Gopal's Curry Shack at Cargo 2, Wapping Wharf

After my first run in with chaat at Sholay I was interested in trying other examples of this dish. Gopal’s crowdfunded their permanent home at Wapping Wharf and after reaching their goal, thanks to many loyal fans they opened up about 6 months ago.  Sporting an all Vegetarian and Vegan menu that will warm you through the Wintery months. A menu of Indian street food with dishes such as a selection of dhals, the Mumbai toastie as well as seasonal curries.  With chaat on my mind I went in to order the samosa chaat dish.  Whilst a good deal of the cargo containers are designed for takeaway, and Gopal’s is no exception, there are a couple of stools to perch on. 

 

Gopal’s samosa chaat consists of crushed up samosas topped with spicy chickpea curry topped with various chutneys, yoghurt and pomegranate seeds. At £7.50 it might seem a little pricey for lunch but the portion is enormous, if you can finish it in one sitting you are a hero to me. This was just what the doctor ordered on such a grey day, and we had braved sitting outside. The chickpea curry was a tad hot but I popped back in and they gladly gave me a pot with extra minty yoghurt to cool it down. This dish is wholesome, warm and comforting. The samosas are still slightly crunchy and add a nice texture, and the fig and tamarind chutney adds a wonderful sweetness. Because the flavours change with each mouthful it was a delight to eat, and even when I was full I still wanted to go back for another mouthful. 

 

 I find it really heartening when street food stalls build up enough of a following to open their own permanent premises and Bristol is lucky enough to have converted the dreams of many a street food favourite. It was something I wrote about last year for Wriggle, our love affair with street food doesn’t seem to be showing any signs of a cooling off period. Check out the article here.

 

Gopal’s shows how imaginative Vegetarian and Vegan dishes can get. The vibrancy and flavours certainly don’t make you miss meat at all. I am looking forward to exploring more of their menu over the next few months whilst we endure more freezing temperatures. To find out more about their food visit their website. Gopal's will also cater for events and parties if you are looking for something a little out of the norm.

 

Souvlaki Realness at The Athenian

Greek food. Often relegated to the post beer kebab category strips of greasy mystery meat that tops a grilled pitta glistening with intent and lots of garlic mayonnaise. You want a kebab now don’t you? But it gets a bad rep being the drunk’s choice, Greek food, done right is a wonderful thing. Bristol doesn’t have much in the way of decent Greek restaurants, maybe 4 ish at most, the somewhat secret Cyprus Kebab House being a particular favourite of mine. However Cargo 2 has come to the rescue with the arrival of The Athenian.  Athenian already has a few openings across London, including Boxpark, the first shipping container retail and dining mall which Wapping  Wharf is based on.  What the Athenian is offering up is souvlaki. Souvlaki are derived from the Turkish doner kebab, in fact gyros comes from the word to spin. The Greeks have made them their own by adding fries into the meat and salad combo. 

The Athenian offer options for carnivores, veggies and vegans alike. You can choose from beef and lamb bifteki, the Greek word for kofte, chicken, pork, halloumi, mixed veg and mushrooms. It also offers options for varying states of hunger. Which is lucky because I am usually ravenous.  Each main filling comes with a designated sauce, chicken for example comes with a honey mustard style one, and the kofte with a light tzatziki. There is also the option to add extra meat and/or halloumi. The halloumi is proper imported Hellenic stuff and it’s texture is a lot firmer and more delicious than what you can buy in the supermarkets, so well worth a punt I’d say. 

 I  sampled the kofte on my first visit along with a side of oregano fries and some of the feta and smoked chilli dip, which I believe is the accompaniment for the pork. I also opted for a chunk of halloumi to make sure I sampled my first gyros by The Athenian, properly. After several visits to the Athenian I can categorically say that this is a great place to get a quick and tasty feed. Certainly a welcome sight if you are hungover and have to count on Deliveroo bringing tasty Greek treats to your door, they travel very well. But it’s nicer if you can visit in person, plus if the sun is shining you can grab a cool drink and watch the boats wizzing up and down. 

New Menu from The Burger Joint

Last week Rich and I were invited to the launch of the new Burger Joint menu. The Burger Joint is a bit of a Bristol institution.  Born in 2009 on Cotham Hill in a tiny restaurant with about 20 covers, owner Dan Bekhradnia and his team serve up create your own burgers with a choice of about 30 toppings. This proved hugely popular and soon Dan was looking for a larger venue, so when Planet Pizza vacated their Whiteladies premises it proved to be kismet. Fast forward  to 2017 and you can find branches in Bedminster and Fishponds. 

