The Golden Lion Hotel, Leyburn 04-2021

On a Sunday I wanted a Sunday roast. At 2pm it seemed remarkably difficult to find one - maybe because there was limited outdoor seating, reservations already on a very sunny day, and lots of places were just closed.

After lots of Google searching and driving to a few spots in despair, we eventually made it to Leyburn. There was a spare table outside and they still had roast available. Score!

When I ordered, I asked if I could have a medium-rare part. The young girl looked at me a little confused - it's all just cooked well done. Hmm my expectations plummeted. Oh well, too late to leave now.

Maybe it was the low expectations but I was pleasantly surprised by the food. Roast was cooked well done but the brisket was actually not dry and had some flavour. Yorkshire was very big and great crispness (which is hard to find) although low seasoning so needed the thick tasty gravy. Potato mash underneath, and bonus sides of pumpkin mash, caramelised red cabbage, and peas made it a better roast than usual. 

Overall very good.

The Magpie Cafe, Whitby 04-2021

Whitby fish and chips is a legendary thing, nothing of which I knew about until reading about this lovely seaside town. Despite all the travel restrictions, noone told anyone in Whitby and the streets were busy as we drove through looking for parking along the narrow streets, one very very steep street, and near the seaside.

Magpie Cafe and Trenchers seemed to be the popular options. After parking we walked past Magpie with an unclear expectation if we could eat there. Definitely not but there was an easy option to avoid the queue and order online to pickup. So we went walkabout and then ordered later while walking down from Whitby Abbey to save time. Interestingly people in the queue all seemed quite content to wait there rather than add themselves to the virtual queue instead.

Once picking up the heavy set meal, we found a nice seat on a slightly windy pier to enjoy the beach and ocean views.

Haddock and chips £8 was a bargain. The haddock was cooked perfectly, meaty and juicy with a crisp coating top and remarkably also the bottom too. No sog on these. Chips were decent. They weren't salted and a sprinkle made them great. Large mushy peas £1.4 were chunky, coloured deep and not fluorescent. Beans £1 were average like canned. Magpie Seafood Pot £12 was good with pieces of mussels, scampi, scallop and fish, and a very thick buttery white wine sauce eaten with an excellent soft bun. 

An exceptional fish especially for the price and well worth their reputation.

Florian Poirot, Malton 04-2021

I'd given up macarons for life I thought as I'd tried so many and always been disappointed. To me they all tasted like too much sugar.

Given the reviews and my travelling company, we decided to give these a go. And wow I can say these were truly excellent. Each flavour was very discernible and the texture of crisp shell interspersed with softer chew.

I'm sure I'll be disappointed again in the future because of these.

Food 2 Remember, Malton 04-2021

A little town called Malton is known as the foodie town in Yorkshire. I've been to some of these so called towns before and often wondered how special a little place can be, especially when there are large towns/cities to compare with. And in this little foodie town there is one square called Talbot Yard which hosts an excellent patisserie (for macarons), an ice cream I didn't get to try (too early in the day I think...) and a bakery/coffee place.

The bakery only had limited items by 12pm so I went to visit this odd sounding butcher called Food 2 Remember. It isn't a memorable name at all but they had a decent reputation for pies with only a limited number of reviews. The lovely staff showed me their delightful selection of pastry behind the counter.

The scotch egg was phenomenal. Simply better than any I've tried before. An egg coated in chunky pork sausage roll-filling and a super crisp and seasoned fried coat. It was perfect. The sausage roll had obviously equally excellent filling, but the crust was only ok, flaky but could have been thicker. I have a soft spot for pies although much prefer the hot variety. A cold pork pie had chunky pork, gravy and a nice jelly filling - an excellent version too. 

I actually considered driving all the way back to Malton just to get more scotch eggs. I actually looked at the closing time to see if I could pick some up on the way back from Whitby. Sadly neither of those options were feasible, but maybe one day I'll be back here...