anyway, the story comes to an end with us driving back a shorter route home. And now I have to stop typing and go hotfoot it to the shower and then to work. My shifts have increased at the cinema again (the school holidays are near), so I worked yesterday and today and I’m working tomorrow, Friday, Sunday, Tuesday, Wednesday… yay for money, yay for decreasing my boredom but not yay for my job hunting and social life…
It is 10pm and everyone but me is in bed. 10pm people! Maybe it was the dinner I cooked or something, they’re in a food-stupor. (I did chicken, stuffed with cheese and garlic and wrapped in bacon, alongside roast potatoes and some chopped tomato, spinach and onion concoction. Tasty good, even though I say so myself. I’ve also realised a talent I didn’t know I had, for cooking rare steak).
Anyway, I can’t go to bed at 10pm. I have issues with Kiwi right now; he’s quite tired at the moment, feeling lethargic. I can never sleep without reading a book first for half an hour or so, but since he’s sleeping relatively early at night and wants the light out, I lie awake for hours and my brain doesn’t get tired or switch off without my usual post-book lull. I need to invest in a head lamp so I can read under the covers.
Anyway, since I’ve nowt better to do I figured I’d fill you in on my weekend, which was spent having lots of girly-time with some lovely ladies.
I went out with Cat Woman on Friday night. Just me and her, no Kiwi or Wetsuit Man (although they were both present in the form of texting us during the evening, and we were all ‘why don’t you just give each other a call and catch up since you’re both woman-less tonight?!’ They didn’t, but boys are silly sometimes). We drank and ate at Cat Woman’s place in Thorndon, right around the corner from Wellington city centre. It took us from 4pm to 10.30pm to actually get around to dressing up and going out. We were just having a good giggle I guess. I’m really hoping that the four of us, both couples, can move in together at some point – renting is too expensive to go it alone, and I’d love to live with a girl-friend again. We can do things like gossip and dance around the kitchen; it would be like Friday night, only every night. I digress.
When we finally hopped in the taxi into town, we took it to Tokyo Tea House (my favourite bar which I’ve mentioned before) so I could get my fix of Ministry of Sound anthems and we could pour cocktails out of a teapot into little Japanese ‘teacups’, the novelty of which is overpriced but I love. We then tottered along to Electric Avenue, an 80s-only bar, so Cat Woman could get her fix of 80s power ballads. Strangely enough, while we were there the DJ played something by the Spice Girls, so I went up and requested a song from a similar time and was told “you do know this is an 80s bar, right?” To which I was all “you do know you just played the Spice Girls, right?” Arsehole.
After singing ourselves hoarse to music which usually makes me heave at the thought of shell-suits and my phobia of David Bowie circa Labyrinth, we headed to Kitty O’Shea’s, a pub in which Cat Woman’s housemate was drinking. A band called The Business were playing covers of Reef, The Killers, Sublime and a random hodge podge of brit-pop. So we danced like hoons and sang some more. CW’s housemate had a friend who in my vodka-blind state looked like Rhys Darby (a Kiwi comedian), and so I told him so. The rest of the evening was spent dodging his arm which he kept putting around my waist or poking me in the side and walking to the corner of the room like I was supposed to follow him. I even remember him asking me if I was British and why I was here, to which my reply was “I’m practically married to a Kiwi”, I guess he was beer-deaf to my vodka-blind.
Anyway, regardless of how much Cat Woman and I talked ourselves up on the way into town (“what happens in town, stays in town” wink wink) the only thing we had to hide from our respective partners were our dance moves. We were in bed (I stayed at Cat Woman’s house, and her bed is a CLOUD, mmmm) by the respectable time of 1.30am. Rock and roll…
Because I was in Wellington, I made the most of my visit and had arranged to go for ‘high tea’ at Martha’s Pantry with a couple of lovely Twitter ladies (wellyjulz and missannajane) and their friends, at Saturday lunch time. Cat Woman was invited too, but she’d had just a couple more vodkas than me and thus dropped me off then went home to bed.