To keep up with the increasing trend of people moving over to vegetarian and vegan diets and choices the Burger Joint has refreshed their menu with some new vegetarian and vegan picks. You can also find some new hardshakes, alcoholic milkshakes, I first came across these at The Diner in London several years ago. There are some suggested combinations, but Dan encourages people to make up their own from their selection of ice cream and spirits. I chose vanilla, salted caramel and dark rum and very tasty it was too, not too thick so it doesn’t fill you up too much before your burger.

As well as the pre-existing veggie joint and the, much celebrated, mushroom with garlic and herb burgers, veggies and vegans can now order the vegan joint or the gluten free beetroot and feta burger. There is also the addition of vegan cheese to top your burgers with as well as over 10 meat free toppings. We got to sample the new beetroot and feta burger patties and I have to say they were excellent. Full of flavour the chopped basil really added something special. I think it would surprise meat eaters everywhere. I think adding these as a falafel optional side dish would be a winner because having to choose between the patty options is just too difficult.

beetroot and feta burgers

Another key item added to the menu is the truffle and Parmesan fries. I had my eyes on these from the off and Dan brought out dishes of these to share between pairs. I am not normally much of a fry person, more a chunky chip girl. Fries can be limp and flavourless, this was not the case here. Crisp golden fries with a good grating of Parmesan and a dash of truffle flavour coming through. Rich and I were fans and these disappeared in the blink of an eye. 

Once sampling of some of the new items had finished we were encouraged to tick our orders on one of the Burger Joint tick box forms.  I tend to have a standard order which is the beef burger topped with brie, blue cheese and chilli con carne, it’s tried and tested and remains to be creamy, spicy and messy all in one bite. However I thought I should try some different toppings, so I went all veggie with my toppings but sticking with the beef. So guacamole, roasted peppers and the newly added smoked Applewood cheddar crowned my Ruby and White sourced patty.

I am never disappointed when I go to the Burger Joint and this night was no exception. Dan knows his burgers and you will always leave feeling full. Unlike many burger places one side is included in the price so you can choose between a saintly salad, fairly sensible sweet potato chips or go full out with onion rings, as well as the normal fries you’d expect from a burger place. Like Dan and his staff who have welcomed so many Bristolians already, the new menu makes room for veggies and vegans alike to feel more at home. So if you’ve not paid a visit to one of the Burger Joints in a while, go check it out, and take your veggie friends with you. To check out the new options head to their website.

Eating Noodles and Sipping Bubble Tea at Cupp

On a recent warm Spring day, Naomi and I decided to meet up for lunch. Browsing local deal app Wriggle I posed to her the options available in the centre and she chose a noodle dish with Cupp, opened on St Stephen's Street just before the new year, which came with a bubble tea of your choosing. The decor is bright, geometric and fun with a few tables for dining in but as the focus is on the bubble tea most customers would probably be taking their tea away.

You can choose from rice noodles in soup, with a supplement of £2 if you want to add beef to the soup, or a vegetable noodle salad. I chose the latter and Naomi went for the former. For the bubble tea I picked my favourite flavour, taro, complete with coconut jelly. There are a few more options at Cupp now since I last visited their other home down in Cabot Circus; grass jelly and basil seeds which can be added to your tea. 

Lovely fresh and healthy ingredients with a sprinkling of crushed peanuts. The actual flavour was fairly mild but luckily I livened up with a healthy amount of sriracha sauce and a good stir. The bubble tea was as great as usual. Taro is quite sweet but there is something about it that I can't get enough of. For £5 for a bubble tea and some veggie noodles Cupp offer up a bargain that is hard to ignore. For a fresh and quick lunch option in the centre you can't go too wrong here. To find out more about Cupp visit their website or follow them on Twitter.

Lunching at Edna's Kitchen

My first trip to Edna's was one that was long overdue. I have no excuse at all. Edna's is two minutes from my office. Anyway after all the good things I'd heard, especially from my desk mate at work I decided to meet my friend Abi there, it was a sunny day after all. Abi is vegetarian so my choice for lunch was perfect. Edna's Kitchen is the little hexagonal hut at the top of Castle Park, they do pittas, wraps and salad boxes all vegetarian and some vegan.  I decided to go for a salad box which is £5 and comes with cous cous, crunchy salad, a stuffed vine leaf, falafel, houmous and optional chilli sauce. 

Oh Edna you minx. Why had I been resisting your charms all this time? Best houmous I've had from a falafel joint and the chilli sauce has quite a kick. I personally prefer my stuffed vine leaves to be warm but that is personal preference. The falafels were the stars of the show crunchy but soft in the middle, not dry, and full of flavour. Short and sweet but if you want a falafel salad box or a pitta stuffed with falafelly goodness, look no further than Edna's Kitchen, does the best falafels in town. Great choices for veggies and vegans alike so get on down there. For £5 I was stuffed so it's a good feed for sure. To find out more about Edna's Kitchen check out the website.

