Stealth has moved (part-time) to Margate. The last time we were both here together was over two decades ago, when I was at uni up the road and Stealth came to visit. We were somehow organised enough to join my house mates on a trip to the sea that involved bleak concrete, gale force winds and a hangover.
This time only the latter was accurate. And although Arlington House still dominates the skyline the shopping centre at the foot of the tower has been razed to the ground and the whole town has a pep in its step, buoyed by the Turner Gallery, the growing art scene and the DFLs (down from Londons) who have streamed to the coast, attracted by the East Kent property prices, bracing sea air and neighbours who want to stop and chat to you (I'm not sure this was a plus point, in Stealth's case).
We enjoyed a lovely few days with Stealth and Regina, the perfect hosts, that included delicious scallops and picpoul de pinet at Hantverk and Found; confit duck nuggets and chocolate orange martinis at the Cinq Ports; and Stealth's (homemade) lamb curry with (not homemade) peshwari naan All washed down with Aldi champagne, Stealth's new favourite tipple. Austerity has finally hit the City.
As I'm predicting a surfeit of Thanet-related posts (I sense another micropub crawl by the sea in my near future) coming up on the blog over the next few months, I'm going to kick things off with (re)visits to a few old school Kentish classics.
First up was the Dalby Cafe, a stalwart that has been on the corner of Dalby Square in Cliftonville since just after the Second World war, still with the original formica tables and seats reclaimed from the old Margate trams that trundled along the seafront.
Coincidentally seen in an article featuring a rather wan Pete Doherty (excitingly now residing in Stealth's very neighbourhood) taking down their super-sized breakfast a few weeks before our visit. While I wasn't sure I could take down a plate that included four sausages, four rashers, bubble and squeak, hash browns, toast and a burger and chips (I'm pretty sure the Ewing could), I was looking forward to something slightly more modest, if no less delicious.
The menu focuses on their all day breakfast, but also offers stalwarts such as braised steak, cottage pie, scampi, corned beef and a good-looking plate of fish and chips, which the chaps on the table next to me were enthusiastically slathering in salad cream and tucking in to at half ten in the morning.
The Ewing, not known for her great memory, managed to get to the counter and accurately reel off the list of things I had requested (plus the same, with an egg, for her) to be told; 'that sounds like a medium'. Six quid. Including toast and a proper mug of strong builder's tea. Cracking value.
The reward for her excellent recollection was a proper tasty plate of piping hot food featuring quality bacon and snags - while I'm a sucker for a tube of meat paste, this one had herbs in so you could tell it was fancy - plus two big discs of black pud, excellent fried mushrooms and both baked beans and tinned toms for lubrication. Proper butter on the toast also got both thumbs up from my wife.
Monday morning saw us left to our own devices. So, after my enormously patient wife had driven through a bog, reversed all the way up an endless single track road and then back down another 'road' in pursuit of the Ham Sandwich finger post (worth every swear word and sweaty palm) we retreated to Morelli's in Broadstairs for a well needed fillip.
Opened in 1932, the interior of the original Morelli's - there is now a concession in Harrods, stores in Covent Garden and Portabello Road and franchises in the Middle East - has remained resolutely faithful to the past with its art deco interior, complete with ornate ceiling, sugar pink leather banquettes, Lloyd Loom rattan chairs, formica topped tables and a classic soda fountain. (and the ice cream cone shaped brass lamps - TE).
They offer a variety of different sundaes and coupes, but the Ewing kept it simple with a trio of pistachio, hazelnut and coffee gelatos. Despite my sugar moratorium I may have tried a couple of spoonfuls of both the nutty ones, and I was very glad I did. The pistachio in particular was utterly exceptional.
Alongside was a decent dry double macchiato for me and a, slightly odd, DIY bicerin for the Ewing, with separate glasses of cream and chocolate sauce to mix in with her coffee. While paling in comparison to the peerless version at Soho's Bar Torino, she still appreciated the surfeit chocolate coffee beans that accompanied it.
I can remember coming to Margate on the train with an ex, as penniless students for a romantic day by the sea. Obviously it was cold and grey with buffeting winds (as all my memories of Margate were) but, being Brits, we decided fish and chips by the beach was the order of the day.
We chose Peter's Fish Factory as not only was it near the harbour, but was offering a deal on 'saithe' and chips. Neither of us had any idea what this mystery fish was (prosaically, it later turned out to be pollock), but it was cheap and sounded exotic and tasted extra good with the smell of sea air in our nostrils, despite the added sand in every other bite.
This time Peter's had a deal offering the more familiar haddock and chips for £4.50, and the Ewing was dispatched to fetch them while I dashed across the road to take some pictures of Dreamland and the mighty Arlington House in the afternoon sunshine.
I've eaten some very average fish and chips recently, but these were absolutely top-tier. Skin on (we are in the south) haddock with a thin carapace of peerless batter with a scoop of properly cooked chips - nicely golden with a fluffy inner. All seasoned with lashings of salt and vinegar and accompanied by the biggest pickled wally I'd seen since I looked in the mirror that morning. Oh, and a Diet Coke to wash it down. Got to think of the diet.
This was the view while eating lunch - the blue plaque you can see in the corner commemorates TS Eliot 'who wrote part of the poem the Wasteland whilst sitting in the Nayland Rock Shelter'. Although why the plaque wasn't affixed to the shelter where we sat, instead of being attached to the public loo next door, remains a mystery.
I'll leave you with two photos of Stealth and I, taken on Margate beach 20 years apart. How they let us out like that, I'm not sure (escapees - TE). Although things haven't improved all that much. On Margate sands. I can connect. Nothing with nothing, as Thomas Stearns said himself.
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