Martha’s Pantry is the epitomy of English country garden and chintz; everything in it is all mismatched flowery crockery, knitted tea-cosies, real 3-tiered cake platters, teaspoons with those pretty shields on the end. It’s like your granny just threw up every item she’d ever bought for her kitchen, all over the shop. It was like my idea of heaven. As a table of eight people, we were given the choice of four teapots of different flavoured teas from a long menu of teas (one teapot per pair). Alongside our tea, we received two cake platters. The platters held bite-size bits and pieces including club sandwiches, pizzas, frittatas, scones with jam and cream, cupcakes, chocolate brownies and coconut fondant. Very quaint. The whole experience cost $25 a head, although there is a chill cabinet of food available if you just drop-in off the street and want a coffee and cake. Although it’s not recommended that you drop in on a Saturday – the place is small and they are generally booked-out with tables reserved for high tea. I can’t wait to go back, the place is popular for good reason. I bought Kiwi and chocolate cupcake on my way out, as a present for him driving into Wellington to pick me up instead of me catching the train.
While waiting for my ride back to Upper Hutt, I followed wellyjulz and friends down Cuba Street for a window shop. We ended up in the Recycled Boutique; a shop which sells second-hand clothing but gives money to the donators and takes a commission on top. Oh wow, it was my favourite thrift-shop yet. I could’ve spent all day in there, but alas my bank account wouldn’t let me. However, I didn’t come away empty handed. Something caught my eye and I swear my heart skipped a beat and I fell a little bit in love – a dress. The prettiest dress I’ve ever owned. I’ll post a picture one of these days. I don’t want to pretend my blog is one of those fashion ones cause I’m useless at clothes and such; but I have found some awesome stuff in second hand shops which I’d like to share simply to spread the love of a budget wardrobe. I get more excited about a good thrift find than I ever would about something bought brand new.
Anyway, that was pretty much my weekend. Except that we went to see The Taking of Pelham 123 at Ascot, just cause it’s free and we couldn’t be bothered doing anything else but I wanted to get out the house with Kiwi, who had been stuck indoors all weekend. Alright movie; nothing special but it had some good lines in from John Travolta and kept me entertained for a couple of hours.
**Note, images were stolen from Sweet Mary – our camera died after an incident in which I knocked it out of Kiwi’s hand and it split in two… Oopsy.
My week started not so good as on Saturday I decided it was a good idea to try and lift our heavy double bed in order to put a tent bag underneath it. And even though it was painful and a struggle, I kept pushing and shoving and dragging and heaving the bed anyway, because I was determined to do it without Kiwi’s help. Because he always mocks me for being pathetically weak with the arms of kittens; he thinks I’m just lazy. I’m not, I geniunely have no muscle mass. After I had finished I tried to stand up straight and ended up crippled up squealing. And so began a week of pain and discomfort when sitting up, laying down, propped up half sitting/half laying, bending over, lifting, standing, walking, moving in general. It’s now Thursday and I still have a dull ache in the bottom of my back but it’s a vast improvement on before.
Amongst all the pain and milking it for all it’s worth (“purrrrrlease can you get me a cup of tea, it takes me five minutes just to get up and it’s oh-so-painful” *tears*) I have been working 3 days at the cinema, as well as fitting in some copywriting work from the UK – meaning late nights so I can ring people who are in GMT. It’s been busy fitting writing around the cinema and procrastination on Facebook, Twitter and blogging; but I reached my Wednesday proof deadline at 9pm last night (10am UK time) and celebrated by cooking some low fat scones, which I was planning to do today (Thursday) but for some reason felt that I’d kick my deadline’s butt by proving I still had time for leisures like baking…
Lately I haven’t really been eating lunch. I’ve been having good breakfasts like poached eggs on toast or sardines on toast or cereal, fruit and yoghurt. And because my bodyclock doesn’t get me out of bed until 8.30am – 9am, and I don’t get around to eating breakfast until 9.30 or 10am, I’m not hungry until 2pm or later. And then it’s closer to teatime so lunch doesn’t seem necessary. So instead I have been going out and having a coffee and a muffin or a scone. Which is just enough to tide me over til dinner, but I know that neither muffins nor scones from a bakery/cafe are particularly nutritious (but are oh so tasty from all the cream and butter) plus they cost around $3, and so I have made my own. They are virtually fat free, I have flavoured them with dates and when I was kneading the dough on the bench I sprinkled it with a little sugar and powdered ginger along with the flour, to add a bit of sweetness. I accidentally added some baking parchment too however, as I didn’t grease the paper before putting the scones in the oven so they stuck to it and I couldn’t peel it all off, but it’s like eating rice paper so it’s not too bad… right?
