Quay Ingredient, Newcastle
For the record, I did not call in at Quay Ingredient just because the name is a pun. I know I have previous here, but I was in fact on the way to Baltic to see a (sadly closed today) documentary photography exhibition about 90s lesbian San Francisco, and really, really wanted to put some fortifying Hollandaise sauce into my face on the way.
Oh, golly did Quay Ingredient oblige.
As is often the case, my friend Keir said it better: “[it] makes Soho’s Breakfast Club look like a greasy spoon.” Honestly I’d just leave it as that, but I have to tell you about the things they will do to eggs benedict if you ask them to.
They will do them, in fact, in all the standard forms: eggs benedict, Florentine, Montreal, and the sexy-alarming Hebridean (black pudding). But also with - and can we all please take a moment to acknowledge and venerate this - Toulouse sausage and fried onions.
Of course I did.
The duck egg with plum Hollandaise was a close second option. The boyfriend went for the bacon and tempura avocado bagel, on which more momentarily.
So, Toulouse sausage eggs benedict (with fried onions).
A simple muffin, a well-balanced Hollandaise, perfectly poached eggs, and a slightly firm Toulouse, on the milder end of the garlic spectrum with a little salty bite. Damn does this work. The onions were fried but not caramelised, so they gave a little crunch and body, and had, I think, encountered a little garlic along the way. I was upsold hash browns because I am physiologically incapable of refusing them, and they soaked up the yolk and sauce deliciously.
The salt/herb/garlic punch of the sausage cuts through the richness of the Hollandaise, and while I’m not going to sit here and tell you it isn’t deeply, deeply excessive, it really does elevate the whole plate full. So good.
The tempura avocado and bacon bagel was a fascinating little twist. Quality bacon and, again, two perfectly poached eggs, for sure. But topped off with generous slices of ripe avocado that had been fried in a rice flour batter. This gives an amazing crispy-then-glutinous exterior to offset the smooth avocado flesh inside. It’s a brilliant way to mix some new taste and texture into an existing classic, and the only reason I may struggle to order it next time I’m there is that I really, really want to see what poached eggs and Hollandaise do to black pudding.
Yup, Quay Ingredient - get brunch there.
It has seven or so tables, a brisk turnaround, and incredibly warm service. It’s set just back from the river on the quayside, virtually under the Tyne Bridge, and it’s brilliant.
While I’m here and talking about brunch, I’ll put in a word for Wandering Duck in Darlington, too. Solid breakfast standards, good coffee, and a very nice seared tofu and avocado bagel.
You know, I used to think the food was bad in the North East. Then I stopped staying with my dad when I visit, and started picking the places to eat myself. It turns out there’s a vibrant and exciting food scene when it’s not being filtered through a crude pastiche of Robert Carrier, and an unshakable conviction that a town’s oldest hotel axiomatically must contain its best restaurant.
Expect a brief write up of Saltfish, one of Darlington’s recent openings, soon too.