Oldfields, Dean Street, Newcastle upon Tyne

One of the great things about spending your life with someone you love is being comfortable spending a weekend in private one-to-one company at home - and having a great time. In this case, Friday night with Chinese food and Ocean's Eleven, Saturday night toad in the hole (chilli and coriander sausages from Martin's butchers in Morpeth highly recommended), Scrabble and dominoes. Rock 'n' roll. But all good things must come to an end, so Sunday evening finds us researching internet menus to find something good to eat which doesn't involve washing up. We were feeling flush from all the money we'd saved not bingeing on vodka Red Bull in the Bigg Market over the weekend: we felt we deserved a treat. The usual suspects were researched: Hotel du Vin, booked up until 9pm (not bad for a Sunday night in January, the discount menu must be working), Six (discount menu only Monday to Thursday, and who wants to pay full price for a menu available two for one the next day?), Pan Haggerty (answerphone), and finally Oldfields - open, available, we're going.

Bus, Popolo Orange Martini, wander down Dean street, we're in. Three tables occupied, in what is a rather fetching space reminiscent of a Victorian baths. The menu already researched, nothing comes as a surprise (yet), and we order a peachy Sauv Blanc.

Wild duck and beet slaw salad (£5.75)

The photo's not great because of the appropriately dim lighting. However, you'll note there's nothing here that remotely resembles what you or I might consider to be "wild duck". I confess I was imagining some slices of cold, rare duck breast, with the obligatory edge of pale, creamy fat. In contrast, this duck has been deconstructed into millions of tiny shards; if you think of the skin of Chinese crispy duck shredded to within an inch of its life, you might be in with a chance of imagining something akin to how the duck is presented. Underneath, a coleslaw made with pink beet, tangy and rich, mixed with a few leaves. The noble duck, reduced to a salad topping!

I've known for years that when I buy a new record, it can take a few listens to really discover whether I like it or not. Often, those I like the least on first listen become my favourites after an appropriate period of contemplation. Just as often, those that appeal straight away lack the depth to become true favourites. A truly rich, novel experience can only reveal itself after the fact. With that in mind, I say with utter confidence - don't fuck with the duck. It was savoury, crispy and novel, and did nothing to assuage my disappointment not to be served with what I thought I had ordered.

Cullen skink, poached egg (£6.00)

A very delicate soup with soft, mildly smoked haddock, topped with a competently poached egg was received with muted applause by the Good Lady. Nothing amiss here, and the fish hasn't been shredded to a crisp, thank goodness; even so, I am told that a little more of the heartiness of the traditional skink wouldn't have gone amiss. Neither would a spoon, which had to be requested.

Our server, a lanky teenager so wet behind the ears as to drip his way around the tables, had all the charisma of a wet weekend, and had clearly skipped "dressing yourself" period at waiter school, if the dangling mass of shirt escaping down his derriere was anything to go by. I know the art of charm is rarely mastered, but if I was running a restaurant this side of McDonald's, the two attributes I would insist my staff displayed are the ability to carry things without dropping them, and a personality. By the way he placed my plate down, knocking over what was originally a little tower of the aforementioned duck shards, it was clear he was struggling with both. His associate who served the wine had doused herself in Eau de Regal Kingsize before shift, but had mercifully learned to tuck her shirt in.

Pork belly, peas, celeriac mash and pear cider gravy (£15.00)

My desert island meat is a yielding, tender piece of expertly cooked pork belly - and that's exactly what I got. A generously sized portion, everything was well executed, and the ingredients were without fault, although I yearned for more accompaniment to withstand the onslaught of masses of delicate pig. I had but one question: who's got the skin? Like a pianist blessed with the ability to perform a flawless Rach 3, but presented with a piano with all the black keys mysteriously removed by the kitchen, a piece of belly pork is an unfulfilled promise without a crispy piece of salty skin atop.

On further investigation, I was informed the skin isn't simply discarded, or kept as chef's treat, or hawked as scratchings from the kitchen door, but is served as an accompaniment to the pie which can be had as a starter (stop that man! He's got my skin!). I confess to feeling a little cheated here - the skin isn't mentioned on the menu as an accompaniment to the pie, so there would be nothing lost if it weren't included. But not including it with the belly pork, with which one has every right to expect it, can cause nothing but heartache. The fat of the pork was nicely browned with a honey glaze: tasty, but not the same.

