Last Day of Summer at Salt & Malt

The first Sunday in September was one of the hottest days in many weeks. The lovely Jane and her partner Harv had arranged a day trip to Chew Valley Lake to sample Josh Eggleton's most recent venture, Salt & Malt. After opening the café last December a restaurant was soon swiftly added on for evening diners. Where they could enjoy a proper fish supper but also offering a wider menu selection than the café such as fresh seafood and burgers. As it was such a glorious day we decided to sit on the benches outside. The café menu offers cod, haddock and fishcakes, all the fish is sourced from Cornwall delivered every day so you only get the freshest produce. We all decided to go for the cod and chips which came with peas and tartar sauce. 

fish n chip lunch (photo credit James Harvey)

late Summer feasting (photo credit James Harvey)

fish and peas up close

Easily the best battered fish I've ever had, it was crunchy without being greasy and the fish was wonderfully fresh. And those peas, flavoursome, ever so slightly crushed with a creaminess to them, I was lucky enough to have some of Rich's peas, I couldn't get enough of them. I enjoyed the chips, although not the best I've had they were very tasty. I could have done with a couple more, but then who doesn't want more chips? 

looking over the lake

Salt & Malt offers lovely food at a decent price, a fish supper to takeaway is £6.95 for example, and on a day as beautiful as the day we went it was extra glorious. Well recommended for a day trip just out of Bristol. To find out more about Salt & Malt visit their website. 

Steak Night at the Old Crown in Bath

Last week I popped over to visit the parents after work. Both mum and dad had been raving about the steak night at the local pub, which had recently had a revamp. So I decided to join them to see for myself, all in the interests of science of course. Weston village really has never had any decent pubs, well not since I've been of legal drinking age, which is not for a lady to say how long that's been so mind your beeswax. We had reserved a table as mum had assured me it got quite busy, particularly on steak night. So we sat down at our table and quickly ordered a bottle of Tempranillo and the steak night deal; 10oz rump steak, fries and salad for £10.

It was nice to receive a thick steak for a change. Mine came perfectly medium rare like I had requested. It was really well seasoned and nice and juicy. Dad's was a bit blue for his liking, because it was a thicker steak than ours, so with no fuss they cooked a bit more and brought back quickly. It was nice to see  the salad not being an afterthought. They had roasted tomatoes ribboned carrots and cucumber and added a nice dressing. For £10 this was an absolute steal. I was really impressed they really pulled out the stops to make sure you have a tasty steak. The only addition would be to have some peppercorn or bearnaise sauce on hand.

People of Weston Village you finally have a lovely pub to go eat in and enjoy. Steak night is on Thursday but you can also enjoy burger night on a Wednesday. To find out more about the Old Crown visit their website.

Bargain Lunching at Mezze Palace

Last week Phil and I tried to get to Three Brothers for National Burger Day. Alas we were foolish and it was full to the rafters. We quickly dug deep into our think tanks and Phil suggested Mezze Palace on Small Street, a Lebanese restaurant that offers a £4.99 two course set lunch deal. Hurrying along as there were meeting constraints we reached the venue in record time and headed down to the restaurant. A small underground restaurant, it's a bit like dining in a wine vault, you can get a mezze starter plate and a choice of chicken, lamb or vegetarian kebab and rice for main. However, outside the deal, there are plenty of mezze and main options if you want to do a bit of mix and match to get exactly what you want to eat. Phil and I swiftly ordered two of the set menu and some drinks. 

For £4.99 the portions are pretty generous. A flat bread each accompanies the starter platter which also consists of a falafel, baba ganoush, keema crisp roll, zingy salad, some extremely smooth and delicious hummus and a warm dolmades which I prefer to cold ones. The starter plate is all delicious and works well together so you can dip everything and enjoy mixing it up, if you so wish that is. 

The main is two small grilled chicken shish kebabs, which you can request to have spicy if you like, a side of keema rice and some tangy yoghurt dressing. The chicken is so juicy and flavoursome, the spicy is definitely hotter than you'd expect but for spice heads it's great, definitely a favourite of mine.

You can't really get many genuine bargains these days but this is a complete steal and definitely one of my preferred sitting down lunch locations. Having said that even in the evening the food is pretty reasonably priced and it's got a nice atmosphere to have a dinner with friends. To find out more about Mezze Palace, visit their website here.

Sunday at Soukitchen

Last week was a massive dose of coughing half my lungs out and generally feeling sorry for myself. Sunday I dragged myself out of the house to meet Kym for lunch, something I was really looking forward to. Soukitchen, Clifton branch, has been open about 6 months and despite being five minutes from my door this was my first visit. Absolutely woeful.  Situated just off Whiteladies on Apsley Road as far as I can remember there has been a bar or restaurant at this site. Most of these ventures lasted a very short time, perhaps due to location. Souk has solved this with some lovely bright signage that draws in the eye, that and their reputation.

