Joanna's Blog

Waiting Room Eaglescliffe 08/11/2009

Waiting for Sundays is an evening of entertainment and fine food put on by The Waiting Room restaurant in Eaglescliffe.  It is a vegitarian restaurant, and I have to admit, i’m not vegetarian and never really choose vegetarian food, but I thought why not give it a go.
 
I took along my Mother who’s a food lover, we arrived at 7.30pm and were led to our table in the back room, which is a big warm cosy conservatory.  The tables are set out so that everyone can see the stage whilst eating, it was a really intimate atmosphere from the off.  Once we got ourselves sat down we checked out the drinks menu first which was very out of the ordinary in a really good way. Everything is organic and they had a good selection of wines with an extensive range or largers, ciders and beers, and more unusually a mouth watering range soft drinks! Not your average line up even in a bar!  
 
‘Waiting for Sundays offers a less extensive menu than usual and you can choose from 3 starters, 3 mains and 3 desserts.  I straight away opted for the lemon houmus with warm bread and my mum had mushroom and chashew nut pate for starters.  We were both pleasently surprised with how nice they were, full of flavour and came with a lovely fresh side salad.  For mains it was a spinach, mushroom and feta curry for mum and I had a spinach, red pepper and ricotta lasagne.  These were just delicious and changed my mind in an instant about vegetarian food, it had more flavour than most meat dishes i’ve tasted. The veg in mine consisted of peppers, courgettes and spinach along with many others.  Mum’s curry was delicious (yes, i will confess, I am one of those people who loves to try my fellow diners food) hot and raging with full flavours, again with the delicous fresh salad and also herbed potatoes. 

The band started midway through our meal, it was Keith James and Rick Foot singing the music of John Martyn, one singing accousticly with a guitar and the other a huge cello. The music was bliss, heavenly and a beautiful compliment to the food.  The entertainment on offer for ‘Waiting for Sundays’ changes every week, the week before it had been burlesque dancing, the week after, a silent play. 

We headed onto dessert, Mum had a coconut and raspberry tart, and I a chocolate roulade and an espresso.  What an amazing place, still to be discovered by a lot of people.  One thing I would say is don’t let the fact its a vegetarian restaurant put you off.  I was really surprised at how nice vegetarian food can be, it was delicious and I had to keep reminding myself I was eating vegetarian food! Even if you want to pop in for lunch or a standard evening meal, do go. If your looking for something different for a Sunday, this is definetley it!

 You can check out The Waiting Room’s website and many other great days out by clicking on www.visitteesvalley.co.uk.