New Thing 20 : Shears Yard Sunday Lunch

TLDR : more a dinner place than a lazy lunch, but very tasty.

This was a last minute Father’s Day booking after our plans to go hiking were ruined by the rain.

I’d normally pick a cosy pub to visit with my Dad so this exposed brick, converted warehouse wasn’t my first choice. I personally thought it was more suited to an evening meal than a chilled out lunch, however the food was excellent.

We both had the Sunday roast with beer and some bread to nibble on. It was a sun-dried tomato and parsnip bread with a marmite butter so although it was tasty I feel like you don’t need to mess with bread so a little unnecessary for the sake of being fancy.

The roast itself was delicious, the meat comes from Sykes House Farm who are a local butcher that also stock Michelin star restaurants. Nice big Yorkshire pudding and all the good stuff.

For dessert I had a chocolate brownie with an iced miso sorbet type thing. I love miso and any kind of salty chocolate mix so this was good for me.

Rating this a 9 out of 10, with one point unfairly knocked off because I fancied somewhere more chilled out for Sunday lunch.

21st May: Armouring myself for a food tour of Leeds

Cars are bastards. You look after them and love them and use them as cribs to gently lull your precious one to sleep and then the bastards get to 100k miles and demand a new cambelt. Bastards. They don’t care that you’re on the last portion of maternity leave with ZERO income and your husband just left you. They just demand a new cambelt anyway.

Anyway I went to VW as they gave me a new Polo for the day which was fun but a basic car and I think I’d rather have my six year old Golf over a new Polo because it is actually nicer. The Polo feels like a little tin can when you shut the door and there was nowhere to rest my left arm and I had to use a hand break like some kind of flintstones character. Absolutely bloody outrageous. And yes I’m a bit of a twat.

So getting myself and a baby to Leeds through rush hour to arrive at Elland Road before 9am was nothing short of traumatic. I had to recover with a McDonald’s breakfast (sausage and egg mcmuffin, flat white and hash brown). Then we headed on down to Leeds Royal Armories. Here is a photo essay as I don’t really have any comments to add other than I like armoured elephants and Emily likes the actor telling the Beowolf story.

Then we had a wander around the gift shop. I do like me a museum gift shop. They had a rather good selection of books for girls and older feminists:

I almost went with the ‘girls can do anything’ but thought it was a bit patronising. Emily was born assuming that girls can do what boys can do so it seems a bit weird buying a book to say so. Instead I went for a story where a Princess and Queen are basically trolling a dragon together when the Princess dresses like a Knight and they have joint lolz as they trick him into leaving. It’s like Gilmore Girls of the dragon era. I like it.

Then a wander around the Leeds Docks area

And back to the car when I realised I had just stepped over into three hours parking territory which is annoying at £2.50 per hour.

Then we went to the absolute luxury of Asda cafe on York Road *intense sarcasm it is a hell hole*. Which is near Emily’s dad’s office so that she could see him. Her father informed me how often the police are there because of in Asda fights. How jolly. I clutched Emily to me a little closer.

Whilst there I ate a pizza slice, coke, chips and hot dog.

I had two hours to kill so obviously took a little detour to Temple Coffee the land of overpriced donuts and trendy hipsters.

And we picked up the car, departed £600 lighter and went on our merry way.

13th May: Champion eater award please 🏆

I wanted to rush and get the food shopping done before my Dad arrived to help us out for the day. This is dangerous as if my car goes near a McDonald’s before 10.30 it automatically pulls into the car park. Once I was out of the car staring at the golden Ms there was no choice for it but to have a breakfast.

As I am a champion I ordered the pancakes and syrup, flat white, sausage and egg mcmuffin (single, I’m not a monster) and hash brown.

I’m sure you will be pleased / disgusted to note that I finished it all. Whilst I did this Emily was very slowly working her way through courgette and apple (unseasoned and microwaved):

She was getting a lot of praise from an old couple next to us and the manager. Babies get praise for very little. I had just eaten two breakfasts and nothing. Then one of the McDonald’s guys came around with a tray of cheese bacon flatbreads.

Now even a glutton like me is aware this is bad news. It’s 90% cheese and bacon for gods sake. And I’d just eaten two breakfasts. Anyway the baby is obviously on a mission to have a squishy comfy mummy for all the babywearing and ate her food so ridiculously slowly that I was forced to take one to fend off boredom.

I’d like to say I was stuffed, that I regretted my actions and felt sick for ages. However my body is accustomed to this. I felt fine. And that thing about not going food shopping on an empty stomach…I came back with nearly 30 chocolate bars anyway.

Non, je ne regrette a rien.