Arcadia - Pie Night

Mon 18 June 2007

A relatively recent development at Arcadia is the Monday night 'Pie Night'. Pie, peas and a pint (Black Sheep or Deuchars) for £5.

Why I thought this was a good idea, since I loathe peas, I don't know, but I managed to rustle up a group to try this out. Which was all well and good until we found out Arcadia had one pie left. Fortunately, the full kitchen was open until 8 so, while Andy ate the remaining pie, the rest of us sampled the rest of the menu.

A couple of us went for the New Yorker salad: a big bowl of lettuce, celery, walnuts (they're a superfood now!), blue cheese and chicken, served with garlic bread. The great thing about this salad is that it wasn't drowned in dressing, so you could actually taste all the different ingredients. It was a huge bowl and, for £5, I was pretty impressed. The garlic bread was a bit nondescript, but there was certainly nothing wrong with it.

Other options sampled from the main menu included the Cumberland sauce with mash (also £5) and one of the specials, lamb shank, at £7.50. The lamb shank looked really good: the meat was falling off the bone, and the report back was that it was absolutely delicious.

So that brings us to the pie, which didn't involve pastry so Andy was unhappy. He also felt it was a served with a rather excessive amount of marrowfat peas. The gravy looked a bit watery and thin and it was all a bit disappointing. Which is a shame, because the rest of us were tucking in to some very tasty and cheap food. Given the pie-indifference, I'm also not too sure about checking out Arcadia's curry night (that's Tuesday). If you are eating with your beer, I recommend sticking to the menu as those of us who did were not disappointed.

After our meal, we headed down to the Box for Monday quiz. It's free but you'll have to be good to win it, as last night you would have needed to best 28.5 out of 31. After a couple of hours in Arcadia with all those beers, we were no competition!

1. Arcadia, 34 Arndale Centre, Headingley, LS6 2UE, phone: 0113 274 5599
2. The Box, 8 Otley Road, Headingley, LS6 2AD, phone 0113 2249266

tagged with: headingley, restaurant, leeds

Stumble It!

Arcadia

Sun 11 Feb 2007

Ah, Arcadia ... a pastoral idyll ... and also an excellent pub in Headingley! We've had some very happy drinking experiences in this bar and I'm a huge fan of the various pub dogs, not to mention the good range of real ales, along with the continental beers which keep Andy happy.

But this time our visit wasn't for drinking purposes but for eating. Arcadia offers Sunday lunch for just £5.95. Lunch starts at 1pm and dinners are available until they're gone. This does mean that you need to get there quickly ... overheard at the bar on Sunday was the shocking news there were only 16 dinners available!

We arrived just before 1pm but apparently the kitchen was suffering from a power failure, so dinner wouldn't be on for another three quarters of an hour. This gave us time to sort out our beer and newspaper situation (Durham Dark Secret for me, and Warsteiner for Andy) before worrying about whether or not we would opt for beef or chicken.

We both opted for beef and it wasn't long before huge plates of roast dinner appeared. We both had two hefty slices of roast beef, cauliflower au gratin, broccoli, carrots, Yorkshire pudding, pumpkin mash, roast potatoes ... and lashings of gravy. Given that the kitchen had had to deal with a power failure it's hard to be critical of the food - and it will come as no surprise to regular readers that I found the beef overcooked. I also appreciate that it's impossible to roast a joint of beef so that it's cooked to everyone's liking, so I'm prepared to overlook this. I also thought the broccoli was overcooked - normally it's one of my favourite vegetables but this time it was left to one side. Everything else was just fine.

For £5.95 one does not expect an haute cuisine experience - and at Arcadia, you do not get this. However, you do get a very solid, enjoyable plate of food, which you can wash down with your choice from a wide range of beverages - including well kept beers on good rotation. Arcadia is one of the few bars in Leeds where a dark beer is consistently available, and they always feature beers from small, independent breweries. On Sunday they even had Thwaites Mild on.

Lunch at Arcadia ends up being about more than the plate of food in front of you. On Sunday we had a greyhound and a terrier, as well as the (almost) resident boxer. There is always a slightly unusual mix of people, and if you sit at the front, you can also people watch.

While smokers will, undoubtedly, find the no smoking policy a bit of a pest, they should regard this as good practice for the summer.

And the rest of us can view Arcadia as a place where we can have an interesting, well kept pint, along with some tasty food, without parting with much cash at all.

1. Arcadia, 34 Arndale Centre, Headingley, Leeds LS6 2UE, phone: 0113 274 5599.

Stumble It!