New Harbour Restaurant, Newquay

I had forgotten to take my guide book to Newquay so we snuck in to WHSmith in Newquay town centre to read up on which were the recommended place for lunch. And this was the suggestion…being a mainly fish type restaurant and I am after all on holiday with Neil! The restaurant itself nestles in Newquay harbour and after a little while hanging about outside waiting for someone to invite us in (we weren't sure if we could just go and plonk ourselves down at a table or we needed to be shown to one) we decided on going into the covered terrace on the basis that we wouldn't be disturbed by people smoking on the outside tables – oh, the hazards of a smoking ban!

We finally got ourselves noticed by one of the waiting staff and went and sat down at a table. I'm going to be generous and just put the stickiness of the table down to the sea salt. We then waited a good while longer before being able to catch the attention of some other waiting staff and get them to bring us a menu and order something to drink. You'll be detecting a pattern by now, won't you?

Eventually we got to give our order from the rally very pleasant menu. I, remembering the success of my sardines bruschetta at Pescatori's the other week ordered the sardines on toast with chilli and chorizo for starters and Neil had the devilled whitebait with Lime yoghurt.

So there was I imagining some crisp toast with some fresh sardines and chorizo and slivers of fresh chilli all cooked up in some olive oil type juices and what I go was a chunk of brown bread that was burnt around the edges but seemingly unacquainted with the grill in the middle. I believe there were a couple of fresh sardines on top but it was hard to tell as they were drowned by a luke warm tomato sauce in which were red chunks of something. I have no idea what happened to the chilli. And this is the thing that really annoys me, I don't like tomato sauce with my sardines. I don't like it in tins and I certainly don't want my sardines ruined by it. At no point in the menu did it mention tomato sauce, which was the most voluminous ingredient on the dish.

Grrrr!

The Dressed crabs with potato salad redeemed the restaurant a little for me. To be fair the potato salad was a little below average and the salad wasn't dressed but the crab sprinkled with the juice of the half lime that was served with it was sublime.

I had the house Sauvignon Blanc but was unimpressed.

Two Courses plus two glasses of wine £50

New Harbour Restaurant
Quay St
Newquay
Cornwall