Now I have my copy deadline out the way, I still have some odds and ends and amends to do but I have two free days until I receive further instructions, so the plan is to watch as many movies as I can fit in – this week I’ll be watching Star Trek, Angels and Demons and Topp Twins: Untouchable Girls; plus I’m having lunch with Kiwi and his Nanny today. I also have a wax appointment on Friday and I might try and stretch my back out at the pool. I know the house needs cleaning too now the builder had finished the bathroom and there’s a film of plaster dust on everything; but I’ll see how my back holds out by cleaning our bedroom first. Kiwi has written “I’m soooo dirty” on top of the television in dust. Why he doesn’t just clean the room himself I don’t know, but we seem to be falling into stereotypical housewife/bread winner roles at the moment. I want my Kiwi back that used to do all the cooking, cleaning, washing up, while I just did the occasional deep clean of the toilet and some vacuuming and dusting. I’m sure he’ll return when he hasn’t got his mum around to do it all for him 
Betty Crocker, eat your heart out. Well, actually, eat my muffins. Or technically, eat your muffins since I made them using Betty Crocker’s Triple Chocolate Muffin Ready-Mix… The point I’m trying to make here is I just made some kick-ass muffins. I have spent the morning baking like a Women’s Institute group leader who has just snorted a line of icing sugar. Along with my muffins I whipped up some buttered icing to pipe on top of my muffins with a $3.49 piping bag which came with six nozzles to choose from. I was delighted with the price (courtesy of The Warehouse) as the only other piping bags I had seen cost between $12-$16 and were nozzle-less. I now know why it was so cheap however, because I ripped it whilst cleaning it un-vigorously, but with a bit of sellotape we’ll be back in (piping) business.
Along with my muffins and icing I tried out making Hokey Pokey. I remember going to the National Science Museum in London when I was a kid at school – we went a few times and each time they always had an exhibition about the science of cooking, at which there was always a presentation in which a “scientist” (spotty student wearing lab coat) would whip up a batch of cinder toffee, because there is a chemical reaction involved when you add baking soda to sugar syrup which is both exciting to watch and tasty to chew. What they don’t tell you at the science exhibition is that there’s a science behind getting the Hokey Pokey out of its container after it has hardened and is ready to eat. I tried chiselling it out to no avail (I was only successful in flicking shards of it across the room into nooks and crannies where I couldn’t see it but where ants and flies could smell it from a mile off). Eventually I ended up turning the tin upside down and banging it out with a tool used for tenderising meat. I would never have thought to do this so it’s a good thing Kiwi’s mum was around with some initiative or she may have ended up wondering where her baking tin had disappeared to because my next thought was ‘oh shit, I’ve soldered golden crunchy goodness to the bottom of a baking tin which doesn’t belong to me… hide the evidence, where’s the wheelie bin?!’
The only problem with banging the Hokey Pokey out was it came out in a billion tiny pieces (with the exception of about four decent nibble-sized chunks). But all was not lost, as I had muffins which although covered in buttercream icing, were looking a bit bland. One sprinkle of Hokey Pokey later and I was done.
Now I feel inspired to get my apron strings on and go through Edmond’s Recipe Book from back to front (useless fact – Edmond’s is the second most popular book, behind the bible, in New Zealand). Luckily for my waistline though, cookery is an expensive hobby which I can’t afford to indulge just yet.
So much for productivity at today’s cashflow workshop. I ended up leaving halfway through with my head about to implode. We were given hypothetical profit forecast and cashflow forecast sheets to work through which brought back nightmares of GCSE maths classes and practically rendered me a weeping wreck of a 14 year old again.