Roast chicken, venison stuffing, leek pudding and greens (£16.00)

The Good Lady's observation that the streak of stuffing inside the chicken was steaming hot, whilst the rest was merely warm, had me thinking bad thoughts about the sort of cooking method which could zap heat directly into the centre of something, but I'll leave you to ponder that for yourselves. I am reliably informed that everything here was very well executed, the gamy venison counterpointing the sweeter chicken, the leek pudding dense, crispy and aromatic, everything coated in a slosh of savoury gravy. It looked a bit dry to me, but no murmurs from across the table.

I have no complaints about the competence of Oldfields' kitchen. I do take issue with the head chef for choosing to fiddle with the dishes but not caring to mention it on the menu. I am surprised that, given the carefully-constructed image of a British eating house, serving simply-prepared ingredients, that Oldfields have chosen a modern rather than traditional interpretation of their dishes. The duck really doesn't work, and the skink needs beefing up a bit. And as for my skinned pig... However, it's the overall package that doesn't really convince. The venue is rather impressive, but the idiosyncratic menu, and the indifferent service, are unfortunate distractions.

Maybe it's a Sunday thing, but if you're going to open, there's no excuse for graveyard shift standards, unless you're selling at graveyard shift prices. They were lucky to get any money at all: the credit card machine was out of action, which was only mentioned after the meal, rather than before, as it should have been. This had some diners literally scrabbling in pockets for small change to make up the bill in cash, and others actually giving their credit card details on small slips of paper to be charged later! No thanks, I never give my card number to strange women. An unfortunate trip to the cashpoint later, we were paid and out. Ignoring the 12.5% added to the bill, we paid £70. They were lucky to get any tip at all frankly, and if I'd paid by card I would have paid the minimum, so maybe there's a method there somewhere.

I'll probably be back at some point. I have confidence Oldfields can cook up a nice plate of food, and will hopefully brush up on their presentation skills. On the other hand, maybe I can ask Pan Haggerty to open next Sunday...

Service 2/5

Food 3/5

Atmosphere 3/5

Value 3/5

oldfields, G Floor,

Milburn House, Dean Street,

Newcastle upon Tyne. NE1 1LF

call: 0191 212 1210

e-mail: newcastle@oldfieldsrestaurants.com

Six, Baltic, Gateshead Quays

The Good Lady was treated to a business Christmas lunch at the the Baltic art warehouse on Gateshead quayside. Named after its sixth floor location, Six has a reputation for modern cooking and stunning views. And speaking of views...

Smoked duck and citrus salad

Soft, smoky, cold duck breast with a well-proportioned edge of delicious fat. Salad of watercress and pink grapefruit, a good palate-cleansing contrast to the rich duck. Elegant presentation. Ate it all.

Sea bass with crayfish and lemon risotto

Two fillets of sea bass, with crisped skin and softly cooked flesh. Risotto straightforward, rice well cooked, underseasoned. A little more imagination with herbs would have helped.

Double chocolate mousse

The mousse was just milk chocolate mousse. I think a good mousse should be either deeply intense dark chocolate or have something like booze or chilli in it to liven things up a bit. But this reminded me of a Cadbury's supermarket chocolate pot. There was too much, and I was bored by the time I was two thirds through. A smaller, more intense experience would have been better. Presentation in a martini glass and berry garnish was nice, but a bit too fur coat for my taste.

Overall expectations are high. The view is fantastic (especially from the ladies' toilets), the food pleasant enough but not exceptional in its price range. Christmassy and nicely busy on the day we visited.

Service lovely and with personality, she got involved and made no mistakes. Maitre d' not as friendly and we were kept waiting to be seated. About £35 per head with one glass of wine.

Service 4/5

Food 3/5

Atmosphere 4/5

Value 3/5

SIX Restaurant
BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art, Gateshead Quays, NE8 3BA

0191 4404948
eat@sixbaltic.com

Sagawa, 2-10 Cross Street, Newcastle upon Tyne

The no-frills Sagawa interior

Wintry, icy nights often make one crave "comfort" food. (Why the quotes? Because all food gives me comfort. And not just in the winter.) Bangers 'n' mash with loads of onion gravy, a steaming bowl of stew, that sort of thing. Strange then, that the effort of negotiating snowy streets in search of some last-minute Christmas gifts should put me in the mood for a nice bit of sushi. Maybe a rice craving; probably my subconscious telling me that snow is only useful when there's a side of something freshly-caught glistening rawly atop it. I can't be sure. Anyway, sushi it had to be.