Soukitchen specialises in Persian cuisine but with a much more modern approach to Middle Eastern flavours. Kym and I ordered some drinks and got to the arduous task of deciding what to eat, which was a tall order I can tell you. Meeting someone at 12 means that you're just about on the cusp of being able to acceptably order brunch. However in my mind eating brunch much more after 12 feels wrong. 

Tempted by their cinnamon French toast or the shakshouka, poached eggs in tomato base with onions spices and flatbread with the option of merguez sausage add on was almost too much to pass up. That is until I saw a leg of chicken on a bed of pearl barley with grilled peppers, Iranian gherkins, red onion and spiced yoghurt. Sold. Kym also followed suit and we ordered some hummous and bread to share.

elderflower and rose spritzer

hummous with Mark's Bread

chicken on pearl barley

Just look at my spritzer, a drink topped with rose petals, beautiful and delicious. The food was outstanding. The bread, from Mark's Bread, was superb, my only slight criticism would be that I found the hummous not as smooth as my tastes prefer, this is personal preference however. The crowning glory of the lunch was the wonderful chicken dish. Packed full of flavours and textures I could easily see this being a firm favourite on my must have dishes in Bristol. The chicken was juicy and spiced enhanced by the smokey yoghurt and the pearl barley was plump, we practically licked our plates clean.

Can't wait to return to Soukitchen they really offer something different and that is no bad thing in a city full of burgers and pizzas, which I enjoy eating, it's just nice to have as many options as possible. To find out more about Soukitchen visit their website.

Midweek Feasting at Wahaca

We were invited to Wahaca this week to sample their newly opened wares, Rich is here to tell you all about our visit...

Wahaca’s anticipated and well-publicized opening in Bristol was met somewhat cynically by myself. Having grown up with Mexican food, and tasted numerous bad examples of it in this country, with many of the worst offenders having gone out of business, and some desperately hanging on, and with Wahaca being a chain (albeit a respected one), I was fairly ambivalent about the whole deal. Reading the numerous good reviews it’s already received however raised my view on the restaurant, but I still went in with a good degree of caution.

The initial surprise when you go comes from seeing just how big the place is. From the outside it doesn’t give much away, as all you can really see is the bar area and a tiny portion of the dining space. It’s much larger than it looks, and they’ve used the space well, considering they’ve had to add a kitchen to what used to be a homeware shop.

Anyway, enough about all that, the food.

First up for us of course were some tortilla chips and guacamole. So far so standard you may think. And this is exactly what I thought. But I was pleasantly surprised here. Most places that do ‘chips n dip’ do so very basically, very ‘economically’, and are very often obviously shop bought, and of poor quality. Most guacamoles commercially available for instance hardly even have any avocado in them at all. So I was impressed with Wahaca. The chips were obviously made in house, and the guacamole was both nicely fresh and full of flavour, but also had decent chunks of avocado, rather than it just being a pureed creamy green mayonnaise.

Chipotle chicken quesadillas were the first of our main dishes to arrive, and it too ticked all the right boxes. The chicken was tender and perfectly smokey and spiced with the chipotle, but not overly so, so as not to risk overpowering the meat, and there was enough cheese to add flavour and a nice texture, without it smothering everything.

The sweet potato chips side was good too, with each piece being the right size so that it had a nicely crisp yet chewy skin, but still enough of the distinctive sweet potato flavour. Our other side, the coleslaw, was by comparison fairly unexciting. But it would be – it’s coleslaw. That undersells it though, as it was cool, crisp, had a light tang to it, and with the just right hint of creaminess (no-one wants watery creamy coleslaw).

Advertised as a main dish, the fish tacos were served as three slightly larger corn tortillas filled with fresh pickled vegetables, chipotle mayo and panko bread-crumb covered fish. The mayonnaise really complimented the fish and the portion of goujons was generous. It managed to be both generously sized and a great tasting dish. 

fish tacos

Another smaller dish from the street menu was the more fusion sounding, bound to have the authentic cuisine zealots up in arms, salmon sashimi tostada - one of Abby’s highlights. Two crispy corn tortillas with good size portions of salmon, enhanced with a creamy avocado and chipotle, and topped by a garnish of crispy onions. This was fresh and surprisingly moreish, definitely one to order on a return visit.

salmon sashimi tostada

My pork pibil tacos worked brilliantly too. The pork was flavour-some and moist (dry pork is even worse than a creamy colesaw) and had the perfect accompaniment of pickled pink onion. Apart for looking really rather nice, they add a nice sweet and sour hit that really raises the dish.

pork pibil

I’d chosen chicken caesar taquitos as my third small main – though I confess partly out of suspicion. Chicken taquitos, yes fine, no problem, but chicken caesar? Sounds like a wrong mix. But it worked. The taquito itself was properly crisp and the Caesar flavoured chicken really did go well with it, and the salad that it comes with. Best of all, the taquito was nice and dry, there wasn’t any grease running out of it, or dropping off and congealing on the plate.

chicken caesar taquitos

Now, the thing I was really looking forward to was dessert. Wahaca do churros. And I love churros. Rather annoyingly though, finding good churros tends to be quite difficult. Not a lot of places do them, and many that do have a habit of making them soggy, greasy lumps. Wahaca’s churros then made me very happy, coming both as a decent sized portion and nicely crisp with a decent smattering of cinnamon and sugar. We had two dips as well – the standard dark chocolate and the more exciting salted caramel. 

