Laura Davis finds a bistro haven from the hurly-burly of modern life
by Laura Davis, Liverpool Daily Post
THERE'S an old photograph I love that is printed on one of those lovely sepia cards you find in coffee shops. It shows two women dressed in old-fashioned clothes chatting over a coffee on a café terrace. One, who I like to imagine is me, is noting something down in that favourite tool of a journalist, the trusty notepad.
On hectic days, I have often felt I would like to climb into that picture, like Coal Hawlings from John Masefield's book Box of Delights, and enjoy a girlie chat in a slower age.
So it was pleasant to find it framed on the wall next to our table at the Neighbourhood bistro on a cold, rainy evening.
We hadn't booked, so we were lucky to be seated at all, in a section at the back of the Childwall restaurant.
Eating at Neighbourhood is like a cross between having a meal in a Parisian bistro and going for dinner at the house of an old friend.
Stood back from the street, the main room is a cosy mixture of wooden tables, picture frames and chandeliers.
Shelves packed tightly with bottles of wine line one of the walls near to a glass case filled with deli delights. If you are lucky, a dried ham will be hanging from the ceiling as in a Spanish taverna.
The room we ate in was much plainer, though decorated with lots of framed black and white photographs and paintings, including a nice watercolour of the restaurant's facade.
We were seated near an outside door so it was a bit draughty, but when I asked to move across to another table the staff were very obliging.
We were hungry as wolves after working late, and rushed to order so did not notice when we both went for the same starter.
However, had only one of us chosen the Chicken Rissoles (£4.75), I am sure the other would soon have been stealing a forkful due to the delicious smell emanating from the plates.
Made from minced chicken breast and Cumberland sausage, they were presented on a bed of leaves. The meat was juicy and the Fontini cheese stuffed inside added to the flavour.