Our (for I was joined by the Good Lady this evening) usual haunt for a fistful of raw fish is St Sushi, so after a swift and well-deserved half at the humidly noisy Tilleys we headed across the road to St Sushi... and got as far as the door. Where's the conveyor? What about the chefs skilfully slicing sides of salmon at the counter in the middle of the room? All gone, and for no good reason as far as I can tell: the place was empty. So in a fit of pique, and certainly not based on any sensible food-related evidence, we decided not to reward St Sushi with our custom.

(How did it get its name? Does it mean Saint Sushi, in honour of the made-up Saint of Fish 'n' Rice, or Sushi Street, our preferred choice, but would mean the words are back-to-front. Answers on a postcard please!)

The Good Lady, who seems to keep effortlessly abreast of the comings and goings of Newcastle restaurants, was aware of a Japanese place which opened this year on the former site of a credit-crunched retro clothing shop. And so it was we ended up in Sagawa.

The fact that Sagawa also offers karaoke could be in no doubt from the atrocious racket coming from upstairs. To be fair, it could have been a faithful rendition of a song with no conventional tonal structure, rhythm or discernible lyrics. But I doubt it. Nevertheless, the karaoke facilities (upon later inspection) do appear comprehensively equipped, allowing both singing and eating in the same room. Indeed at the same time, if tonight was anything to go by.

With either single servings or platters of sushi to choose from, and noodles and rices aplenty, the menu is well-apportioned and varied. We chose from as many parts of the menu as we thought we could manage.

Sagawa's shallow-fried chicken dumplings, £3.50

Chicken dumplings are offered either shallow- or deep-fried. With the memory of my guilt-inducing deep fried spare ribs still fresh in my mind, I suggested shallow-fried. This meant the folded crescents of pastry were crispy on each side with adjoining soft chewyness. The garlicky filling of heavily-seasoned chicken and vegetables was a juicy contrast to the crispness of the shell. A fine start.

Sagawa vegetable tempura, £6.00

Vegetable tempura (my non-batter diet lasted about ten minutes) was all crispness out and steaming goodness in. I love not knowing exactly what I'm eating if I find it delicious, and this tempura delivered the goods here. There was a sweet potato chunk and a mushroom, but beyond that I was stumped - clump of bendy stamens tied with seaweed paper anyone? A good fist at a light tempura batter too.

What is that?

I've no idea what the tiny dish of accompanying fruit was, but I can tell you what it was like to eat. A yellow disc with firm, softly yielding flesh had a hint of sweetness to offset its somewhat bitter tang. My best guess is some sort of radish. And the red clump was as sour as a spinster's cranberry. The Good Lady was having none of it.

As we waited for mains there was time to linger over our draught Asahi (oh yes! £3.80/pint) and consider the décor, such as it was. Sagawa have acquired a large retail space and painted it nice bright colours and pretty much left it at that. Some Japanese-flavoured chintz would help disguise the basic lack of charisma of the space; but that might miss the point. Having never visited Japan I can't be sure, but I wouldn't be at all surprised if the majority of provincial Japanese restaurants find themselves located underneath office blocks and modern residential developments, stunted at birth by the function-over-form modernist aesthetic. I'll have to see Japan myself to find out for sure, but I have a suspicion that Sagawa have authentically recreated the bleak ambience of the modern Japanese eating house. Perhaps the meagre drape in place of a proper front door was pushing authenticity little too far considering the chill night air. We kept our jackets on until the food arrived.

Sagawa's seaweed soup rice, £4.50
Sticky rice, moist and soupy underneath, seasoned with sesame, and topped with seaweed paper and a chunk of wasabi provided the "comfort" part of the meal. Hot, filling, and no doubt nutritious, but underflavoured and forgettable. It's unclear from the menu whether the soup rices are standalone mains or not: I say not.

Sagawa's Rainbow Rolls, £9.80

At last: that which we came for, and which would say the most about the quality and character of the chef. One long roll sliced into eight morsels, alternating salmon, tuna, octopus, prawn and eel. I find it difficult to eat sushi with anything more complicated than fingers: the seaweed paper objects to being bitten through; the chopsticks fight a losing battle trying to prevent the whole roll being consumed as one. I wrestled with four delicious examples of the sushi chef's art. The fish as fresh as is reasonable to expect for a coastal city (ie very): no smell at all, delicately flavoured and yieldingly soft. An Everest of wasabi overwhelmed a few stingy rumples of pickled ginger.