In truth, the dark chocolate, though the right consistency, was perhaps just a little too bitter for me. Not bad but personally not my flavour. The salted caramel however was just fantastic. The phrase ‘deliciously sinful’ may well have been created just for this, and I found myself having smaller bites of the churros, just to get more dipping in. If you have to choose between the two dips, there really is no contest. Salted caramel all the way.

honeycomb chocolate bites

churros with salted caramel dip

One funny thing with Wahaca is the perceived portion size. You order a few things and it may not look a huge amount, but they are packed with food, and also are incredibly filling. We perhaps under-estimated exactly what we were getting, and finishing the desserts was a mission. Luckily I wasn’t going to waste anything that delicious, so you’ll be pleased to hear there was zero wasteage. But we were both pretty full afterwards.

Food then, is very good, and is an excellent addition to the array of casual dining eat-out options in town. It’s a slick operation too, with plenty of staff, in both the kitchen, and out and about in the restaurant. All of the staff seem to be very well-trained, knowledgeable and friendly, and all appear to have their own genuine opinions on their favourites. We were lucky enough to briefly meet Wahaca co-founder Thomasina Miers too, which though nice in itself, also highlights something else as well. Despite it being a chain, she is making sure she is involved, and is actually being hands-on, unlike other chain venues, and specifically other celebrity chef owned restaurants, where a place is opened and the name is just stuck on there – no names mentioned.

I’d happily go there again.

Although we were invited as guests of Wahaca this did not impact our opinion of the food. To learn more about Wahaca visit their website.

A Rainy Lunch at Wok to Walk

The sun had well and truly given up the other week, it was raining. I needed sustaining. Chris coaxed me up to Park Street on a lunch hour to sample his new favourite obsession Wok to Walk. Never one to turn down a noodle I was there like a shot. Wok to Walk's main selling point is it's ability to completely customise your dish from rice or noodle type to the vegetables you want to add in, you want it you can have it. Everything is cooked from fresh in front of you in a sizzling wok, and there is something for veggies, vegans and gluten free.

I decided on rice noodles with chicken, pak choi, broccoli with oyster sauce and topped with mixed sesame seeds, which came to around the £8 mark. I waited for a short while and then then heaviest cardboard traditional USA Chinese takeaway container was handed over to me, it looked slightly smaller than I expected but it was clearly jam packed to the rafters.

duck, sweet and sour noodles

The amount of food was pretty good and there are sachets of hot sauce, which taste a lot like the hallowed Sriracha sauce, and soy sauce for extra saltiness. I really enjoyed mine, the flavour was good and the vegetables had a nice bit of crunch to them. The price is the main sticking point for Wok to Walk. £7-8 is more than I would pay at lunchtime, but it could be a welcome quick refuel before a gig at the Academy one evening. Or perfect for your post gig munchies. Basically Wok to Walk is tasty but feels better value for an evening meal, not to mention it being really filling. To find out more about Wok to Walk visit their website. 

Pizzas at Timeless Pizza Bar

When Beth finished her exams we celebrated with pizza and wine. As we had yet to check out Timeless Pizza Bar, on Chandos Road, we decided that this was exactly how we could pep up our celebrating on a Friday night.  We popped in about 8pm and Michael and Rich had already ordered a caraffe of red, how kind of them, so all we had to do was choose what pizzas to have.  A margherita costs just £5 and any toppings you want to add are an additional £1 each. Seeing as that was such a bargain I decided to pop artichokes and chorizo on mine, artichokes on pizza are a particular favourite so I was delighted to see them on the menu. The boys also ordered some garlic bread for us to share whilst waiting for our pizzas to arrive. 

The garlic bread that appeared first was nothing special, a bit dry could have done with more butter, nothing to write home about. However the pizzas that came out were enormous, fairly thin base and covered generously in the desired toppings. They looked heavenly. I tucked into mine immediately as after a glass or two of wine I was famished. My pizza hit the spot completely with all the soft artichokes and salty chorizo, I was impressed, the value is astonishing. Most of the table could not finish their pizzas due to the sheer size but I ploughed on like a hero. Timeless Pizza Bar impressed me, the pizzas are extremely tasty and amazing value for money. This is perfect for when you are looking for a filling but reasonably priced treat. To find out more visit their Facebook page.