Retrospective: Newcastle.
Day One: Restaurant Mason.
The radio delivers into the car a hilarious phone call between footballers ripping each other and pretending to be subtle as I eye the traffic. We have no idea where Ryde Road is, but this accident has had everything backed up for almost an hour now. The sky is starting to cloud over and promise rain, which is a relief - the day is thick and humid.
When we finally hit the freeway, it's already 3pm. Our reservation is at half-past six and I'm a little concerned about the time we're making. There's little to look at so we mumble half-lyrics to the CD I've patched together and talk about geography, games and rugby. Imagine Dragons comes on. I see the rhythm of the bass making its way into his head. A couple more plays should have him hooked.
Newcastle is what I imagine Sydney looked like back in the eighties. Houses are small, but situated on large blocks of land with no sign of renovation, a squeaky Hills out the back, a verandah out front and an old rocking-chair. No loud Asian neighbours blocking up the entire street with their family cars, no obnoxious rebuildings from perimeter to perimeter of "modern" design, boasting whatever money they've managed to milk out of the government after having seven children. There's a pub on the corner. A town centre. A guy mowing the lawn in his shorts. I feel like I'm viewing everything through a filter of sepia.
So I remove my sunglasses.
Jack points out the stadium where we'll be attending a football match on Monday night. I start getting excited: We're on holiday again.
The Crowne Plaza Hotel sits right on the shoreline, looking over the water and the industrail shipping yards on the other side. We pull up to the entrance and check in. A valet drives the Mitsubishi away and I suddenly remember that I've left my shoes in the boot. One of the staff offer to run down to the car and get it for me, but it's tucked away in an unidentifiable location in a non-descript case. I ask to get them myself. I apologise repeatedly to the blond man who leads us down into the carpark, who insists it's not a problem as he rolls the door open.
I have to fight the urge to gawk. Every single car parked there fits either under the category of sport or luxury. I think of the dry grass littering the floor of Jack's worn, red Mitsubishi and wonder how much money would go to waste if a fire were to break out here. It smells of rotting vegetable, so I scamper to the car, pull out the little blue Pfizer bag and scramble back up the sloped entry, thanking the blond guy just as much as I'd apologised.
Upstairs at last, we dump our crap, flop into bed and flip through TV channels. We sit slack-jawed through a preview of Man With the Iron Fists and Jack gets thoroughly excited at the prospect of cable, settles on a sports channel, but gets bored and eventually finds a music countdown of the best party anthems of the eighties.
I take a shower. The bathroom is nice enough, but the presence of a flip-up seat for the shower makes me think uncomfortably of old-people-ass. At some point, I notice that the bathroom has a window. I pull up the blinds and wave at a slightly bemused Jack still sitting in bed and watching the Safety Dance.
After changing, I draw back the curtains and admire our view. It's five or so and a warm day, despite being late March. People are still out, walking along the shoreline. I try to make out the structures on the otherside of the water, and wonder why I never realised that Newcastle was a beach town. The blast of a ship's horn makes me jump.
We are presented with a choice: walk or drive. The restaurant doesn't appear to be too far away from the hotel, and for some reason, Jack suspects that there might be a problem with finding parking, so we decide to walk.
Fifteen minutes and a lot of pain from my tall black heels later, we both realise that Saturday after five o'clock in Newcastle is dead.
Nothing is open, and everything feels oddly nostalgic. There's something of Liverpool's old shopping-strip plazas that sits on the periphery of my mind as I walk past all the shuttered stores, marvelling at the sheer lack of human presence. I'm starting to wonder if the restaurant is even on this street at all, when we see the small signs up for Mason and its cafe. I'm irritated and tired by this point. The walk was long and it had rained and both factors had made me sweaty and tired. I was also ravenous, and I'm a shit-mad bitch when I'm hungry.
The restaurant looks a lot smaller than the photos taken on the website. They seem to be aware of this themselves - there is a gigantic mirror hung on the back wall. I feel acutely over-dressed, but I relax a little when one of the waitresses compliments me on how I look. We're seated by the door, with a direct view of the kitchen service window and inform a waiter that we're here for the tasting menu.
We're shortly presented with the Amuse. I've never throught of lamb as a meat with the possibility of incorporating the texture of crispness, but this was what we had. A slice of perfectly cooked lamb, spiced and seared so that the fat on one side had caramalised to a nice crunch. I all but inhaled it, and was instantly hungry for more.
Our next dish was a salad. Jack, being the red-blooded male that he is, detests the sheer notion of vegetarian cusine, and I wondered how he would receive it. The plate is a matte-glazed earthy brown, holding a selection of bright green peas and beans which form a flat bed on which sits a tiny tempura zucchini with its golden flower. Everything is dressed in something light and buttery with a crumb and three fat chucks of torn mozzerella.