On to better things, today was Pancake Day, Shrove Tuesday. Kiwis don’t do Shrove Tuesday. NONE of the Kiwis I asked had any idea what it was! Oh you are a nation missing out on the perfect excuse to chow down on stacks with bacon, maple syrup and banana… drooool. We only had them with a bit of cheese and jam (not together, although I’m not adverse to to mixing cheese and jam) but it was still tasty. For the benefit of you poor unknowing Kiwis who are reading this, Shrove Tuesday is the day before Ash Wednesday, the first day of Lent. Back in the days of ole’ Bible times, during Lent indulgent foods including fat, butter and eggs were abstained from, so the day before Lent all these ingredients were used up; hence the making of Pancake Day. I’m not religious but I’m considering giving up something for Lent, for the sake of setting myself a goal which I’ll inevitably fail at. I enjoy failing at things, it gives me purpose. I’ve only got 4 minutes until Lent begins so I should really make a decision about what to refrain from. Coffee seems to be a vice of mine, along with any form of cake, so maybe I should consider switching to tea for 40 long days and 40 long nights. Granted the nights will be more restful from the reduction in my caffeine intake… Ok, deep breath *eyes well up*… I am going to give up coffee for Lent *chin wibbles*. Anyone who knows me will know this hits me right where it hurts. And no sweet treats either *bursts into tears*. I’m not sure what good it will do me, but I’ve never participated in Lent before so it’s just something new to do…
It hurts to move. Once again I have excelled myself in the amount I’ve managed to shovel down my gullet. I don’t know why I do it to myself – I’m supposed to be bikini fit for Ibiza, but it’s a week away and I’m… well… bikini fat. I blame Curry Capital on Newcastle’s Bigg Market, and their ‘Viz’ Special Menu – it’s just too good to be true so I keep going back for more.
Let me paint you a picture. Curry Capital is renowned in Newcastle for its owner. Sadly deceased earlier this year, the owner, Abdul Latif, was one ‘Lord of Harpole.’ I have no idea where Harpole is, if such a place exists, in fact the Lord bought the title for £5000 in 1994. Before he passed away, if you’d turned up at Curry Capital, you would have found the Lord dressed in a red gown and turban. Parties of pissed stags, hens and people celebrating a mark in their lives could have their photos taken with the him, and if they dressed up as a Lord themselves they could have got a free meal. The restaurant was cheap and cheerful, unlike many Indian restaurants which overcharge for underwhelming food, it wasn’t trying to be anything it wasn’t. They offered a number of special deal menus – from the £3.95 one course lunchtime meal deal to the £10.95 four course banquet, all of which were tastilicious (yes, that’s a word) and bargainous (that’s also a word, don’t question the English graduate).
“if you find you are experiencing problems with your lover(s) due to consumption, then under no circumstances are you entitled to blame us”
Curry Capital is not just any old Indian restaurant. It’s famous, seemingly world renowned, as the home of the hottest curry in the world (according to their ’statistics’) and a Guinness Book of Records, world record breaker for the furthest distance takeaway delivery. Oh yes; Curry Capital promised to deliver a curry to anywhere in the world (flights added to the price of the meal), and had delivered a curry to Sydney, Australia as part of a charity event. Yes it would have arrived cold, but that’s nothing a microwave couldn’t fix, and if you’ve eaten leftover curry a day or two old, you’ll know that the flavour develops over time and it’s even tastier the second time around. As for the aforementioned hottest curry, Curry Capital offers the Curry Hell Challenge. If you can eat a bowl of a curry made almost entirely from chilli powder and chilli seeds, that will literally disintegrate the roof of your mouth, then you eat for free. But be warned – and I quote from Curry Capital’s own website – ‘if you find you are experiencing problems with your lover(s) due to consumption, then under no circumstances are you entitled to blame us’…
Kiwi and I manage to end up in Curry Capital nearly every month. Be it a mundane Monday after work, or a Wednesday when the week feels forever dragging because the weekend is so near yet so far; a meal out just helps to ease the pain (or add to it with the severe pain of overeating). During our visits, we’ve seen the Curry Hell challenge in action. Or in reverse action, as Kiwi found a man in the Gents’ (who had been sitting behind our table), now with his head over the toilet bowl. On returning to his seat, he asked the man’s friend if his pal was alright. He explained that they’d been doing the Curry Hell challenge so he was just offloading… Their table was a sea of pint glasses; a desparate bid to take the burning pain away with a soothingly chilled lager. I can see how the Curry Hell challenge isn’t such a great deal – you may eat for free, but you spend so much money on drink, it more than pays for the food. Kiwi bravely (or was it stupidity?) tried a teaspoon of this so-called hottest curry in the world. And nearly choked. He lost the use of the tip of his tongue for a short period (how useful is the tip of a tongue anyway… Actually, don’t answer that. Ladies, quit smirking). Anyway, for some reason men come far and wide to prove their masculinity via a burnt mouth, an out-of-action tongue and (probably) a week of extreme diarrohea.
