Trying Turkish in Middlesbrough town

Middlesbrough is not a city. We don't have loads of different eateries popping up on a weekly basis. We get really excited when hearing of something new opening up and you'll find we all want to try it out and give our opinions. The Meze Lounge is relatively new and I've been wanting to visit for a while now after lots people have said such great things about it. After much pestering, we finally set a date to visit, which happened to be the one year anniversary of us moving into our home together.

I'm really picky with restaurants, as you may have seen in my other posts, so I was expecting big things from this place. The restaurant was small but there was still a good few tables and they were all far enough apart that you felt like you had own space. There were only a few wait staff, which I liked as too many in such a small space can be suffocating, and we got shown to our seats straight away. It was a Thursday night when we went and not too busy at the time but I was told to book as it is very popular.

We decided to go all out and get a starter. I had the Sigara Borek which was filo pastry filled with Turkish white cheese, parsley and herbs and Matt had Lahmacun which was seasoned lamb mincemeat delicately spread on a thin base of dough with onions and parsley oven baked. My was lovely, my only thoughts were that the cheese was a little too strong for me, Matt loved his meal.

From this it was on to our mains! I picked the Tavuk Kebab, which was chunks of chicken fillet marinated with herbs and spices and chargrilled on skewers, technically it was called Ali Nazik as I got the special yoghurt and aubergine sauce with it. Matt had the Karisik Kebab which was a mixture of the chicken one I had, Adana which is lamb mincemeat seasoned on a skewer and Kuzu which was chunks of lamb marinated on a skewer. My chicken was full of flavour and good quality meat. It came with rice & chickpeas, a salad, some Turkish bread and a lovely spicy potato stew. It was gorgeous and what topped it off was the yoghurt and aubergine dip! It was so light and creamy, gorgeous with the chicken and rice. Matt thoroughly enjoyed his mixed kebab stating that this place definitely lived up to the hype.

At this point, we were bursting at the seams but we decided to go all out and order dessert. We both picked chocolate fudge cake, although there were Turkish options, and it was divine. Some chocolate cake you get in restaurants is pretty standard but this was so nice. It really did finish a great night of amazing food.

If you want somewhere to go out for dinner, or lunch, in Middlesbrough I definitely suggest the Meze Lounge. It may be a little walk from town but it is worth it.

Let me know if you've been and what you think of it!

Cedar Court Grand Hotel, York - Afternoon Tea Review

After a disappointing trip to the Cedar Court Grand Hotel in October, they kindly invited us back to enjoy their normal afternoon tea (as opposed to the Mad Hatter's afternoon tea which we didn't like as it was all too sugary!). We had expectations that this would be better than the last and these were met as we all left happy this time.

When we arrived we were directed to a different room than last time on the ground floor. It was spacious, quiet and very bright - brilliant for a ladies afternoon tea. The waiter came over and asked us for our tea/coffee order and we then waited eagerly for our food to arrive.

First up was the sandwiches which they brought a lot of including smoked salmon, egg mayonnaise, beef and pepper mayonnaise and ham and mustard. All the ones I tried were lovely, apart from the beef which was a little chewy but I had my fill of the others to make up for it!

Next was the scones and cakes! These were brought on little cake stands full to the brim with lovely looking treats! There were two scones each; one plain and one fruit accompanied by cream and a selection of jams. On the cake tiers was a chocolate delice which was SO chocolatey, quite sickly really but I had a good go at eating it. There was also a rhubarb and custard cone, banoffee cream pot and a lemon cupcake. The cone was lovely as it was filled with custard but I thought the banoffee pot was a bit too sugary. As for the cupcake, I didn't even try it. Call me a cupcake snob but I couldn't bear to try it as it was so dense and dry. Others said it was okay, but I had no interest in trying it. Like I say, cupcake snob...

Photo credit to Married to a Geek

Overall I have to say I really enjoyed this afternoon tea. The sandwiches and scones were top-notch as well as the presentation and overall atmosphere. As was the problem with the Mad Hatters afternoon tea, for me the sweet section was too sweet. As one of the girls said, having each of these desserts by themselves would be okay but it doesn't seem like they should all be together!