I hate peas. I really do. They taste grey. I can't seem to find a place for them anywhere on my palate and I've never really enjoyed them in any cooking. I felt like I was eating peas again for the first time in my life. I glance over at my dining companion and notice that he's particularly enjoying the zucchini. I've only become recently acquainted with the idea of consuming flowers, and none of my experiences doing so have been negative, but this one takes the cake. The zucchini flower is crisp and sweet. I devour it and jealously stare at the one on Jack's plate still waiting to be eaten.
The next dish is an artwork of symmetry. Two giant scallops sit at corresponding corners of the plate, accompanied by fat rolls of pumpkin gnocci and a puff of foamy emulsion. There is crumb and sauce, and according to our very friendly waiter, something or everything is Moroccan. Jack cuts into a scallop and decides that Asians are doing seafood entirely wrong. He blames this on his dislike of seafood. I cannot describe this dish as anything but purely delicious: spicy and sweet and completely exotic to anything I have ever eaten.
Our waiter talks a lot. It's warm, inviting conversation, but the fact that I have to smile and think of something to say in return is too much like work to me.
Fish is next. The menu is edited according to market availability, and today, it's one of my favourites: barramundi. The dish is probably the closest we're getting to Asian food this weekend. It's good, but unremarkable. There's a lot of crispy fried onions and an vaguely interesting sauce, but the imitation of favour is too good - I feel like I've eaten this somewhere for a fraction of the price before.
Garlic is the name of our meat dish. Wagyu seems to be the trend for all meat dishes everywhere that has a name for itself, so that wasn't particularly special, but the garlic sauce was the standout.
By this point, I'm quite full, and I'm grateful that they spend a particularly long time preparing dessert. Oddly enough, I can recall the first dessert, but not the second one, as the lack of sleep, long journey and sheer burden of digestion was starting to get to me. There are candied apricots, a nut crumb and pistachio icecream, and then chocolate and raspberry sorbet. I'm full. Satisfied.
We totter back to the hotel at only half the pace we took to the restaurant, sleepy and content. Newcastle's night life seems to exist in tiny, tiny pockets at the edge of the water, populated with bored, barely of age teenagers and young couples with boredom gnawing at their ankles and nothing better to do. We pass a fish and chip stand that makes my appetite wake up despite our huge dinner and take a moment to just stand and stare at the water, glad that today was only the first day of our trip.
The radio delivers into the car a hilarious phone call between footballers ripping each other and pretending to be subtle as I eye the traffic. We have no idea where Ryde Road is, but this accident has had everything backed up for almost an hour now. The sky is starting to cloud over and promise rain, which is a relief - the day is thick and humid.
When we finally hit the freeway, it's already 3pm. Our reservation is at half-past six and I'm a little concerned about the time we're making. There's little to look at so we mumble half-lyrics to the CD I've patched together and talk about geography, games and rugby. Imagine Dragons comes on. I see the rhythm of the bass making its way into his head. A couple more plays should have him hooked.
Newcastle is what I imagine Sydney looked like back in the eighties. Houses are small, but situated on large blocks of land with no sign of renovation, a squeaky Hills out the back, a verandah out front and an old rocking-chair. No loud Asian neighbours blocking up the entire street with their family cars, no obnoxious rebuildings from perimeter to perimeter of "modern" design, boasting whatever money they've managed to milk out of the government after having seven children. There's a pub on the corner. A town centre. A guy mowing the lawn in his shorts. I feel like I'm viewing everything through a filter of sepia.
So I remove my sunglasses.
Jack points out the stadium where we'll be attending a football match on Monday night. I start getting excited: We're on holiday again.
The Crowne Plaza Hotel sits right on the shoreline, looking over the water and the industrail shipping yards on the other side. We pull up to the entrance and check in. A valet drives the Mitsubishi away and I suddenly remember that I've left my shoes in the boot. One of the staff offer to run down to the car and get it for me, but it's tucked away in an unidentifiable location in a non-descript case. I ask to get them myself. I apologise repeatedly to the blond man who leads us down into the carpark, who insists it's not a problem as he rolls the door open.
I have to fight the urge to gawk. Every single car parked there fits either under the category of sport or luxury. I think of the dry grass littering the floor of Jack's worn, red Mitsubishi and wonder how much money would go to waste if a fire were to break out here. It smells of rotting vegetable, so I scamper to the car, pull out the little blue Pfizer bag and scramble back up the sloped entry, thanking the blond guy just as much as I'd apologised.
Upstairs at last, we dump our crap, flop into bed and flip through TV channels. We sit slack-jawed through a preview of Man With the Iron Fists and Jack gets thoroughly excited at the prospect of cable, settles on a sports channel, but gets bored and eventually finds a music countdown of the best party anthems of the eighties.
