Purple Bear

I've never been to Newcastle before, so on a birthday city break we decided to visit and have an explore and see what the city has to offer, as well as to meet up with a couple of our friends. We wanted to pick somewhere we'd all enjoy for a meal and a chat, so The Purple Bear was chosen. I had trouble finding it at first (I don't know the city, and the GPS for my phone's maps seemed to be as confused as I was), but in the end we found the simple doorway and stairway down.

The venue feels more bar than restaurant, but it was fairly busy with a good atmosphere, with modern and industrial touches similar to what you'd find in Manchester's Northern Quarter I liked that for no discernible reason the big screen on the wall was playing classic Tom & Jerry cartoons! We found our friends and sat down to have a glance at the menu (they'd already picked because they'd been patiently waiting whilst we were blindly wandering around like Anneka Rice looking for the place).

The menu is fun, lots of bear themed puns and theming in a smokehouse inspired menu.

For our starters I ordered Mac & Cheese, and the waitress asked if I'd like bacon... well of course I would... bacon! So two of us chose that. The other two chose poutine, and jalapeno poppers.

The starters didn't take long to arrive. The Mac & Cheese started out well, with a fantastic panko crumb top, but then I got a different flavour come through... spice. I'm no good with spice, and it continued to build to the degree that I had to actually leave most of my starters. The other of our party who had it was fine with it though. I asked the waitress, she said that the sauce had jalapenos chopped into it, and the panko was spiced. As I was only asked about bacon, I assumed I was getting the classic mac and cheese from the menu, not the bacon & jalapeno starter, which I wouldn't have picked if I'd known she was offering it to me. That was a bit of a shame. The poutine was described as "awful" by our friend who ate it. The cheese was pretty coagulated, gluing all the fries together. You win some you lose some. The jalapeno poppers were deemed really tasty, and surprisingly creamy and cheesy, accompanied by a sour cream and chilli dip. Our friend who had those said he'd have them again.

We ordered soft drinks, and it was nice to be able to order root beer, which I love, but which isn't very loved here in the UK, but which added a good American flavour to the proceedings.

For our mains, I ordered the pastrami sandwich, the rest of our party ordered the pork burnt ends, the Mega Pulled Pork and Cheese burger and the cowboy chilli with sweet potato fries.

"It doesn't really say 'mega' to me" said our friend who had the "Mega Pulled Pork and Cheese Burger", to which I'd have to agree, it was pretty underwhelming looking and hadn't had much put into the presentation, also having slid over onto its side. He said taste wise it was "alright", but nothing special, especially for the price tag of £14.50.

I really enjoyed the pastrami sandwich. It was perfectly crisp and tender where it needed to be, with some excellent flavour. The fries were a bit basic and poured over with cheese sauce, which was quite tasty if not a bit globbed in one spot. I'd definitely get that again if I was visiting.

"Have they forgotten to burn the burnt ends?" said our friend who had the pork burnt ends. They were pretty basic looking and definitely not particularly burnt or charred it has to be said. He said they were really disappointing, more like cubes of pork belly that had been put under the grill for a bit, and thus too soft. He said they tasted ok but just like plain pork belly, no marinade or seasoning.

The Cowboy Chilli was deemed "tasty enough" but had no chilli on it at all, just some pulled pork!

We can only assume this was a particularly busy night for The Purple Bear, because our meals were pretty underwhelming without much love put into them, and the flavours were hit and miss, to the degree that we didn't bother with ordering dessert. The staff were competent but didn't really try to engage with us at all. Again, perhaps they were just really busy.

The group consensus was that the food at The Purple Bear was "alright", and that we might go in for lunch or something but probably wouldn't hurry back as it really wasn't anything special, which is unfortunate because it has real potential, and the menu and style seemed so appealing.

That's a shame. A bear shame. Get it? I'll see myself out.