If you can suggest any good afternoon tea venues in the North I'm all ears!

*afternoon tea provided free of charge but opinions all my own

Living North Christmas Fair at Newcastle Racecourse

When Halloween and Bonfire night are out of the way, it is time to focus on the build-up to Christmas. Recently I've seen upcoming Christmas Fair events popping up here there and everywhere. It seems that everyone with a decent venue wants to get in on the festive spirit. When I was browsing twitter one day I came across a link for Living North's Christmas Fair at Newcastle Racecourse. Although it cost £8 for a ticket (or £6 if you order online before) I thought this would be a good event to attend as it is a well-known magazine that is organising it.

We arrived at about 10.30am on Saturday and it was already starting to get really busy. There was a map in the guide so that you could find out what was available to see and where it was. In the racecourse building, there were many sections such as the food hall and floors of stalls for Christmas shopping. Lots of great small companies had piled into the fair to sell what they had on offer and promote the great businesses in the North. I even found Middlesbrough's own Lots of Loveliness with a stall packed full of people! They were loving her stock, so was I, I picked up a candle and some gingerbread men present tags. In the food hall, there were lots of lovely local food producers selling everything from pies, chutneys and bread, to flavoured fortune cookies, gourmet marshmallows and massive slabs of cake. I love finding local foodies that I can promote through my blog as I love showing off the North of England and the amazing businesses here on our doorstep. Overall the event was good, packed with stalls and small businesses but I had two gripes about the day. Firstly there wasn't enough good quality food to eat on the day. Considering the amazing local businesses they had drafted in for the other parts of the day it would have been nice to see some local food vendors. The only food was available from the racecourse itself which was expensive and didn't look appetising. Then there was the amount of people. Now don't get me wrong I know I probably went on the busiest day but I almost feel there should have been a cap on the number of people that were allowed in. It was so hard to look at anything in the stalls for the number of people already crammed into it. Then there was the hassle of trying to walk through the aisles, you either got stuck behind someone in the middle of the aisle trying to look at a stall or people just stopping to have a general chat. I get very raged in these situations so I can tell you I wasn't very happy. One more thing that bugged me on the day was that when I got my email through for the tickets it said that because the weekend would be so busy, pushchairs and buggies wouldn't be allowed in and yet I saw plenty of people with these on the day. It reduces the space in the aisles more and then I felt bad for the people who'd obviously got this memo and were carrying around their young babies. They may as well have brought their buggy! This was a great event with some amazing things to buy. I picked up quite a bit of stuff, that I plan to put in a separate post, so I was very happy that I went because I discovered more local shops that I'd love to visit in the future. If Living North could just have a look at food and the number of people I'd definitely be grappling to get back next year. P.s the York version of this is on 14th-16th November at York Racecourse.

Geordie Bangers - Sausage review

A little while ago I was taking part in North East hour on twitter. Geordie Banger Co. were doing a retweet competition to win some of their sausages. I surprisingly won. After a few failed attempts at having the sausages sent through the post I thought I'd never get to try them but I decided I was going to the Bishop Auckland Food Festival and luckily they were going to be there too. I was very excited and after an awkward chat about me winning the twitter comp, the free sausages were mine! I didn't get the ones that would have been my first pick as they had sold out. Instead I picked up the Wor Cumberland.

We decided to have them with some new potatoes and broccoli, then I drenched mine in gravy! The sausage was quite tricky to cook. It took quite a while and I wasn't sure whether I had to keep turning it, which was pretty tricky as the sausage was in a swirl. When it was done the smell filled the kitchen and we were happy to have it on our plates!

The sausage itself was very flavoursome with quite a sharp taste to it. It went well with our meal and I would happily purchase these again! I can't wait to get the chance to purchase some other Geordie Banger sausages but that means me taking the trip to Hexham, Tynemouth, Morpeth or Quayside to pick some up.