Being a Monday evening hampered the search for a decent (ie. non chain) restaurant open for business. The first four choices were all closed... I continued moving down the Tripadvisor list and eventually found an Italian restaurant close to the hotel that was open.
A short drive later and I was walking through the front door to a genuinely happy greeting. The restaurant was half full. Now is that because the restaurant is good or is it because nothing else was open...
The first thing the waitress said to me was that they currently cannot serve alcohol. This is because the restaurant has just undergone a name change (from Ciao Caffe) and as such have no licence under the new name to serve alcohol. If we wanted a more substantial beverage than soft drinks, we were more than welcome to pop over the road to a store and purchase a bottle of wine or a few beers. Soft drinks were OK...
I was shown to a table in a restaurant that felt slightly rustic, but this could also be described as 'run down' chic. The atmosphere was pleasant enough with authentic traditional Italian music softly warbling in the background. My coke arrived whilst debating the merits of specials board versus a la carte menu...
I split the difference and for starters from the specials board I went for Chorizo and Beef Meatballs in Napolitano Sauce and topped with Mozzarella. For mains, I went to the menu and chose Linguini Gambretti - Prawns in Tomato Sauce with Shallot, Chilli, White Wine and Garlic.
The rustic theme was carried through into the meal with two large meatballs smothered in tomato sauce and grilled mozzarella staring up at me from the bowl. A couple of slices of fresh, warm toast nestled up to the bowl and just screamed 'dunk me!'. This I duly did and found the starter to be very pleasant. The tomato sauce was richly tomato'ed and lightly seasoned and was lovely on the bread. Add a lump of creamy melted mozzarella and I had a mini pizza! The meatballs were surprisingly light and the paprika flavour of the chorizo permeated the beef very well. I really did like this starter with its quite simple homemade personality.
Main course arrived and once again 'rustic' jumped out at me... or was it lack of presentation skill? It was blatantly obvious that the pasta had been dumped into the very large bowl directly from the pan. All of the king prawns, the little, curled, pink hero's of this dish, were hidden under the pasta ashamed maybe at the lack of respect from the chef. I had to rearrange the dish to take the photo. Having said that, the taste was very good. The linguini pasta was beautifully cooked and had a nice bite. The tomato sauce was slightly sweet with a tingle of heat from the green chilli. The prawns were tasty and had a that lovely resistance to the first bite in my mouth. The were little shrimps included in the dish and I almost found these obsolete as the king prawns were enough. Also, the portion was huge and I didn't finish all of it.
Dessert was spectacularly disappointing... My first choice of Tiramisu was not available and neither was my fallback Pannacotta. I just couldn't bring myself to order an American Cheesecake, a French Creme Brulee or a French Chocolate Torte in a restaurant so blatantly offering honest, traditional homemade Italian food. I eventually settled on a special Chocolate Souffle (French!) with Toffee Sauce. What arrived just deflated me... Two souffle's plonked on a plate surrounded by spray can cream and bottled toffee sauce. Bleh... Huge portion again that was really not needed. The souffle was honestly a poor, overcooked version of a chocolate fondant. Not great, however the rich chocolate flavour was good and the light hand with the sugar was appreciated after the large meal. It was heavy, over cooked and over eggy though (a hint towards souffle?) and I barely finished one of the 'souffles' and didn't touch the cream. The sauce was as expected from a bought bottled sauce...
Sigh... a good (not great) traditional meal ruined by a disastrous dessert... The service was however pretty good and friendly and the prices were very reasonable, especially when considering the portion sizes. The chefs do need a lesson or two in presentation and passion, though.
Would I go back? Probably not as I have found better restaurants in Hull and the surrounds.