“there is bhangra playing in the background, but nothing else speaks of Asia”
Tonight, as with every visit, Kiwi and I chose the ‘Viz’ Menu. For £10.95 you receive: a poppadom with all the pickles (lime pickle, mango chutney, raita and onion salad); a choice of starters, from which we always choose the onion bhaji and chicken tikka; for main course select from a choice of curries (pick your meat or vegetable, then pick the type of sauce from a wide range). We recommend the Jalfrezi, Balti or Rogan Josh. With your curry you have the option of a flavoured pilau rice or chips and a choice of naan breads (keema, garlic, peshwari, coriander or plain). And if that’s not enough to fill you up, you can choose icecream for dessert, or a liquer coffee. Oh, and you get a free soft drink or glass of wine! Unbelievable in the age of the credit crunch and a depressing economy, I hope you’ll appreciate why we love this place.
On the downside, we never see more than 5 other people in there when we are, so the atmosphere is somewhat lacking. The environment leaves a lot to be desired, yes there is bhangra playing in the background, but nothing else speaks of Asia – with garish old carpets from the 70’s, bland walls and bland artworks. When I think of Indian restaurants, I think of giant aquariums with colourful fish, ‘moving’ pictures of rainforests and waterfalls and deep coloured, plush decor. I also think of hot lemon flannels and orange slices which come with the bill. But for £10.95 for all of the above menu, you can create your own atmosphere with sheer glee from the value for money.
The final episode of this week’s food diaries, in which I gained a few pounds in weight and Kiwi lost a few pounds from his wallet, takes us to Wednesday lunchtime at The Lounge. The Lounge, opposite Central Station, is a jack of many trades. It’s a bar for the after-work crowd in the evenings, a cafe bar by day and moonlights as a tacky meat market at weekends, where downstairs in the basement you may find topless dancers on a match day, or the grab-a-granny crowd on Friday and Saturday night, bopping away to horrendously cheesy music.
Tackiness aside, during the day the lounge is a perfectly civilised place to go for a bite to eat. Each table has a mini TV at it, so you can catch the latest on Sky Sports (if you’re so inclined), and the music helps to lift your mood if you’re taking a well deserved lunch break from work – if you’re open to the offerings of the ‘Now’ albums and can appreciate small doses of pop chart. We chose The Lounge because of their new menu promotion called Mix & Mash, serving a choice of ‘British’ food – pies, sausages and the like with a choice of four types of mashed potatoes and your selection of gravy. For example, I chose and steak and ale pie and had the choice of mustard mash, cheesy mash, plain mash or mint mash, alongside the choice of onion gravy, mint gravy or good ol’ ‘plain’ gravy. I went with mustard mash and no gravy with my pie. Kiwi chose the same, as he always seems to make the wrong choice of meal when we go out together and ends up having extreme bouts of food envy. Although he went with the cheesy mash, so we could share.
“a jack of many trades, it’s a bar for the after-work crowd in the evenings, a cafe bar by day and moonlights as a tacky meat market at weekends”
On arrival, the steak and ale pie looked like a giant pork pie. The pastry was thick, shortcrust pastry, browned to perfection. On slicing it open to see if we’d be disappointed by the lack of filling inside, we were both delighted to find our pies were filled to the brim. The steak melted in your mouth, the sauce was rich and tasty and there was a slight twist as the chef had used whole silverskin onions and button mushrooms, adding both texture and flavour. Both the cheesy and mustard mash didn’t disappoint either – although they were served with an unnecessarily giant sprig (more like a bush) of rosemary poking out, as though trying to ‘posh’ up a dish that was supposed to say ‘home cooked like your gran used to make.’ I don’t remember my gran decorating her home cooking with a herbaceous border.
If you need some good old comfort food, The Lounge’s Mix & Mash menu will sort you out for around £6.
Image from StrudelMonkey on Flickr.com, here.
