Goldbrick House Cafe Bar

I always find it so difficult to decide where to go out to eat in Bristol. There are so many amazing food havens spread across so many different places that when you decide to go on an impromptu night out, the choice is endless. Often we find ourselves in the car before deciding and hope that inspiration will strike us before we reach the end of the Portway.

Last night we debated between a few places but weary folk that we were settled on the less formal Cafe Bar at Goldbrick House.

There's no denying GH is a beautiful place from it's French bistro inspired Cafe Bar to the secretive Library rooms upstairs and it's sun trapped roof terrace. The restaurant upstairs is more of a fanciful affair but for a more casual occasion, the Cafe Bar offers small tapas type dishes amongst burgers, fish and chips and pasta dishes.

Si ordered a plate of linguine with meatballs and I plumped for the tuna nicoise salad with some chips on the side. I specified for the tuna to be served quite pink - the rarer the better for me. Pretty simple, right?

The dishes came and we were both somewhat underwhelmed. Si complained that his meatball linguine was more of a starter size than a main, you certainly didn't get a huge amount for your £9. I can't even give an opinion on how it tasted as it had disappeared within about three mouthfuls.

As for my salad...

When the waiter bought it over, he said that it didn't look too pink as the chef had flashed it under the grill to warm it. Um... no. Wrong. Why would you warm through a tuna steak after it had been seared? And as for the steak, I'm not sure why the chef chose to massacre what should have been a perfectly good piece of fish in such a way with something no sharper than a baseball bat leaving it strewn all over the salad like a piece of roadkill but he did.

Because of the ragged chunks, none of the pieces were cooked exactly the same and most were cooked through with none of that gloriously pink blushed centre a piece of tuna should have.

However, it was quite dark in the Cafe Bar (see the pic above) - perhaps it affected the chef's eyesight... But let me give you a quick lesson:

When we say pink we mean this:

If you cook tuna and serve it like this, it leads to a sad face:

If I was looking at the photo, I wouldn't think that was a piece of fish... and please note the rather small portion of linguine in the background.

The other components of the salad only added to the disappointment. The potatoes, were hard and had started to split down the middle which to my knowledge happens when boiled potatoes are kept in a fridge for a number of days. The boiled eggs didn't have the still slightly soft yolk which is what I expect when I order a Nicoise salad from an establishment such as Goldbrick House and the chef had appeared to empty an entire jar of capers into the dish. Mmmm... vinegary.

The waiter very kindly removed the chips from the bill but they weren't the issue. It's a shame that the same consideration isn't given to the food downstairs as upstairs. And for somewhere with such a lovely ambiance, it's a shame the food puts a dent in that experience and so when we next have our in-car debate about where to go for food, I think we'll know which side of the metaphorical road GH will fall on...

The Old Bookshop

I started going to the Old Bookshop back when in opened in 2011 with a girlfriend of mine who, when I asked for directions, told me to drive past the Spotted Cow and it would be 'somewhere on the right'. I was incredulous - was there life beyond the Spotted Cow? Surely driving past would just take you towards East Street and it's cacophony of kebab shops. But no, I was very wrong and thus my love affair with the Old Bookshop began and 20 months on, it has become a deeply rooted favourite amongst my friends and I.

As you walk in through the door you're struck by the quirky exterior - the trumpets hanging above the bar, the vintage typewriters lining the wall, the piano that's been turned into a bar and the mad taxidermied animals perched around the place but there's no air of 'try-to-hard' or pretentiousness. It all seems to feel very lived in, established and dare I say it, natural which seems strange considering the bleak surrounding environment of sandwich shops and take aways. The tiny stage has seen bands such as the locally loved, Ten Pound Suit Band and when not in use houses a few more tables.

Their chef has changed in the last few months, previously headed up by Scott Raynal Hislop who now works in Hermanos on the Triangle, it seems he has left the Old Bookshop in safe hands and their food is as good as ever.Their take on tapas is served in mismatched crockery that would not feel unwelcome in your granny's kitchen cupboard and the menu changes from week to week. Previous visits have seen seafood heavy menus with garlic prawns, sardines and deep fried calamari but our visit last night featured quite a few beef dishes - meatballs, lasagne, chilli, mini burgers. We opted for the meatballs, chilli, deep fried chicken drumsticks and macaroni cheese with a side of cheesy fries (I AM pleased they've stopped calling it Frites Fromage - you don't need to try to be cool guys, you already are!).

The meatballs were heady and fragrant with marjoram, and were soft, salty and delicious served in a stew with beans and potatoes. The chilli again was fairly heavy on the herbs but not in an overpowering way and was served with rice and a big dollop of soured cream. I was a bit disappointed by the drumsticks, from the description I was expecting fried chicken with a Caribbean spiced batter but they seemed to have been slow roasted - they were still delicious, the meat almost fell away from the bone - but not what I expected. The macaroni cheese was the big highlight with the most moreish sauce and the welcome additives of spinach and cherry tomatoes. I could have eaten a big plateful on my own.

The ingredients seem to be locally sourced with Mark's Bread an almost constant resident, seafood from Brixham etc and seasonal  but they don't bang on about either issue of locality or seasonality, they just focus on what they do best, serving tasty food.

