OUT AND ABOUT | THE NOONSHINE CAFE LAUNCH

 Last Friday lunch time I dashed over to Outlaws Yacht Club to get my hands on some tasty food from The Noonshine Cafe Launch.

A new lunch time pop up collaboration to happen every Friday at Outlaws Yacht Club between The Grub & Grog Shop, Noisette Bakehouse, North Star Micro Roasters and Leeds Bread Co-op.

Noonshine Cafe offers a range of salads, sandwiches and stews from The Grub & Grog Shop using Leeds Bread Co-op bread and sweet treats from Noisette Bakehouse. Chuck yourself a coffee in there from North Star Micro Roasters or a pint of ale from Magic Rock Brewing or Golden Owl Brewery and you're laughing... and all for a reasonable price of under a fiver!

Noonshine is supposedly meant to mean 'a light refreshment between meals', however this was hardly a light refreshment for me. Massive portions (I'm not complaining!) for a bargainous price for good quality, healthy and sustainably sourced food.

I went for the Salad option which was priced at £4 (if bought on its own) and was made up of Gin and grapefruit cured salmon, gian cous cous, pickled cucumber, caper berries, red chard and fresh grapefruit with a honey yoghurt dressing. 

It was absolutely delicious, but like most people who work a 9-5 Monday to Friday job you are lucky if you get half an hour for a break let alone an hour. Dashing from the other side of town to try this food left me with little time to actually eat. After a few snaps and a few mouthfuls I asked for a takeaway box and off I set back to work. That's right folks - you can eat in or takeaway with out any problems, hurrah!

Once work had finished I returned to Outlaws Yacht Club to see how the day had gone. I caught up with the traders and they had had a successful launch day. Hard workers as they are, The Grub & Grog Shop and Noisette Bakehouse continued to serve until into the early evening.

Pulling up a chair I embarked on my belated course #2 and enjoyed a delightful slice of a perfectly moist and cinnamon scented Apple Buckle Cake from Noisette Bakehouse, as well as a pint of ale from local Leeds micro-brewery Golden Owl Brewery (definitely a new favourite).

You can catch The Noonshine Cafe every Friday from 11am to 4pm at Outlaws Yacht Club.

I highly reccomend paying it a visit. It's a tasty and healthy lunch at an extremely reasonable price - and at the same time you are supporting your local independents!

OUT AND ABOUT | LEEDS CREATIVE FAMILY TREE

Last night I attended the launch for the Leeds Creative Family Tree for Mabgate & Sheepscar and Quarry Hill.

The Leeds Creative Family Tree is a not-for-profit project which is continually ongoing to raise awareness and showcase the huge range of culture and creativity in Leeds and to help the community flourish.

Inititated from a Kickstarter fund in Winter 2012, the project blossomed from the ideas of Photographer Sara Teresa and Designer Oli Bentley who were looking to raise the profile of the huge range of creativity on offer in Leeds. Their main vision was to visualise the huge network of Leeds’ creative and cultural organisations and individuals.

With a grand total of £1756 raised, the pair have been able to create, print and distribute their family tree's with the aspiration to be used for networking, collaboration and research and to find like-minded creatives in the area and show off the variety of creativity and culture within the wider Leeds community.

On offer at the launch night was also a few creative independent businesses included in the Creative Family Tree. Namely, two of my favourites... Vegan cake and catering conisseurs That Old Chestnut and Leeds pop up favourites The Grog and Grub Shop.

That Old Chestnut are stern favourites of mine. Run by the visionaries Elly and Chris they have landed themselves in the unique area of offering exceptionally good vegan cakes and catering.

Stocked by every single respectable independent cafe in Leeds these guys are on a no-returning-back mission to success and there's a reason why.

Vegan cake might not sound appealing to the average ear, but one taste and I promise you will be hooked. Favourites of mine include their stem ginger cake, peanut butter tiffin and cranberry and macadamia slice.

As well as That Old Chestnut on offer was Leeds independent pop up The Grub and Grog Shop offering the finest in local produce in their own creative form. Never to fail me, they had an extremely impressive menu featuring three 'tidbits' encased in Leeds Bread Co-op nigella seed flatbread with mouth watering varieties, as well as a vegan and gluten-free stew.

