The Settle Down cafe, off Westgate Road

This evening I paid a welcome return visit to the Settle Down (first visited with Wombat and Hamster way back last year).  Today I was meeting friends from 2B magazine, and hadn't they chosen their meeting place well!  Although it was after 5pm when I arrived there were still plenty of people in, chat, music (of the nicest kind), relaxed atmosphere and the wonderful aroma of coffee and carrot cake.  I didn't partake myself, but I was assured that the carrot cake was indeed every bit as good as it smelled.
It comfirmed my opinion of the Settle Down as a warm, relaxed community cafe.  In fact I may have to go there to chill out after work more often.

Aurora Deli, corner Westgate Hill and Blandford Square

You know, I liked to think of myself as a model cafe customer - quiet, tidy, solvent, polite, complimentary even.  Today that changed, today I became the awkward customer, the one that tries your patience, the one you could do without last thing on a Monday.  How did I effect this transformation, merely by ordering an all day breakfast in a cafe that was closing in about half an hour!  Honestly, I didn't think!  And they were still advertising it!  And Mrs Aurora, well she just smiled, got out the frying pan and cooked away, she may have thought about belting me round the head with it, but she was professional to the end. 

The establishment she presides over does have a morning feel to it - light and bright, cheerful (and watered) pot plants in the window.  Coloured slatted wooden table mat adorn the square wooden tables and you will find yourself seated on a stacking chair (church hall c1960) that has been customised in one of a variety of finishes (mine was decoupage).  The Christmas decs were up, including a rather fine handmade star - black card and tissue paper giving a stained glass effect.  Other customers (who were leaving!) appeared to be regulars and that is always reassuring.  It all had a clean, bright, zingy feel to it.

And the breakfast?  For £2 I got sausage, beans, tomato, bacon, egg and mushrooms.  Can't grumble at that and it all tasted very good.  Afterwards, I reflected that the cafe where I was eating my breakfast was probably built over the Roman Wall.  I wonder what the average legionary got for breakfast?

And so, another tick on the hit list. Another one to go back to one day - but next time I'll be going early :-)

Mikaids, corner of Westgate Road

As it happened I was working in the town centre today.  Ideal opportunity to visit another cafe I thought. But where to go, I couldn't think!  Now don't get me wrong, no one is in danger of starving in Newcastle!  There are plenty of places but either I have visited them already or they don't quite fit my criteria.  I walked past a couple in Pilgrim Street that looked great but I only had an hour and I didn't really want a cafe that thinks it's a restaurant.
Mikaids turned out to be my answer.  Bright and breezy and ideally placed for the Central Station, it has a few tables and barstools but I suspect also does a roaring trade in takeaways.  The sandwich fillings on display looked fine, ditto the cakes, but once I had seen the breakfast menu I knew that bacon, sausage, beans and toast for £2.99 had to be mine.  It arrived in next to no time along with a latte and it hit the spot exactly.  I went back to work fortified for the afternoon ahead.  Definitely the right place at the right time.