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hand picked restaurants

With amazing views of the North Sea, The Roker Hotel has been a well known Sunderland landmark for decades. The Victorian building attracts guests with its looks, facilities and classy restaurants, one of which is the Tavistock Italia. With its sleek Manhattan style interior, Tavistock Italia offers guests a traditional Italian menu with pizzas, pasta, fish, meat and poultry dishes all freshly prepared using locally sourced ingredients.
 
A meal here could begin with starters of calamari fritti, salad of Parma ham, fine salami and roasted figs or tender pork ribs braised in Italian herbs and spices. Follow up with pasta al salmone, served with asparagus and spinach in a tomato and cream sauce or a saffron flavoured risotto with chorizo sausage and sun dried tomato. Other main courses include osso buco - traditional dish of braised beef in a rich red wine sauce with dauphinoise potatoes, bread crumbed breast of chicken or fish ragout with salmon, cod, king prawn and queen scallops. The menu also includes a variety of stone baked pizzas and a selection of desserts including tiramisu, pannacotta and traditional Italian ice creams.

Pizza Express remains a hugely popular bedrock of casual eating. Its popularity is testimony to the fact that across the country, they have restaurants where you will always be guaranteed a good nosh, with children's tastes being well catered for.

Pizza Express has gone even more Roman, and following the success of that particular example of listening to their public have introduced Romana pizzas, including the scorching Etna and the hearty Siciliana.

These pizzas are now thinner, bigger and crispier, and if that sounds like a marketing line, it is. However, unlike many such lines, this one is true, and their quality is always consistent, though cleverly they have still managed to retain a homemade feel to their pizzas.

As an alternative to pizza, try their pollo pesto - cavatappi pasta with torn chicken breast, mushrooms, red onions and mozzarella in a creamy gruyere, parmesan and pesto sauce and finished with grana padano - or the niçoise salad with mixed leaves, yellowfin tuna, free range egg, green beans, potatoes and tomatoes with olives, anchovies, capers and house dressing.

Many of the big chains have come a long way, and Pizza Express is certainly amongst them. One of the first to be quoted on the Stock Exchange - in 1993 - Pizza Express is not a franchise operation and retains tight control through its own staff.

Their wine list - though short - contains some surprisingly good offerings, especially their intense Australian Chardonnay, and a big, full-bodied Merlot from Cusumano, Sicilia.

Turkish cuisine has taken over this stylish restaurant which encourages you to while away your time from afternoon to sundown in the company of family and friends. Prime cuts of halal meat are cooked over charcoal barbeques for the traditional flavour and the mezze, small plates of delicacies, great for sharing, are just two reasons why patrons find it very easy to root themselves there.

Among the mezze you can try humus, puree of chick peas blended in sesame seed paste, lemon juice and garlic and muska boregi, a deep fried filo pastry filled with feta cheese and parsley. For starters order adana, minced lamb blended with herbs, red peppers and spices formed on skewers and char-grilled. Mains follow with kleftiko, lamb shank cooked in tomato sauce with onions, carrots, celery, bay leaves, garlic, black peppercorns, green and red peppers served with rice. A Turkish milk pudding baked and caramelized will end your meal with a flourish, if not a distant roll of drums.