The décor is hard to pin down in the Newcastle Restaurant. It seems like somebody went garage sale-ing a half hour and got whatever they could carry for under 5 bucks. There was some respectable Aboriginal art on the walls, interspersed with pointless neon signs, prints of Van Gogh, wooden crosses and other motel art, and there was a decent magazine selection in the front window, mostly trade and tourist.

The Newcastle is getting a higher rating than we’ve given many restaurants lately. The reason is that the food (and meats) was greasy-quality, the kitsch was interesting, and mostly, the coffee and bannock were good. A good cup of coffee can make all the difference.

July 23 2010

Newcastle Family Restaurant

1010 Main Street

King New Castle Special $9.16 after coffee, tax & $1.00 extra for bannock. Coffee $1.25

Breakfast served all day.

Wheelchair accessible by a very short and steep ramp at the front door.

This North End restaurant actually identifies itself as the “New Castle Restaurant” on the inside, defining it’s relationship to the Castle Restaurant just down the street that it used to be a part of, which is now part of a laundromat. The place is touted as an ice cream joint, but the breakfast was surprisingly good. It was “All Canadian” food.

What drew us in was the offer of bannock, as advertised in their window. Also advertised in their window was their breakfast special, which, instead of using quotation marks, used elevated semicolons to add the unnecessary punctuation that is inevitable in greasy spoons. That was the most creative English fail I’d seen yet.

Regardless of questionable English, the bannock was quite good and complemented the tasty hashbrowns which were chopped potatoes, grilled until buttery and good. The bannock was in place of toast, for a dollar more. The eggs were standard, as was the selection of rye/white/brown toast. The coffee was actually pretty good, which is a first for a restaurant in that area. Normally, when you get North End coffee service (“Git it yerself!”) you get bad coffee. Not so, there. Also, the addition of my favourite Sriracha cock hot sauce always makes me smile.