Hull and Cafe Bar Culture…Go For Coffee

Posted on May 21, 2013 by Calvin Watts

Mccoys in Hull city centre. Great coffee. Smashing cheesboard.

Mccoys in Hull city centre. Great coffee. Smashing cheeseboard.

Living down Newland Avenue, I see new cafés, restaurants, bars, café bars and resta-bars open every week it seems. Preceding this, I get letters through my letter box from various local groups, and even councillors, telling me and my neighbours how awful it is that they’re opening a new establishment when they could very well put a shop there.

I agree with them that there are many cafés, bars etc down Newland Avenue, but I don’t think it’s a bad thing. Opening a new café does not destroy a community, far from it. And opening a new bar, especially the niche market bars that Newland Avenue attracts, does not mean that the streets will be full of alcoholics, our gardens filled with empty kebab wrappers, and our cars covered with snakebite-and-black-covered vomit. Continue reading →

Easy and Cheap Food in a Can…One Final Tin

Posted on May 20, 2013 by Calvin Watts

Tin Easy and cheap food in a can? How common, you say. I’ve already written an article about tinned food. Looking back through it, there are a few things that I’d like to add to it. Canned food isn’t a bad guy of national health and there’s nothing wrong with convenience. Using food from a can, you can knock together a quick, cheap and satisfying meal in minutes.

The original article was more of a list article of tinned and canned products that I kept in my cupboard, with only a few suggestions of what to do with them. So in this article, I’ll give a few suggestions of how you can use cans to make something a bit different…and maybe save a few quid. Continue reading →

Is Hull a Nice Place to Live?

Posted on May 17, 2013 by Calvin Watts

This is quite a blunt question for such a multi-faceted issue.

Already, some of you will be thinking ‘in what respect?’, ‘define nice’, ‘what a bland question’, ‘where is this guy’s picture, he sounds good looking?’, ‘if he says anything about Bransholme I’ll track him down and do him in.’ (Just for the record, I’m originally from Bransholme, so anything nasty I ever say will be a joke or the truth.)

So what I did instead was type this very question into Google. And then I picked some random quotes from the pages Google supplied. Googlism.

The first page was StudentRoom. And in this forum Hull University students past, present and future give their opinions on Hull. I was a student not so long ago, and I remember the pressures of exams and essays, so please forgive any spelling mistakes, I left them in for authenticity (I also gave them made up names because I don’t have children and I’ve never named anything): Continue reading →

Le Crepier Papin: A Review

Posted on May 15, 2013 by Calvin Watts

This review will sound biased and gushing, but it’s because I’ve got so many great memories of Le Crepier Papin.

I went the first month it opened. My friend and I had enjoyed a very boozy day around Beverley and, back on Newland Avenue, we were looking for something to eat. There was some talk of a takeaway or actually cooking something, and then we saw the lights were on in Le Crepier Papin. I’d heard you could take your own alcohol, so that’s what we did. I fell in love the second I walked in. The door didn’t quite work, the tables didn’t match the chairs, the chairs didn’t match each other, there was some French rap playing and there was fuss and activity in the kitchen, and the smell of onions cooking in wine. Continue reading →

Start the Day Like a Posh Horse…Porridge with Cinnamon, Coffee and Chocolate

Posted on May 14, 2013 by Calvin Watts

Porridge is a great way to start the day. I’ve already given this recipe on the blog. I’ve updated the recipe slightly and added a proper picture. And I still eat this most mornings. It’s definitely a different way to eat your porridge.

It’s a bit more fiddly than the standard cook-it-until-it-looks-like-wallpaper-paste recipe, but it’s still easy, and good value and nutritious. In the last article I touched upon how healthy porridge oats are. Cinnamon and coffee have their benefits too. And dark chocolate is increasingly regarded as a superfood. We ought not worry about things like this so early in the morning. All we need to know is that porridge oats are satisfying and tasty. Continue reading →

Top of the Pots: Small Skinny Review of the Year

Posted on May 9, 2013 by Calvin Watts

EatingHull has grown a lot over the last few months, so I thought I’d do a mini catch up. Herein lies my favourite ten articles as a sort of crash course for the blog. Some of the early ones have only had four or five views. Some of the later ones have had hundreds. Some of the later ones have only had tens of readers. It could be down to poor quality, not making them interesting enough, and the fact that I’m not very good at promoting them. I tend to write the articles very late and put the links up at the same time as the post.