Lunchtime Munching at Eat-a-Pitta

The other week I was bereft of lunch and then the fire alarm went off. Despite being earlier than I would normally take lunch I thought as I was outside I would head to St Nicks and forage for fodder. In recent weeks my team mate So-Ting had been in the habit of bringing up a box of falafel and hummous from Eat a Pitta to munch on, and I had sampled a few of these and they were extremely good.  So I decided that as I was already outside it was as good a time as any to finally sample a proper lunch myself.

I decided to go for the falafel salad box, which comes with 5 falafel and all the salads and sauces for £4.50, pitta on the side is 50p extra,  but the salad box looked big enough to me. So topped with the hottest hot sauce and the falafel on the top warming me through the plastic lid I headed back to the office to enjoy reading James Ellroy's LA Confidential and my lunch.

Eat a Pitta already has a great following and now it count me among them. Great fresh tasting salads, I particularly enjoyed the gherkins, and the falafel were the crunchiest I have ever sampled but never dry inside which is the key to a good falafel. Plus if you just feel like snacking you can buy 6 falafel with hummous for just £2 or 10 for £2.50 a total bargain. The only slight question mark I have is over the hummous it is very smooth but I like a little more zing to my hummous, but it is still very nice. If you want to find out a little more about Eat a Pitta visit their website for more info or get yourself down to St Nicks and sample away, don't be put off by the big queues they have a ticketing system and efficient production line that moves along fast.

Goodbye Dinner at The Thali Cafe

The other week we had to say farewell to Carla for she was leaving Bristol to return to London. So her final meal was booked and she had chosen the Thali Cafe, the Clifton branch. This would technically only be my second visit to a thali, I once went many moons ago to the first cafe in Montpelier and although it was around 6 -7 years ago I remember it being very tasty. So I was pretty excited about making a return visit. The Thali Cafe (well the Clifton one at least) offers five main thali choices and a couple of sides and starters. I was pretty keen to recreate my first experience so I had already decided to have the Northern thali. This is their signature dish a vegetarian curry assortment including a curry with fried paneer.

Menu peek

decision making

Sarah, Rob, Rich and I decided to share some poppadoms and chutneys for our starters and we all amazingly went for different thalis. Rich picked the lamb kofta thali which was the one that almost swayed me, with spiced meatballs, in a coconut, tomato and cinnamon sauce. Sarah and Rob chose the Mogul thali and the Southern thali. With all the aromatic smells wafting round the restaurant our stomachs were practically growling in protest luckily the arrival of poppadoms and chutneys saved us in time.

chutney selection

You kind of expect to have mango chutney as standard when you order poppadoms and to be honest that is what I generally stick to because I am not a fan of lime pickle and slightly unbothered by raita. However The Thali Cafe offers little twists on the classics which were a welcome change. There was a tomato and tamarind one that reminded me of lime pickle but actually nice, slightly tangy but totally moreish. Even the mango chutney had an added zing with some chilli in it for a kick. As you will probably be able to tell we made short work of our poppadoms and chutneys, we were still hungry but we were now able to wait for our mains without wondering whether to steal some of the food on the table next door to us. 

Kofta Thali

Southern Thali

Northern Thali

Excuse the photo quality the light was not great but you get the general gist of what we ate. I sampled some of the sauce from Rich's lamb kofta thali and it was divine, so aromatic and the cinnamon really came through, this is definitely what I will be sampling next time I visit. Rob's Southern thali was a Goan fish curry but the fish had been coated in crispy crumb which made it a little bit different, it also looked really good. The paneer curry in my vegetarian thali was really light and the sauce was yummy I was impressed. However the winner I think for all of us, the one that stole the show, was the lentil dhal it was creamy and so well flavoured it made me want to make dhal at home and eat it more often. The only thing we all weren't keen on was the vegetable, mainly potato dish which I thought was a bit like a saag, it tasted a bit under seasoned.

I cannot wait to return to one of the thali cafes they are a bit different from what the normal curry house  offers and perfect for Summer because the curry is lighter and does not make you feel like you need to snooze immediately afterwards, dare I say it it almost feels like a healthy curry. Also it is the perfect place to feed vegetarians, vegans and gluten free people all together as it offers options for all. It will definitely be one of the options I offer up to my sister's vegan boyfriend when they next visit Bristol for dinner. So if you haven't already visited one of the cafes of this Bristol institution get thee to a thali cafe now. To view menu options and find out more about their origin story visit their website.