So. Go for draught Asahi, great dumplings and perfectly competent sushi. Don't go for the draught, weird veg and soup rices. And if you sing karaoke, please try a bit harder. We're trying to eat down here.

Service 3/5
Food 3/5
Atmosphere 2/5
Value 3/5

2-10 Cross Street, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE1 4XE

0191 261 8323

Hei Hei, 46 Dean Street, Newcastle upon Tyne

I've been looking forward to starting this blog for a while. I've been looking forward to visiting this restaurant again for a while. What a pleasing coincidence to be able to combine the two events! The last time I ate here was over a couple of years ago, so I wasn't even sure that, in these rocky economic times, it even still existed. I was very pleased to find the red neon glowing outside Hei Hei - a welcome respite from the cold, snowy black Friday evening.

With the Good Lady being otherwise engaged on work-related shenanigans, it was just me, myself and a copy of the Spectator for company. After browsing the Hei Hei menu, there were no complaints from either of us.

Hei Hei's salt and pepper spare ribs, £5.50
In addition to a standard food and wine menu, Hei Hei offer what they call an authentic dishes menu, which features all manner of unusual ingredients such as pork tendon and tripe. I decided to start with the standard menu and proceed from there. Salt and pepper spare ribs are commonplace in Chinese food, but Hei Hei really know how to make the modest rib an unforgettable experience. Deep fried in the lightest tempura batter, the meat inside is kept moist and tender, the batter providing a satisfyingly crunchy counterpoint. The dietary implications of deep frying an already fatty meat is a concern, but the mouthwatering, unctuous result is delicious. Served with stir fried veg, drizzled with a thin chilli infused dressing and finished with chopped fresh chillies, there is enough sharpness and spice to the accompaniment to cut through the richness of the meat. A triumph - truly the best spare ribs I've ever eaten.

Hei Hei's belly pork salad with sesame dressing, £6

And so to the "authentic" menu. I'm a sucker for belly pork, so I couldn't resist this. Having salad in the name helped the conscience after the naughtyness of the ribs. Slices of belly pork both soft and crispy, about the same thickness of good butcher's bacon, tossed with cucumber, coriander and delicate spring onions, glistening with a savoury sesame dressing - delicious. A few splashes of dressing ended up on The Spectator's Notes; I was enjoying myself too much to notice. Truly a clean, lightweight joy of a salad, proving Chinese food can deliver flavour and delicacy without the heaviness too often associated with the cuisine.

The house Australian white held its own with the complex and powerful flavours of the food: creamy strawberry flavours with a dry backbone made a superb compliment. I doubt the alternative house French would have held up as well.

Hei Hei's Sichuan chicken on the bone, egg fried rice, £12

I knew I wasn't finished; I wanted to try a proper main. Worrying how much room I had left, I was slightly daunted by the large bowl of egg fried rice and the huge wok of steaming chicken laid before me. Oh well, once more into the breach my friends... Quite a voyage of discovery this one: the bite-sized chicken pieces having small bones in each piece meant a somewhat undignified bone management procedure for every mouthful. Speccie didn't have any complaints, however. A discreet dining companion, she. Chock full of the distinctive Sichuan peppercorn, my mouth was growing more tingly by the second, aided by the heat from the chilli oil sauce. Peppers, onions, and unusually, potatoes, bulked out the dish, of which there was plenty. One for the enthusiasts this one, but nonetheless delicious, if a little tricky to eat with chopsticks.

So there we are - satiated to the fullest extent, hugely pleased that Hei Hei is still doing its thing to such a hei standard. Service was efficient yet discreet, the highest accolade for service in my book, and pretty good value at just over £30 for three courses with a half bottle. Highly recommended.

Service 4/5

Food 4/5

Atmosphere 4/5

Value 4/5

46 Dean Street, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE1 1PG

0191 222 1882

07779 803 309

(c) The Hungry Magpie 2009.

Introducing The Hungry Magpie

Hi there.

I've been meaning to do this for some time. "This" being a record of the food I eat that I pay someone else to prepare. I love reading other people's blogs on food, and they've been really useful to me when deciding where to eat in a strange town. So I'm going to have a go myself, in the hope that I'll be able to steer people towards some good places to eat, and have them avoid the inevitable let-downs.

Being based in Newcastle upon Tyne, plenty of the source material will come from around North East England, an area with a proud culinary heritage. Speaking of which, I'm hoping to work my way through the Gregg's pasty menu. So keep in touch for that gastronomic delight.

Anyway, thanks for looking and I hope I inspire you to good eating.

The Hungry Magpie