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| Great Yarmouth: Café Nova |
| SARAH BREALEY |
| 26 April 2008 |
| All-you-can-eat has got a bad name thanks to places which serve vats of indeterminate food, either lukewarm or fossilised by the hot lamps, in which the more expensive ingredients have been skimped on, and shovelled on to plates by fat people as if their lives depended on it.
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| Despite this, they manage to be quite popular - people think they are good value, which if you can manage all three of that day's meals in one sitting, they probably are.
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| Now a Yarmouth restaurant is taking a different approach to all-you-can-eat. Café Nova is a relaxed tapas restaurant, which serves reasonably priced dishes on weekday lunchtimes. But it has branched out into all-you-can-eat in the evenings. The trouble is, it needs to banish the stigma of the cheap buffet places. It is certainly trying - no buffet here, the food is all cooked to order, and it isn't particularly cheap either. Twenty of your English pounds for tapas seems quite steep at first glance. You can get quite a lot of food in Yarmouth for less money than that, and there is a decent Italian place down the road doing pizzas for a fiver. The restaurant was quiet on our Friday evening visit, and I wondered whether people were put off by the prices and the slightly unusual concept.
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| The owners, Billy and Lesley McCallion, are certainly keen to get your custom, and if you linger outside looking at the menu, Mr McCallion, a friendly Irishman, is likely to appear from inside and thrust a leaflet into your hands along with assurances that his restaurant is worth trying.
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| We decided to take him at his word, and as we were seated we were told the table was ours for the evening, to order as much food as we wanted. In no time at all there appeared a platter of different kinds of bread, salted almonds, olives and a little dish of alioli (olive oil heavily spiked with mayonnaise, and not to be confused with the French aioli, which is garlicky mayonnaise). “Ha!” we thought to ourselves, “We are no fools to fill ourselves up on bread when we have paid good money for all you can eat.” But a few olives and almonds did not go amiss, so much so that the dishes were refilled, without us having to ask.
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| We were instructed that we should order four dishes at a time, and repeat as necessary. This system works quite well: it means you do not order more food than you can possibly eat, and it stretches the meal out into a nice, lengthy multi-course affair. I'm sure it does their drink sales no harm, either. There is a reasonable wine list, which has a fair selection of Spanish wines, including some decent Riojas, and there are several wines by the glass.
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| And so over the space of several hours we proceeded to order nearly everything. There were sardines, which came sort of butterflied in butter and herbs; prawns in garlic, chilli and olive oil; and mushrooms fried with healthy amount of garlic. In a gesture towards healthiness we tried two salads, the best a fresh green salad with a zingy lemon and olive oil dressing and a generous topping of pine-nuts, while the other featured crumbled goats' cheese, rocket leaves, tomatoes and balsamic vinegar.
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| Tortilla - that classic Spanish omelette which uses just three ingredients, potatoes, onions and eggs, to delicious effect - was pretty good. I suspect it would have been more authentic served at room temperature rather than piping hot, but perhaps cold omelette is not altogether to British tastes. Grilled peppers, aubergine and onion in a basil and olive oil dressing was a lovely, summery dish, while a lamb casserole was big and hearty, even if it did seem more English than Spanish. A delightful pairing of slices of chorizo and Manchego cheese marinated with garlic and herbs was only let down by being small (we ordered another one) while the deep-fried whitebait were piled high, crisp and almost greaseless.
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| The only dud notes were deep-fried battered squid rings, which were rather greasy, and patatas bravas, which when done right is one of my favourite tapas, a simple but beautiful combination of fried potatoes with spicy tomato sauce, but this was badly let down by a reddish-brown substance which tasted like the ill-conceived love-child of barbecue sauce and sweet chilli sauce.
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| It must be said that the food does indeed keep flowing for as long as you can eat. Even when it was gone 10pm and we had eaten nearly every dish on the menu the friendly waitresses were still happily bringing more food without so much as a hint that we really should stop now.
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| You can order dessert after all this (these are charged separately), and indeed the next table, who had partaken of the tapas with more restraint, were ordering chocolate fudge cakes and sundaes (the Spanish theme doesn't particularly extend to desserts, but I don't think anybody minds). But there was no question whatsoever of us having any room.
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| Will I be going back? I rather doubt it. Not because of any problem with the food, or the restaurant, or the charming service. It is not the best, or the most authentic, tapas I have ever eaten, but most of it is pretty good, and if you have a reasonable appetite, £20 a head is well worth it. I will not be going back because I cannot trust myself with all-you-can-eats. I could barely face food for 24 hours after Café Nova, and it is possible that my stomach will never return to its original shape.
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| Go with a keen appetite, but also an understanding of when you have had enough. And if you can manage more than 10 dishes each, then I salute you.
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| Café Nova, 6 George Street, Yarmouth; 01493 851400; www.cafenovabistro.co.uk
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| Where is it? George Street is just off the North Quay.
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| Where can I park? There are a couple of public car parks nearby.
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| Do I need to book? It was quiet on our Friday evening visit, but you can call 01493 851400.
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| Disabled access? The restaurant is on the ground floor but the toilets are not specifically adapted.
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