It’s not easy to eat fibre in a world of burger vans, but I’m managing it.
In past years at the TT, I’ve been known to eat double cheeseburgers for breakfast. When you’re only visiting for a few days anything goes, but I’m here for nearly three weeks this year, and I don’t think my body can survive on alcohol, chips, and ice cream for that long.
I was absolutely jazzed to find a local fine dining curry place has a food truck at the Grandstand serving Indo-Chinese noodles with FRESH VEG in them. I saw them chopping it! With my own eyes! They also do a banging avocado and egg ciabatta in the mornings. I’ve been telling everyone. Nobody else cares. But I’m pretty excited, and their food is really good, so shout out to Kurries and Steaks for bringing proper food to a burgerfight.
I’ve been spending some time in the local Santander Work Café, which is as sterile and uninspiring as it sounds. It’s busy though—people in Douglas obviously need a shared workspace, and they’re making full use of it, which I think is great. I can’t help but sit here at my bench table listening to the aggressively meek playlist remembering when this was a cycling shop though. It used to have a big screen where they showed the Tour de France. Now there’s a sign for something called “Network Grind” which I think is something to do with coffee and work, but that’s not what it sounds like to me.
The reason I keep coming here is because the WiFi is good, I can spend hours at a time on a table without feeling guilty, and the plugs are plentiful. But the best reason by far is that the café part of the workspace is run by local coffee roastery, sourdough bakery and now brewery, NOA.
NOA have been part of the Isle of Man’s local food scene for a good few years now, and their operation expanded last year to include a larger café space with a brewery attached on the seafront. Their bread is amazing, and their pastries are intensely buttery. I’ve not had chance to visit their new place yet, but as soon as I do, I’ll be posting about it because I’m really looking forward to trying their beer. Oddly, it’s not been a very boozy trip so far. We’ve been too busy fixing bikes—it’s easy to let an entire evening get away from you when you’re fettling and tidying and trying not to get in the way.
Anyway, please behold NOA’s Turkish eggs, a dish so creamy and garlicky and satisfying it should be given to the sick to cure them. It could bring the dead back to life. It certainly makes my life worth living at the workspace.
Of course, I’m not eating that healthily. Not when there are church halls stuffed to the hammer beams with corned beef butties and homemade cakes. The best food at the TT is always found at church halls, where coffee is £2, and slices of secret recipe lemon drizzle were made with love and intended to raise the funds needed to fix the roof.
Seeing WI and church group ladies flirting with groups of bikers while they compliment them on their shortbread is an incredibly heartwarming experience. I recommend.
The roads are closed now ready for tonight’s practice sessions, so I’d better get back up to the paddock for scrutineering. Somebody needs to make the brews.
Speak soon
Katie xox
If you want to follow our team’s progress over the next couple of weeks at the TT, visit iomTTraces.com for clips and videos, check out the highlights coverage on ITV4, or visit the TT YouTube, Instagram and X accounts. Look out for Team Kibosh, the KHhire bike, and our racer Shaun Anderson, number 18. In the wise words of Charli XCX, “Vroom vroom.”