I hate being responsible for finding somewhere to eat in an unfamiliar place but it was down to me to find a spot for lunch for four in Hull.
I started with Silver Travel Advisor, but it appears no one’s ever eaten in Hull, or certainly never posted a review! Having Googled, and read the Hull Daily Mail’s view of the top 20 restaurants, I settled for number 1 – “Leonardo’s Bistro Bar”:http://www.leonardoshull.co.uk/ – With five-star reviews flooding in for this ever-popular bistro, Leonardo’s takes the crown for Hull’s most popular restaurant. And there is no surprise, with a wide range of delicious options at reasonable prices.
The restaurant is centrally located on Princes Dock Street. This is a pedestrianised, cobbled street which turned out to have a number of other eating options – all with their restaurants on one side of the street, and outdoor seating overlooking the Princes Quay shopping mall across it. With the Hull Marina at the bottom, it’s a very pleasant area especially on a sunny day.
The “menu”:http://www.leonardoshull.co.uk/ menu is fairly short but having looked at it beforehand on line, and knowing my co-lunchers well, I could virtually predict what everyone would have.
My brother and I settled for fish goujons in beer batter with salad and tartare sauce. OMG! when they arrived they were huge: three strips of fish which must have been six inches long in fabulous crisp batter piled onto a large salad. I was in heaven especially on learning that as we were in the north, we were in haddock land: it wasn’t until I moved to London that I realised southerners think haddock is inferior, whereas we northerners know better. The prawn and crayfish cocktail was served in a salad bowl and similarly large but at least light. Possibly the least successful starter was deep-fried mozzarella which my sister in law professed to be a little chewy and heavy but there again, she’s used to deep-fried camembert.
Three of us could have ordered for each other as we all had our regular favourites: lasagne (me), fish (sister in law) and gammon for my brother who was most impressed that he could have both a fried egg and pineapple. With his soft-southern appetite, Roy wimped out with a ham and chorizo wrap. Fortunately, mine only came with salad and garlic bread with all the others having chips, by which I mean huge wedges of potato, some up to 4 inches long. There was only one totally clean plate, not because the food wasn’t good but because of portion size. No one could face a pudding.
With a bottle of wine our bill came to £67: not bad considering none of us ate for the rest of the day!
