Bao Bar

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206 Chillingham Road
Newcastle upon Tyne
NE6 5LN

07577 929205

Accessibility? No 
Gluten free options? Yes 

facebook.com/baobarNCL

If, as is often alleged, good things come in small packages, does it follow that exceptional things come in tiny packages? Logic never was my strong point, so I’ll leave this abstract musing to the more philosophically minded amongst you. What I can tell you is that Mrs Diner and I certainly found some evidence to support this thesis during a dank wintry weeknight on Chillingham Road.

The Muddler

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69 Grey Street 
Newcastle upon Tyne 
NE1 6EF 

0191 222 0125 
themuddlernewcastle.co.uk 

Accessibility? No 
Gluten free? Yes 

Danieli Holdings is, or are, in their own words, “one of the fastest growing multi-faceted privately owned business [sic] based in the North East of England”, with care homes and security firms alongside their leisure “division”. 

I have no particular problem with big companies, or even with companies that do more than one thing. I am neither an anti-capitalist nor a starry-eyed believer that a good restaurant must of necessity be independently owned. However, you also can’t blame me for noticing that I’ve frequently struggled to find a half decent meal in the restaurants of companies like Danieli. 

Never heard of them? Try Bar B in The Gate. Or YOLO in Ponteland (see my rather scathing review of their High Bridge Branch here). Or the (rather better) shipping containers on Pilgrim Street. There you go: of course you know Danieli Holdings. My latest attempt at a decent Danieli meal was at The Muddler on Grey Street, where on a pleasant Sunday afternoon Mrs Diner and I took a friend to help us lay siege to their Pan-Asian offering.

Stack Newcastle

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(Sushi me Rollin’ were lovely) 

Stack Newcastle 
Old Odeon Site 
Pilgrim Street 
Newcastle upon Tyne 
NE1 6QE 

0191 216 1415 

www.stacknewcastle.com 

Accessibility? Yes 
Gluten free? Some 

Honestly, it’s a wonder that there are any shipping containers left for the ships. When Riley’s Fish Shack and Anna Hedworth’s Cookhouse used a couple apiece to open their businesses it had just a whiff of underground cool and felt a bit edgy. When By The River Brew Co opened up earlier this year it was as if the whole “not quite permanent” concept had been weaponised, to very good effect. 

With the advent of Stack, on the site of the former Odeon Cinema, shipping containers have gone full-blown mainstream. Give it a couple of years and we’ll all be living, working and loving in shipping containers. Watch out, Maersk.

Wolfmann’s Eating House

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9A Stanhope Parade 
South Shields 
Tyne & Wear
NE33 4BA 

07714 525784 
www.facebook.com/WolfmannsEatingHouse 

The phrase “hidden gem”, is a double-edged sword. One of the joys of being The Secret Diner is to be able tip you the wink about unassuming but excellent places off the beaten track; however, doing so brings more than a frisson of guilt for those who thought they had these secret haunts all to themselves. 

So, if you have a favourite seat at Wolfmann’s Eating House in South Shields - and there are only about eighteen to choose from - then I’m sorry for what follows (you can blame Phil Dixon, who originally emailed me about it). This really is a cracking little place, with charm to burn and a well-cooked menu of unusually fun Asiana that deserves to find a wider audience.

Boat Noodle

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3 Leazes Lane 
Newcastle upon Tyne 
NE1 4QT 

0191 230 0318 
www.boatnoodleuk.com 

Accessibility? No 
Gluten free? Yes 

Of all the improvements that Newcastle’s food scene has seen over the last year or two, one of the most welcome has been the emergence of some rather good Chinese and South East Asian restaurants. 

If you want to waste your hard-earned cash on interchangeable meat in tangy gloop sauce then there are still plenty of those places hanging around, but there’s no need to any more:  from the Szechuan stylings of La Yuan to the hand-pulled noodles at Inoodle, via the ferocious jungle curry served at Thai House Cafe and the odd but effective combo of noodle soup and waffles at Meet and Treat, things are looking good on the Asian front. So it seems apt to sign off the year by adding another cracker to the list.

Lost and Found [CLOSED]

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Service ✪✪✪✪ 

194A Heaton Road 
Newcastle upon Tyne 
NE6 5HP 

0191 209 2359 

Accessibility? Yes 
Gluten free? Yes

lostandfoundnewcastle.co.uk  

[Sadly, Lost and Found has now left Heaton, but still exists as Lost and Found Social within the Stack Newcastle food court] 

Restaurant menus have been around since the start of the 19th century and have changed remarkably little since then. Some come in fancy leather binders while others languish in a laminate prison, but either way, we all know what they are. 

Which is why the old “Have you dined with us before? No? Then let me explain our menu” routine tends to set my teeth on edge. No, don’t explain it, let me take a wild, blind, guess in the dark: those words on the left are the dishes, right? And those on the right, the numerical ones: are they - no, no, don’t tell me! - the prices? Whaddyaknow! 