When the blog was picked up properly by Google, I began getting visitors from all over the world. Nothing spectacular, but it’s nice to see people discover EatingHull and click through a few links and spend some time looking around. At one point, there were twice as many visitors in London as there were in Hull. Happy as I am that people outside of Hull enjoy the blog, I write it to promote Hull and all of its hidden gems. Sometimes I write it just to blow of some steam.

These are my ten favourite articles, in no particular order: Continue reading →

Umami Soup with Miso, Aduki Beans, Spring Onions and Mushroom

Posted on May 8, 2013 by Calvin Watts

I think I’m turning Japanese, I really think so.

I’ve always been a big fan of Japanese culture. Their music and fashion are Western but alien at the same time. Almost uncanny. I like the way they do business and where would we be without their technologies? Then there’s the films, the architecture and Pokémon. More important than all of that stuff is the food. It’s really good. They’re a healthy bunch. Continue reading →

Homelessness in Hull

Posted on April 27, 2013 by Calvin Watts

Doorstep believes that a home does not just consist of a building. Any accommodation should be of a reasonable standard. It must also be a place where someone can conduct ALL the many aspects of living, in their own space, in security of tenure, and free from threat or harassment, physical or otherwise. It should be a place that is conducive to their well being and should satisfy their physical and emotional needs, at a price they can afford. Anyone lacking some or all of the above is, by our definition, HOMELESS. Doorstep’s Definition of ‘Homeless’.

I don’t know anything about homelessness. I’ve never been homeless.

Growing up, it didn’t seem like a Hull issue. When I heard the word ‘homeless’ I always imagined young people in London, covered with cardboard boxes, asking passers by for spare change. Yes, there were homeless people in the city centre, particularly down Whitefriargate, but they didn’t seem homeless to me. They were buskers, or beggars. They had personalities. They had friends. As a child, it didn’t seem like a struggle for them at all.

And when I moved to Newland Avenue, another area in Hull with a homelessness problem, what I saw didn’t really change my attitudes. They all seemed pretty happy. There’s one guy in particular (we’ll call him John) who gave me the most amazing pitch about needing some money to go to town to see about getting a flat. I gave him some money. I’d like to say I knew it was a line, but I didn’t. He managed to get me to part with money through sheer charm and personality. Continue reading →

Nofretete: Review for the New Guys on Newland Avenue

Posted on April 23, 2013 by Calvin Watts

I borrowed this from their facebook page. Silly me forgot the camera!

I have to start this post with some bad news. Antico Forno on Cottingham Road seems to have closed. I wouldn’t say it was my favourite restaurant, but it ranked very high. I emptied my bank there a few times due to their calves liver and ten-pound-a-pop glasses of brandy. They had homemade bread, fresh pasta, a great alcohol selection and desserts that consisted of more than a slice of this or a scoop of that. It seems that they had everything, except for customers.

But onwards and upwards. It was my birthday yesterday and I had a delightful lunch at Nofretete. I’ve walked past a few times and always wanted to go in. And yesterday I finally got round to it.

I went with some very good friends. For confidentiality reasons, we’ll call these friends Tom, Cheryl and Simon. Continue reading →

Eating The Godfather (Part 1): Article and Godfather Tomato Sauce Recipe

Posted on April 21, 2013 by Calvin Watts

Eating to abscess.

‘Leave the gun. Take the cannoli.’

Food in The Godfather
It starts with a wedding feast. And at that feast, Michael begins to tell Kay about the family business over a plate of lasagne.

As you’d expect, there’s a lot of food in The Godfather.

That’s why I’ve divided this article into three parts. Each part focuses on the first film (my favourite) and not one part for each film, although I will make reference to the other two films where appropriate. As the family modernises in the Godfather triology (or the Father, Son and Heep of sh*t, as I’ve come to know them), food becomes less important. Continue reading →