Gateshead, where The Bonny Comet lives, might be where my culinary journey began.
When I was a child, Gateshead became home, in 1986, to the first, vast, American-style shopping mall the north of England ever saw. The Metrocentre was 2,000,000 square feet of retail space with an indoor rollercoaster. Unfathomable joy. Although, more exciting than shopping, for me, was the Clockworks food court: a pastel-pink, multifloored, world-cuisine hub. This was the 1980s, so “world food” was largely Italian and American, although at the Wok N Roll I discovered the heady thrills of black bean sauce, Singapore noodles and lemon chicken. Life would never be the same again.
