It’s hard to believe that its been almost 6 months since the last Sunderland restaurant week and with that came our Safari Supper again to try some of the delights that will be on offer during the highly anticipated week to come!
We started off the night at Cafe Purple based on Park Lane. Having visited here the last time we started our rounds we kind of knew what was in store, they have however launched a new range of cocktails and I opted for the Cherry Stag (never had one before so was unsure what to expect) and it was delicious!
We were presented with a platter of canapes including onion rings, cheeses (give me all the cheese!), fruits, nuts and picky bits. The perfect start to the night.
We moved from Cafe Purple across to Mary Street and my first visit to Royale Thai, from the outside and actually the interior too it was your typical Chinese/Thai style restaurant which I like as it was relaxing and unassuming. After waiting a while for food and not having spoken to any staff, there seemed to be one lady working the front of house as well as attending to everything else, we were almost ready to move on to the next step when food was brought out. Although the food was nice (the spring rolls were delicious) the rest was nothing extra ordinary but we will be going back to try the main courses etc as we had heard that they were amazing so im putting it down to pressure/under staffed on the night?!
We moved on to the Sunderland College Bistro and this actually made my night! Having never been before I researched what the College Bistro was and found out that it is actually a working college. All of the chefs and waiting staff are students learning and preparing to head out into the real world and judging by the 5 star reviews that have been left the students certainly take pride in their work. We took our seats and were given a quick talk about how the college works, what they do etc and we were presented with menus to choose from! I chose the Cod with herb crust, accompanied with fondant potato, cauliflower and parsley cream – perfection on a plate!
We were so delighted with the food, attitude and overall atmosphere that 4 of us are going back for a 9 course meal at the chefs table! I can’t wait! With 2 course lunches for £9.95 and 3 course lunches for £13.95 this is a treat you really should not miss!
With full tummies we headed to Port of Call (next door to Cafe Purple) for coffee and cake. By this point i think we were all flagging a little but the promise of pancakes was too tempting to resist (it was pancake day after all!) We all ordered our coffee/tea etc and by the time these were all brought out it was getting a little late and we were ready to move, having promised hubby I would be home by 9 as I was leaving for London at 6 the following morning…..but then they brought out platters of cake and it would have been so rude to up and leave at that point! lol
With a platter full of chocolate cake, banoffee cake, oreo cheesecake jar, golden syrup style pudding and rocky road it really was the perfect end to a great night. We declined hanging around for the pancakes and headed home with full tummies, making plans for when we will come back and what and where we will schedule to eat for Sunderland Restaurant week!
XOXO
Debbie
We were kindly invited along for the night to trial the foods on offer for purposes of this review.
This pictures are really making me hungry, especially the banoffee cake!