I take a shower. The bathroom is nice enough, but the presence of a flip-up seat for the shower makes me think uncomfortably of old-people-ass. At some point, I notice that the bathroom has a window. I pull up the blinds and wave at a slightly bemused Jack still sitting in bed and watching the Safety Dance.
Click to viewAfter changing, I draw back the curtains and admire our view. It's five or so and a warm day, despite being late March. People are still out, walking along the shoreline. I try to make out the structures on the otherside of the water, and wonder why I never realised that Newcastle was a beach town. The blast of a ship's horn makes me jump.
We are presented with a choice: walk or drive. The restaurant doesn't appear to be too far away from the hotel, and for some reason, Jack suspects that there might be a problem with finding parking, so we decide to walk.
Fifteen minutes and a lot of pain from my tall black heels later, we both realise that Saturday after five o'clock in Newcastle is dead.
Nothing is open, and everything feels oddly nostalgic. There's something of Liverpool's old shopping-strip plazas that sits on the periphery of my mind as I walk past all the shuttered stores, marvelling at the sheer lack of human presence. I'm starting to wonder if the restaurant is even on this street at all, when we see the small signs up for Mason and its cafe. I'm irritated and tired by this point. The walk was long and it had rained and both factors had made me sweaty and tired. I was also ravenous, and I'm a shit-mad bitch when I'm hungry.
The restaurant looks a lot smaller than the photos taken on the website. They seem to be aware of this themselves - there is a gigantic mirror hung on the back wall. I feel acutely over-dressed, but I relax a little when one of the waitresses compliments me on how I look. We're seated by the door, with a direct view of the kitchen service window and inform a waiter that we're here for the tasting menu.
We're shortly presented with the Amuse. I've never throught of lamb as a meat with the possibility of incorporating the texture of crispness, but this was what we had. A slice of perfectly cooked lamb, spiced and seared so that the fat on one side had caramalised to a nice crunch. I all but inhaled it, and was instantly hungry for more.
Our next dish was a salad. Jack, being the red-blooded male that he is, detests the sheer notion of vegetarian cusine, and I wondered how he would receive it. The plate is a matte-glazed earthy brown, holding a selection of bright green peas and beans which form a flat bed on which sits a tiny tempura zucchini with its golden flower. Everything is dressed in something light and buttery with a crumb and three fat chucks of torn mozzerella.
I hate peas. I really do. They taste grey. I can't seem to find a place for them anywhere on my palate and I've never really enjoyed them in any cooking. I felt like I was eating peas again for the first time in my life. I glance over at my dining companion and notice that he's particularly enjoying the zucchini. I've only become recently acquainted with the idea of consuming flowers, and none of my experiences doing so have been negative, but this one takes the cake. The zucchini flower is crisp and sweet. I devour it and jealously stare at the one on Jack's plate still waiting to be eaten.
The next dish is an artwork of symmetry. Two giant scallops sit at corresponding corners of the plate, accompanied by fat rolls of pumpkin gnocci and a puff of foamy emulsion. There is crumb and sauce, and according to our very friendly waiter, something or everything is Moroccan. Jack cuts into a scallop and decides that Asians are doing seafood entirely wrong. He blames this on his dislike of seafood. I cannot describe this dish as anything but purely delicious: spicy and sweet and completely exotic to anything I have ever eaten.
Our waiter talks a lot. It's warm, inviting conversation, but the fact that I have to smile and think of something to say in return is too much like work to me.
Fish is next. The menu is edited according to market availability, and today, it's one of my favourites: barramundi. The dish is probably the closest we're getting to Asian food this weekend. It's good, but unremarkable. There's a lot of crispy fried onions and an vaguely interesting sauce, but the imitation of favour is too good - I feel like I've eaten this somewhere for a fraction of the price before.
Garlic is the name of our meat dish. Wagyu seems to be the trend for all meat dishes everywhere that has a name for itself, so that wasn't particularly special, but the garlic sauce was the standout.
By this point, I'm quite full, and I'm grateful that they spend a particularly long time preparing dessert. Oddly enough, I can recall the first dessert, but not the second one, as the lack of sleep, long journey and sheer burden of digestion was starting to get to me. There are candied apricots, a nut crumb and pistachio icecream, and then chocolate and raspberry sorbet. I'm full. Satisfied.
We totter back to the hotel at only half the pace we took to the restaurant, sleepy and content. Newcastle's night life seems to exist in tiny, tiny pockets at the edge of the water, populated with bored, barely of age teenagers and young couples with boredom gnawing at their ankles and nothing better to do. We pass a fish and chip stand that makes my appetite wake up despite our huge dinner and take a moment to just stand and stare at the water, glad that today was only the first day of our trip.