Eat North Christmas Special

Pantomime – check, Wizard of Oz – check, Cards written – check, now what is missing from the Yuletide List? Ah, yes! Eat North Christmas Special – check.

This year’s festive celebrations are now well underway and what a beginning! After the theatre visits it is time for the calorie overload to begin, and what better way do do it than with a trip to North Brewing Co’s premises on Taverner’s Walk for some street food, craft ales and cocktails.

I took along my mate Ashlie who is the person responsible for designing my business and Christmas Cards, with a little help from yours truly of course. She is a vegetarian so it expanded my normal carnivorous noshing. There were three hot food carts so we decided that we would have one each from two of them and split a portion from the third.

Our first stop was at The Yorkshire Burrito Company where we watched the construction of a Yorkshire Taco for the chap in front of us which was all the Christmas food staples in a Yorkshire pudding. Ashlie settled for the more modest portion of the Veggie Xmas Burrito, a wrap containing nut roast, caramelised red onion, chestnut stuffing and cranberry sauce. Apparently it was very good although I wasn’t offered a bite, some people – eh! I would have happily let her have a sample of my hot dog. Behave!

As you have probably guessed, my offering came from Little Rasco who were selling Kebabs, Loaded Fries and Wild Boar Hot Dogs topped with Pulled Brisket topped with Mayonnaise and a Chilli Sauce which was more than a little piquant. The combination worked very well although there is a certain skill required to eating pulled brisket without losing half of it down the front of your Christmas Jumper. The sausage and bun was massive and great value.

After a stroll round the craft stalls, and the bar a couple of times, we ended our visit with a toasted sandwich from So Toasted – Proper Posh Toasties. The Three Cheese and Chilli Jam seemed to be the best suited to our dietary requirements and so we split one of those. This was easy as they are so large that they are presented for consumption by being cut in half anyway. Once again, delish. Did I just write delish? Sorry.

We opted to skip dessert but I bought three cakes from Copper Spoon Cakery to take home to eat over the rest of the weekend and, having made a start on them I can reveal that they are up to the high standard I have come to expect from this particular vendor. They are great people as well.

Any Eat North would not be complete without Rabbit Hole Coffee and Cocktails whose Rhubarb Aperol Spritz certainly hit the spot with Ashlie, I concentrated on trying to drink the brewery dry of Sputnik.

The other Eat North stalwart, DJ Ed Vector, was laying down some joints, both festive and down right cool. He is my OG.

Spice & Green was there selling Marinated Feta and other goodies for the Crimble cupboard.

I am hoping that Eat North finds another excuse for an event before next spring, when I am sure that it will return for its regular season, although I have not had this confirmed.

There is one Yuletide cliché which is worth remembering and that is ‘Christmas is a time for giving’. Well, in the spirit of that, and the chance of winning a prize, at 3.00 there was a Christmas Quiz which raised over £200 for charity, appropriately enough Action Against Hunger. Well done to all who entered, everyone won in the end.

I would like to finish by thanking all of the traders, DJs and bar staff who have given Leeds one of the best weekend events in the country and wish then all a Merry Christmas and a great New Year.

Anyway, I can’t write anymore knowing that I still have two cakes in the pantry so have a great Christmas yourselves, I already have and its only 8th December!

Unless otherwise stated all photos were taken by Stan Graham who apologises for the orange hue on some of them. The old idiot didn’t realise that when it got dark the interior lighting had been copied from sodium street lights.