At Lost and Found, we had the menu explained to us by an absolutely lovely gent who appeared to be in charge of front of house. It consisted of two lists: “small plates” and “desserts”, so it didn’t take all that much explaining, but we listened politely because we’re British. In fairness, we did pick up one bit of useful advice, being that two of the dishes were slightly more substantial than the rest, of which more later.

Meet & Treat

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Service ✪✪✪✪ 

41 Bath Lane 
Newcastle upon Tyne 
NE4 5SP 

0191 261 0636 
www.meetandtreat.weebly.com 

Accessibility? Yes 
Gluten free? Yes 

Not so long ago there was a time when eating Asian food in Newcastle meant a trip to Stowell Street for baskets of prawn crackers, candle-powered dish-warmers (don’t touch, kids!) and bright orange or muddy brown sauces. 

Part of me misses the bland, sugary gloop of this strange, anglicised version of Cantonese cooking, as it’s the taste of innumerable childhood family celebrations, and who could forget the shock arrival of a platter of sizzling beef or the first taste of deep-fried ice cream. 

But of course the foodie in me is thrilled by the recent explosion of Asian restaurants in the city that try, with some success, to bring us the flavours of Chiang Mai, Georgetown or Chengdu. Inoodle, La Yuan, Thai House Café, Osaka and the recently re-located Chilli Padi are all well worth a look. And now there’s another, with the sweetly named Meet & Treat.

Omni Café

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Service ✪✪✪✪ 

12 Front Street 
Monkseaton
Whitley Bay
Tyne & Wear
NE25 8DF 

0191 251 2819 
www.facebook.com/omnionthecorner 

Accessibility? Yes-ish. 
Gluten free? Yes 

Sometimes you just know everything’s going to be fine even as the front door clicks shut behind you and you scan the room for the first time. It’s a nice feeling. There are enough reasons to fret in these troubled times without the quality of one’s dinner being added to the list. 

As we left a sullen late winter night outside and stepped into the warm, spice-scented fug of Omni, I knew we were onto a good thing. The fact that at 6.30 on a Wednesday evening we only just managed to snare the last table for two was a strong hint. The warm welcome, the lovely decor and the chatty buzz made by people who are really enjoying themselves, all confirmed that this is a place where they really know what they’re about. And what they are about, in the evenings at least, is Asian tapas.

Sohe

Food ✪ 
Ambience ✪✪ 
Service ✪ 

97 Osborne Road 
Jesmond 
Tyne and Wear 
NE2 2TJ

0191 281 8161 
www.sohe.co.uk 

Accessibility? Yes 
Gluten free? Yes 

Dear Reader, 

Thank you so much for taking the time to post your tweet to me. 

“@secretdiner1 - have you tried Sohe in Jesmond?” you asked. “I went for lunch today and thought it was excellent”. 

Forgive me, dear Reader, but I’m puzzled. You see, I don’t recall ever having insulted your mother, enjoyed an illicit liaison with your sister or run over the sweet little white dog you have as your Twitter profile picture. 

So what I have done to upset you so much that you would suggest I should spend nearly three hours of my life eating some of the most upsettingly bad food I’ve come across in all my years as the Secret Diner? I can only assume that you genuinely liked this place. In which case, I am truly amazed.

River Beat

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Pipewellgate House 
Pipewellgate 
Gateshead 
NE8 2BJ 

0191 477 0553 
www.riverbeat.co.uk 

Tue - Thu 4 - 11pm 
Fri - Sat 11am - 11pm 

For the most part, most Brits still haven’t quite got the hang of tapas. 

To many, the idea of spending an evening traipsing between different bars for glasses of sherry and a plate of ham here, some croquettes there, a prawn, octopus tentacle or a spicy chicken thigh there — is something to be reserved for Spanish holidays. It requires a city to have a critical mass of places set up this way, which rules out Newcastle. 

It’s a great shame, for in many ways the city centre is made for gastro-perambulation. Here’s a plea: can someone please open a couple of proper ham and sherry joints? I’ll happily perambulate between them all night if you do. Thanks in advance. 

In the absence of the real deal, our current experience of local tapas involves plonking yourself down for the entire evening and ordering a truck-load of small plates, which you then ply through with copious glasses of wine. This rather turns the concept on its head. All of a sudden, instead concentrating on getting a few things perfect, a kitchen has the hard task of doing lots of things well. As a result, most don’t succeed. 

Nowadays tapasification (a word I shall copyright) doesn’t have to be Spanish. In London there are tapas versions of Peruvian, North African, Italian and so on. In Newcastle, they’ve gone one better. River Beat, tucked next to the Swing Bridge on the Gateshead side, has given the small plate treatment to Thai. 

Well, sort of. It’s not actually Thai, but a pan-Asian-influenced assortment. However, in what is quite a nifty move, all 22 dishes on their “tapas” menu are available in small or large plates, meaning you can eat pretty much whatever you want, however you want.