Cue Tuesday evening, and as if I needed to fill up on another main meal after sharing quiche and jacket potato at Centurion for lunch, Kiwi and I decided to take a trip to Lau’s Buffet King in Stowell Street, part of Newcastle’s small but perfectly formed China Town. But when it’s midsummer and so cold, grey and wet you could be forgiven for thinking it was December, how better to make yourself feel therapeutically warm than with food…
Lau’s Buffet King is unspectacular. It feels like a dining hall rather than a restaurant – with basic wooden tables and chairs, no sense of comfort and their ‘all you can eat,’ help-yourself buffet at which people queue as though having school dinners. The service is blunt, with no niceties – you are told on arrival that you will be charged £8.50 if you are seated at the restaurant, regardless of whether you are eating or not. So whilst being cheap, I wouldn’t call Lau’s ‘cheerful’.
“how better to make yourself feel therapeutically warm than with food…”
Making up for lack of ambiance is the wide choice of food, from salad, chicken soup, duck pancakes, prawn crackers and seaweed to start, to main courses including New Zealand Green Mussels in a seafood dish and the usual sweet and sour pork and chicken, lemon chicken, beef and black bean sauce, Chinese curry and a choice of noodles and rice. Unfortunately the food lets itself down somewhat by being lukewarm when it hits your plate and pretty much cold by the time you return to your table to eat. But again, making up for lack of warmth of your main course is the choice of desserts to sweeten your palate. Banana fritters, gateaux, jelly and ice cream as well as fruit salad for the health conscious. If you can leave room for a little something extra, it’s a nice way to finish off your meal on a good note.
Time and again I’ve returned to Lau’s, despite it being a consistent disappointment, but there’s something to say about easy dining, no frills or fuss – you know what you’re getting and you get your money’s worth – no more, no less.
I’ve been positively treated like a Queen by Kiwi this week. A fat, overindulged, gluttunous Queen, but a Queen nonetheless. On Tuesday he treated me to lunch, on Tuesday night to dinner, then on Wednesday just as I was about ready to commit to some form of extreme diet from sheer guilt at the amount of food I’d consumed, he took me out to lunch again too. And since I’m supposed to be documenting all the things I’ll remember of Newcastle, where better to start than where the heart is. In my stomach.
Episode 1 takes us to Tuesday lunchtime, at Centurion. Centurion sits next to Newcastle’s Central Station. Well, it sits inside the station too if you want to be facetious – with an entrance both on the station’s main platform, and facing onto Neville Street. Centurion is both a pub and cafe. The public house area is popular after work with its ease of transport access, once you have had a couple of drinks to blur the edges of a stressful day at the office; you can practically step out of the door into your respective train, metro, taxi or bus home.
“the kind of chairs that bring to mind the Count from Sesame Street – one ceramic tile ‘uh’… two ceramic tile ‘uh, uh, uh…”
The decor is incredible inside, with every inch of the walls ceramic tiled majestically. You have to see it to appreciate the epicness of it; with tiled columns towering from floor to high ceiling. Rumour has it that the pub was once the Royal waiting room, where members of the Windsor family and all their numerous inbred inlaws would wait for their train. The walls were then covered in plasterboard for the room to take on another role – storage of some sort, before many decades later some unknowing soul rediscovered the tiles and restored them to their former glory. It’s a tall tale admittedly, but everyone likes a bit of history so I’ll keep believing it until proven otherwise. It is advisable to get to Centurion before the mad dash comes post 5 o’clock, as there’s some cosy chairs next to the fire place where you could while away the hours comfortably. They are the kind of chairs that bring to mind the Count from Sesame Street – one ceramic tile ‘uh’… two ceramic tile ‘uh, uh, uh’… three ceramic tile… You get the picture. All the chairs need are a smoking jacket, cord slippers and cigar and you’d be somewhere in the 1800s.
A far cry from the pub is the cafe that has seemingly been pritt-sticked to the side of it. Reminiscent of a conservatory, the walls are glass and the furniture would look at home in your garden. It lacks a complete sense of character, but it’s the only place I know to go when I feel like some ‘garden furniture’ food – quiche and salad to be more specific. Along with quiche, they serve gigantic jacket potatoes with fillings which are uninspiring but plentiful, plus, as with all station outlets, overpriced and underfilled sandwiches, drinks and snacks.
Go in with low expectations and you won’t be disappointed, nor ecstatic. The coffee is nice enough and the hot food fills a hole.
He said, then she said...