Eat Me Café, restaurant review: In the shadow of a noted theatre, Shetland pie and Thai curry take centre stage
2 Hanover Road, Scarborough YO11 1LS (07445 475328)
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Your support makes all the difference.Eat Me Café in Scarborough was first brought to my attention by a prominent southern food writer who arrived at our nearby home slightly breathless and somewhat late for lunch. "Sorry," Xanthe explained. "I had to call in to see Martyn at the Eat Me." If it's unusual for a backstreet café to attract the president of the Guild of Food Writers, the menu, which incorporates Thai, Mexican, Malay, Japanese and Shetland elements, is equally exceptional.
Winner of The Good Food Guide's Best Café in the UK award in 2014, the Eat Me faces the stage door of the Stephen Joseph Theatre and displays an appropriately theatrical élan in its décor. Overlooked by the sultry gaze of Tretchikoff's Green Lady, the dining area was populated by the customary coffee-bar clientele of mothers with pushchairs, freelancers tapping at Apples, tattoo-sleeved hipsters and hangover victims downing double espressos. There were lots of beards. The coffee was notably excellent ("Our own blend. You won't find it anywhere else," declares the menu) and the teapots were protected from the northern chill by colourful cosies. Oddly, considering the name, there was no sign of Alice in Wonderland.
The global menu results (in part at least) from the off-season globetrotting of owners Martyn Hyde and Stephen Dinardo, who happened to be in Thailand at the time of our visit. After a brief wait for a table at lunchtime, my wife and I began our culinary circumnavigation in Mexico. At least, I think that's the home of dirty eggs, which turned out to be a small mountain of scrambled eggs incorporating potato and chorizo. Arriving on a great doorstep of toast, it's the kind of thing we all could make – but it's nice to have it done for you and in such generous quantities. Just the ticket for a morning head. Next we were off to Malaysia for one of the daily specials: a satay burger in a first-rate brioche bun. Fillings were beef, chicken or veggie. Chicken proved to be a chunk of breadcrumbed breast over an inch deep and topped by a generous dollop of peanut sauce.
The most unexpected element on the menu, Shetland broch pie, was explained by our waitress, Serena. "Stephen comes from there." Presumably named after the prehistoric towers that it resembles, this proved to be a supercharged cottage pie. The mince contained tasty cubes of swede (or, if you prefer, neep) while the mash was bolstered by spring onions like the Irish dish champ. Simple enough, but my mouth is watering madly as I type these words. The accompanying brown paper bag of chips, twice-fried and so sweet, might have been superfluous – though they all disappeared. "I don't normally like chips but I can't resist these," said my wife, popping another away.
Amid tough competition, a Thai fish curry, pleasingly presented in a little enamelled rice-pudding tin, proved the winner. Made with a close-flaked fish called pangasius farmed in the rivers of South-east Asia, it was the best marine dish I've had in a long time. Seduced by its finesse and subtle prickle of heat, my wife declared: "I pronounce that very good indeed." For once I couldn't object that the café wasn't using local fish. It's not just me who has a taste for pangasius. According to Wikipedia, it's the sixth most consumed seafood in the US.
The only disappointment at Eat Me concerned the simplest of dishes. Welsh rabbit was characterless and unassertive (a pinch of cayenne would have done it the world of good). Even here, the accompanying salads (potato, "homeslaw" and carrot and nigella seed) were a crunchy redemption.
Despite wildly over-ordering the mains, we could not ignore the display that for many diners is the raison d'etre of Eat Me. These are the cakes supplied daily by "Sue the cake lady". A refrigerated cabinet was thronged with lemon meringue, blackberry cheesecake, Mississippi mud pie, cherry and almond tart and banoffee pie, while on the counter stood three cakes of monumental proportions: Victoria sponge, coffee and walnut and carrot. Sue's Victoria sponge was light and bouncy, if an inappropriately tall (fully six inches) tribute to the diminutive monarch, while the cheesecake balanced lipids and fruit in a very happy final mouthful. (Not quite final to be honest. The Eat Me quantities are so generous that doggy bags were called for.)
As the lunchtime crowd was replaced by the afternoon tea influx, the background music (First Aid Kit) gave way to sounds more familiar to ageing bohos. "To dance beneath the diamond sky with one hand waving free," wheezed Bob Dylan. Through the condensation-streaked windows, Scarborough's homely Hanover Street briefly became Bleecker Street in Greenwich Village around 1965.
Food ****
Ambience ****
Service ****
Eat Me Café, 2 Hanover Road, Scarborough YO11 1LS (07445 475328). Around £6-£15 a head for lunch (no wine)
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