York is a city with a lot going for it. If you like Vikings, large gothic cathedrals, steam trains and Roman remains, it is, undoubtedly, your kind of town. However, one thing it isn't known for is food.
Despite the hundreds of thousands of tourists who traipse through the city each year - or, perhaps, because of them - in eating terms, York remains a riddle wrapped in an enigma lightly pan fried in butter. Walk its streets and you'll see innumerable places to fill your belly, but fewer places you would want to eat, particularly if you're watching the pennies. It is a city where you need to separate the wheat from the culinary chaff, which is why - over on Travel, in the latest in a series of budget dining guides to British destinations - I have just turned my attention, or fork, to York.
The question: what do you think of my top 10? While budget options (budget, in this context, loosely meaning anywhere you can eat and drink something for a tenner) like Melton's Too or the daytime grazing available at the remarkable J Baker's are surely beyond debate (much like the top ranking deli-cafe, Pig & Pastry) where do you stand on the great El Piano versus Goji debate? Do you agree that the Hairy Fig sells the best pork pie in York? Would you quibble with the inclusion of Il Paradiso, Henshelwoods or Le Langhe?
Moreover, what of the places that for reasons of time, indigestion or incipient gout I didn't get a chance to check out? I couldn't fit in the £8.95 one course express lunch at Harvilles, despite a couple of contacts recommending it. Is it any good? Likewise, I didn't make it to the reliable, and exceptionally cheap-at-lunch, local Thai, Siam House. Have you? And what of the non-inclusion of Cafe Concerto? I nixed it for one very simple reason: it's been there for years, it's always packed, and, thus, surely everybody who pays even the slightest interest to these things already knows about it. But should it have been in this Top 10?
Elsewhere, is the food any cop at the City Screen cafe; are the pan-Asian tapas at Indochine as good as I've heard; have you ever enjoyed afternoon tea at the Treasurer's House? Come on, people, we need your tips, guidance and criticisms. As ol' blue eyes once nearly sang, it's ... up ... to ... you ... York!
