Ambience ✪✪✪
Service ✪✪✪✪
Stone Cellar Road
High Usworth
Washington
Tyne & Wear
NE37 1PH
0191 202 2404
www.carterandfitch.co.uk
Accessibility? Yes
Gluten free? Yes
So here we were on Wearside for the latest installment of the as-yet-unsuccessful “Operation Find Somewhere Nice To Eat in Central Sunderland”, a toilsome undertaking that a lesser reviewer would have jacked in ages ago. I am, however, possessed of both optimism and unwavering obstinacy, and so on I trudge.
Mrs Diner and I had with us the pal, who had with her a very Junior Diner. Fine, I had thought; if I’m struggling for word count I can bang on about the baby change facilities. People eat out with young kids all the time. The pal does, anyhow. I foresaw no difficulties. More fool me.
We pitched up at El Nido Mexicana at the advertised opening time of midday looking forward to what I had been told were some thoroughly decent tacos and a good list of mezcals, but the lights were off and nobody was home. I rang to see what the score was. No answer.
With Junior getting restless in her pram, we hot-footed it over town to Mexico 70, set up by Neil Bassett of the excellent band Hyde and Beast, only to find the doors locked, some twenty minutes after Google suggested they ought to have opened.
While I began to mutter swear words under my breath a delivery man was trying to get access, at which point a chef poked his head out of the kitchen and let us in, only to advise that they don’t have high chairs. Ikea flogs them for nine quid, guys. We would have spent an awful lot more than that. Just saying.
Flustered, hungry, and with Junior on a one way journey down meltdown street, I abandoned the idea of doing any kind of review and sought the nearest sustenance. The Engine Room was just over the road. They had a twenty minute wait for tables. This was not good news.
Junior was now doing actual yelping, and things had gotten visceral.
Mrs Diner shot me a look. “We need to get out of Sunderland” she hissed.
We hightailed it back to the car and headed north, to safety.
At which point I remembered that I’d been meaning to try Carter and Fitch, near Washington.
10 minutes later we were seated, crayons and wine had been distributed appropriately by friendly staff and all calm was restored. The food turned out to be mostly terrible, but did we care? Not much.