Ko Sai [CLOSED]

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Fenwick Food Hall 
Northumberland Street 
Newcastle upon Tyne 
NE99 1AR 

www.ko-sai.co.uk 

[KO SAI closed on July 1st 2017.  It will be replaced in Fenwick's Food Hall by Porter House, a butchery and grill - see Foodie News] 

Ko Sai, as any Star Wars fan worth their salt will tell you, hailed from the planet Kamino and was the chief scientist behind the creation of the Grand Army of the Republic. It is also a small rocky island set in the Gulf of Thailand. I’m assuming that (unless he’s a closet sci-fi fan) Newcastle’s most prolific restaurateur Terry Laybourne had the latter in mind when he named this Asian street food joint. 

This is the final part of a trilogy on the dining options in the all-new Fenwick food hall, joining my previous reports on the excellent Fuego and slightly-less-impressive Saltwater Fish Company. How would this final incarnation manifest itself - Hans Solo or just Jar-Jar Binks?

Saigon [CLOSED]

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Service ✪✪✪ 
Ambience ✪✪✪ 

6 Bigg Market 
Newcastle upon Tyne 
NE1 2UW 

0191 233 0766 
No website currently 

“What’s your favourite food?” they used to ask me at primary school. 

Back then it was chips and Walls pork sausages (mine was a simple childhood of modest pleasures). Now, the list has grown a bit, but most of the items are still pretty straightforward: a creamy risotto with white Alba truffle, a single slice of sourdough adorned with fresh crab, almost anything involving crispy pig. But up there in my gastronomic Mount Olympus there would definitely be one seriously good noodle soup. 

Vietnamese pho, when done well, is a seriously good noodle soup. The trick is to produce an all-healing broth that is both light in body and singing with flavour. Bones are simmered for hours while onions and ginger are blackened into rich, caramel flavours. Add cloves, cinnamon and star anise to lend the thing its sing-song top notes, and I’m in soup heaven. 

There are regional variations, of course, and various meats may be used, but when pho is good, it’s phab. Which is what I was hoping for when I met a visiting friend off the train and we headed for dinner at Saigon, the revamped Vietnamese restaurant in Newcastle’s Bigg Market.

Chilli Padi

Food ✪✪✪✪ 
Service ✪✪✪✪ 
Ambience ✪✪✪ 

6-10 Leazes Park Rd 
Newcastle upon Tyne 
NE1 4PF

0191 230 1133 
No website yet, no credit cards or alcohol 

At the risk of over-generalising, I’d say that Newcastle’s Asian restaurants could be divided into two categories. 

The first, and largest group, serves up a grim cornucopia of Anglo-Sino standards in which any one of four or five protein ingredients can be draped in any of twenty interchangeable sauces, each tasting much like the last. Newcastle’s Stowell Street is the ground zero of this disastrous cuisine. 

The second category is a bit more interesting. The menu, if in English, is likely to have similar gloop-centric offerings, with perhaps a few more interesting dishes. But this is only half the story, for if you look closely, or ask, there are actually two menus. However, unless you’re Chinese, you’ll be spared the one with all the interesting stuff - dangly bits of animals, steamboat soups, punishing quantities of chilli and sichuan pepper, that type of thing. 

Is it because Asian restaurateurs think we Westerners are gentle creatures who can’t take the heat? Are they worried about our reaction when served meat with a bit of bone attached? Or is this just a cunning culinary revenge for England’s role in the Opium Wars? Let’s deny them the really good dishes, and let them think that sweet and sour chicken is real Chinese food. 

Either way, it has to stop. This is a matter of diplomatic significance: I’ve had enough beef in black bean sauce to last a lifetime. Bring me the proper stuff. 

If you agree, then I have good news for you. Chilli Padi only has one menu. There is a “western” section which neither you, nor I, need pay any attention to whatsoever. The rest of it is chock full of the kind of dishes I’ve longed to see served in Newcastle, by turns comforting, intriguing and arresting. And all cooked really well.

Electric East [CLOSED]

Food ✪✪✪ 
Service ✪✪✪ 
Ambience ✪✪✪✪ 

St James Boulevard 
Waterloo Square 
Newcastle Upon Tyne 
NE1 4DP 

www.electric-east.co.uk 
0191 221 1000 

Lunch: Fri only 
Dinner: Mon to Sat 6 - 9.45pm 

Nearly three years ago Electric East emerged phoenix-like from the ashes of a Newcastle institution called Barn Asia, which I’d only managed to visit once before it fell into administration. 

Based on that one experience, which thankfully I was never called on to chronicle, I reckoned they only got half the name right – it was a bit of a barn, but I could detect little of Asia in its cooking. I found much of it bland, and some actually rather unpleasant. 

That has been my lame excuse for not reviewing its successor until now. However Electric East is well thought of by some, and has even managed a listing in the Michelin guide, so this secret visit was long overdue.