 Attending with my friend Diane we first both opted for the beef flatbread (beer braised beef brisket, beetroot, mooli, pearl barley, watercress and horseradish). This was a real delight and lovely in texture and flavour, although lacked the horseradish hit we both craved. Albeit, still a lovely flavour and texture in the mouth which was new and enlightening to me.

For seconds (of course!) we enjoyed the vegetarian option on offer. The flavours were spot on and I could not fault this in any way. Beautiful arrangements on Leeds Bread Co-op flatbread of charred cauliflower (my favourite vegetable), roasted hazelnuts, spring onion, lentils with parsley, scotch bonnet pepper and natural yoghurt were seriously mind-blowing.

A great evening showcasing the creative and cultural independent talent that Leeds has to offer. 

OUT AND ABOUT | NORTH STAR MICRO-ROASTERS LATTE ART THROWDOWN

Inside the depths of an industrial unit in Meanwood last week the North Star Micro-Roasters Latte Art Throwdown took place.

Opening only in October last year, the roasters have gained great support in Leeds as well as further across the country. These boys are at the heart of embracing coffee in its true form and at the forefront of the coffee revival.

With Leeds being a hub for great independent cafes and exceptionally good barista's it seemed about time to have an event centred around coffee.

Taking part in the throwdown were 20 barista's from Froth and Fodder, La Bottega Milanese, Cielo, Mrs Atha's, Notes, Bean and Bud, Upshot Espresso, Crema Espresso, Grumpy Mule, Baltzersens and North Star Micro-Roasters themselves.

A table adorned with food provided by local independent producers was also on offer. Spoilt by the delicious bread from Leeds Bread Co-op, red onion chutney from Made by Jim, platters of cold meats and cheese from Baltzersens and the BEST brownies you'll ever taste (you can hold me to that) from Noisette Bakehouse.

Now back to the competition... what is a Latte Art Throwdown I might hear you say?

The competition was based around creating the perfect latte, with three rounds judged by the crem de la crem of the Leeds coffee scene: Carl from Laynes Espresso, Adam from Opposite and Krag from North Star Micro Roasters. 

The latte's were judged on four criteria: balance and symmetry; colour definition; use of space; and the overall pour.

As twenty nervous barista's took centre stage, we watched and were highly impressed by the quality of the lattes produced under pressure - no shaky hands here! Perfectly textured milk and immaculate rosetta's were being churned out left, right and centre.

After three knockout rounds, the winner was announced and Oakley from Crema Espresso was crowned Latte Art King.

It was a really interesting event and great to see so many people passionate about coffee. I don't think I'll be setting foot in Costa any time soon and pledge for you to do the same.

Support your local coffee community and join the resistance!

Thank you to the lovely Diane from A Tale of Two Sittings for letting me use her wonderful photos.

OUT AND ABOUT | BREW-DENELL BEER AND ALE FESTIVAL

(Apologies for the not even HALF decent pictures as my D-SLR is in for repair).

Last weekend saw the second Brew-denell Beer and Ale Festival grace one of my favourite haunts the Brudenell Social Club.

 Brew-denell is an independent beer and ale festival celebrating the joy of craft brewing.

 This year also featured live music (which I sadly missed) and food from local independents, including the new Leeds pop up The Grub and Grog Shop by the talented Jim Hirst and Dan Scalington (one's definitely to look out for this year).

With an array of regional, UK and worldwide ales available on cask and keg it was quite easy to get lost in all the tantalising descriptions.

For my grog, I opted for Kirkstall Brewery's Dissolution IPA and Siren Craft Brew's Soundwave IPA.

A sneaky taste of a few others in the deciding process were also approved of, including The Kernel's Pale Ale and Thornbridge Brewery's Jaipur IPA.

For my grub, I had the pleasure of diving into one of the last stews left from Made By Jim.

Before me appeared a beautiful bowl of beetroot, chickpea and tamarind stew, accompanied by Leeds Bread Co-op Sourdough. A dish rich in colour and packed full of fresh and complimenting flavours.

Yet another fantastic event celebrating independent food and drink in Leeds.

I look forward to next year.