River Beat, Gateshead



River Beat


Pipewellgate, Gateshead NE8 2BJ


(0191) 477 0553


I'd never intended for this blog to be about anything other than Indian (or Bangladeshi, or Pakistani, or Sri Lanken) curries and the restaurants that serve them. But then I found myself going for a meal with friends to a Far East Asian restaurant which had, in among its various Thai and far eastern dishes, a section devoted to Far Eastern curries. And I have to say I was intrigued.

River Beat is probably best known for its Asian tapas which offers customers the chance to sample a wide range of dishes from countries like Singapore, Vietnam, Hong Kong, China, Japan and Malaysia. It's an imposing place, perched right on the edge of the River Tyne close to the Swing Bridge in a rather splendid brick building that was once the headquarters of the local river Police (hence the name).

Inside is cool, modern and airy, the sort of place you'd be happy just to sit around in and share a drink with friends. In the daytime, the views across the river through the full-height windows are stunning and in the evening the twinkling lights of Newcastle add a pleasing backdrop. Inside is softly lit and comfortable.

Vegetarians might find the menu a little on the short side, though in fairness they do have a vegan tapas menu with no less than 8 different dishes, including crispy curried 5 spice tofu, truffle and cauliflower fritter and North Korean bibimbap 'mixed rice'. I had already decided to head straight for the curry menu, but I did raid the vegan tapas menu for my starter - I chose the Red Bengali Dahl which came in a hot and spicy vindaloo sauce with plenty of coconut. It was fragrant and delicious, as was the crispy herb roti bread which accompanied it and which I used to scoop mouthfuls of the soft red dahl into my mouth.

The Far Eastern Curries section of the menu offers 4 different dishes, but only two of those were available as a vegetarian option. I decided to leave the Yellow Thai Kelek with Asian vegetables for another visit and plumped for the Yellow Vietnamese curry which featured a combination of Asian vegetables, sweet potato, spicy pickled carrots and, surprisingly, lychees.

To say that its flavours were complex is an understatement. This was an intriguing and delicious dish, with soft chunks of sweet potato, green beans, chestnut mushrooms and peppers swirling around in a fabulously fragrant and spicy sauce. And what a sauce. I suppose I had expected something akin to a Thai curry with a thin, chilli-laced coconut-based sauce, but this was deep, rich and unctuous. And the addition of lychees gave the whole thing a unique and sudden sweet-and-sour flavour which riffed brilliantly with the hot dry chilli, like tiny perfumed hand grenades of flavour – unexpected, highly entertaining and totally delicious.

The dish was dressed with long ribbons of spicy pickled carrot which I had never eaten before. They were soft and fiery, almost like pickled ginger in their intensity and added yet another superb dimension to the curry. The dish came with a large bowl of sticky rice, with more available on request, which soaked up the rich sauce admirably.

Far eastern curries have a rather different spice base to Indian curries – spices like star anise, cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg and lemongrass all impart a slightly sweeter, fragrant and more delicate flavour, very different to an Indian curry – although South Indian food with its lemon, mango and coconut flavours, and the near universal use of cinnamon and cloves in much of India's food, shows there is definitely common ground. Similarly, adding lychees to a curry might seem a little unexpected, but its no more surprising than adding sultanas or mango to a dish, and I've eaten plenty of Indian dishes with those. It clearly works.


Thanks to its tapas menus, River Beat is a great place to explore some of the culinary flavours of the east and a great place to relax. The staff are friendly and informal, and the food is gorgeous. OK, so the vegetarian choice is fairly small (especially if you are looking for something other than tapas) but what's there seems to be very good indeed. If you are looking for a change of scene and you want to sample a curry with a difference, then I reckon River Beat is definitely the place to go.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Last Days of the Raj, Dinnington

Image
The Last Days of the Raj Main Road, Dinnington Newcastle upon Tyne (01661) 598181 http://lastdaysoftheraj.co.uk It's unusual for a restaurant to up-sticks, gather up its pans and move lock, stock and karahi to the next town, but that's exactly what The Last Days of the Raj did in 2015. This previously well-respected and popular Gateshead restaurant decided to forsake Low Fell and re-locate to a former mining village on the northern outskirts of Newcastle.  Their new restaurant in the village of Dinnington is a substantial, stone-built affair, the classic English village pub exuding an attractive old-world charm. It certainly looks inviting, so perhaps this wasn't such a strange move after all. Inside, it's clear that whatever they may have left behind in the move, they clearly didn't forget their slightly old-fashioned panache to which their Gateshead customers had grown accustomed. Theirs was the only Indian restaurant I'd ever vi
Read more

Dabbawal, Newcastle

Image
Dabbawal, Newcastle 69-75, High Bridge,  Newcastle upon Tyne  NE1 6BX (0191) 232 5133 http://dabbawal.com There's been a lot of interest in Indian street food in recent years, so it's probably inevitable that a restaurant would come along serving up its own more refined versions of this cheap, cheerful and popular fare. Dabbawal has been operating in Newcastle since 2011 at two sites – one in the city centre and the other in the student enclave of Jesmond. The city centre restaurant, which is just off the magnificent Grey Street, is something of a regular haunt for us as it offers a handy escape from the midday shopping crowds – and their fabulous vegetable thali is reason enough to visit at lunchtime. But we felt it was time to sample their evening menu. In fact, there are few major differences. Dabbawal specialises in 'small plate' dishes of the kind of snacks you'd typically find being sold on the streets of Mumbai – crunchy bel p
Read more

Kamal, Newcastle

Image
Kamal 279 Stanhope St,  Newcastle upon Tyne NE4 5JU ( 0191) 226 1726 www.kamalrestaurant.co.uk Kamal is located in Newcastle's Inner West End, a bare 15 minute walk from the city centre. It is an area where, over the past 50 years or so, the Asian community has very much made its home, with Stanhope Street one of its main commercial centres . The restaurant has been a fixture here for some time, but underwent a minor transformation in recent years when what was originally a pair of restaurants both called Komal (the other is near West Jesmond Metro station), was divided with the sale of the Stanhope Street restaurant. It's new owners made the subtle name change though little else appears to have changed. Inside, Kamal is cooly contemporary but with a traditional flavour, bright, comfortable and rather smart but with informal touches. For example, they dispense with elaborate linen table cloths and set places directly onto dark wooden tables. We
Read more