I've yet to try their Sunday roasts or partake in American Night (soon to be Caribbean Night) on a Monday but I'm sure there will be many more opportunities for that. We were told last night that they have secured the premises next door so they can extend which is great in some respects but I'm going to miss the feeling of the tiny, cocoon-like interior but knowing how well they have managed with such a small space, I'm confident that they will be able to keep the intimate and cozy ambience. I do hope they stick to their no reservations policy - feeling that you can pop in anytime to get a couple of bowls of something yummy adds to the relaxed feeling of locality and the friendly neighbourhood cafe and I hope to be popping by for many more years to come...

Salt and pepper squid

I gave this a bash over the weekend - very easy recipe and very quick to prepare and cook although my squid hadn't been gutted or cleaned so I spent a rather messy half hour doing that. I do quite enjoy it, though - it's quite satisfying!

I lifted the recipe from the Guardian but omitted the coriander - BLEURGH and used cornflour in place of potato flour as I didn't have any. I would also say that it needs more salt in the seasoned flour mix but I guess it's personal taste.

Serves 2

350g small squid, cleaned
1/2tsp black peppercorns
1/2tsp Sichuan peppercorns
1tsp sea salt flakes
5tbsp potato flour
1 egg, beaten
Groundnut or vegetable oil, to fry
1 red chilli, deseeded and finely sliced
2 spring onions, sliced
1 garlic clove, sliced
Fresh coriander and lime wedges, to serve

Separate the bodies of the squid from the tentacles, and cut them into triangles. Score the inside with a diamond pattern, making sure not to cut right the way through the flesh. Add to the tentacles, pat dry and set aside.

Heat a dry frying pan and add both varieties of peppercorn. Toast for a minute or so until fragrant, then tip into a pestle and mortar, along with the salt, and crush to a powder. Mix two-thirds of this with the potato flour in a shallow bowl and set the rest aside. Put the beaten egg into a second bowl.Half fill a large pan or wok with oil, or use a deep fat fryer, and heat it to 180C, or until a small piece of bread browns in 15 seconds.

Meanwhile, dip the squid pieces in the egg, then in seasoned flour until well coated. Fry – in batches if necessary – until pale golden, stirring once to make sure they don't stick to the bottom.

As they're cooking, heat a further tablespoon of oil in a frying pan over a high heat. Use a slotted spoon to lift the cooked squid on to kitchen towel and tip the chilli, spring onion and garlic into the frying pan. Fry very briefly until it all starts to caramelise, then add the squid to the pan and toss together.

Tip on to a serving plate, sprinkle with a little more seasoning and serve with a little coriander and some wedges of lime.

Tweet Tweet

Twitter is a very weird thing.

Last week I was followed by an American evangelist keen on combining his love for God with preaching about weight loss - a rather bizarre combination. Lemme tell you, I couldn't press the block button fast enough. 

Yesterday I got followed by Shemar Moore from Criminal Minds. You know, the HOT one! Which was very nice. But still, very weird. 

That said, I'm not complaining, just sayin'!

At the moment...

I'm working in a lovely, LOVELY company called Humble Bee Films. I can't remember when I enjoyed working for a company more. I shan't wax lyrical about what makes it so good, just that they are all bloody nice people and I feel arse numbingly lucky to be here. (Especially as Auntie is just over the road and is, for me, the opposite end of the happy staff scale).

I'm currently on a documentary about parrots, and while it's far away from my last programme with my lady crush, Nigella, it is one of the sweetest things I've ever worked on.

Cue smug face and passing of the sick bucket...

Cherry Duck Bistro

Upon hearing the whispered excitement of the Cherry Duck Bistro - a fairly new restaurant that had opened up on Welsh Back - we decided to treat ourselves and see what the fuss was all about.

Despite being shoehorned in between a gym and a couple of fairly ugly buildings, the Cherry Duck has a lovely ambiance inside with modern furniture and a twinkle of fairy lights combined with a very friendly welcome. We were seated close to the open kitchen and presented with a very neat menu (four options for each course) with two courses for £19.95 and three for £24.50, it all looked so delicious that I was rendered quite wriggly with excitement. I plumped for the sour cherry and duck starter with rabbit cooked three ways for my main course and my OH went for carrot and coriander soup and lamb served with Moroccan vegetables and giant couscous. 

While we waited we were served with delicious granary sourdough and fruit olive oil which our waiter explained came from hand picked and pressed olives from Spain. 

The duck was delicious and came with celeriac and a sour cherry puree whilst the carrot and coriander soup was tasty and the right side of sweet and fragrant.

My main course of rabbit (ballotine, sous vide loin and rabbit leg hash) was beautifully presented and came with a most delicious raisin jus dribbed over soft, sweet, celeriac puree that made the whole dish sing. The ballotine was the winner here, with the salty proscuitto serving as a nice contrast against the sweet rabbit and nutty pistachios. My OH's loin of lamb was soft and cooked to pink perfection and the balance of the lamb with the cumin heavy Moroccan veg puree was perfect. The giant couscous and flaked almonds added a wonderful combination of textures and we polished both mains off in appreciative silence with the occasional satisfied 'Mmmm'.

When it came to dessert, one of them in particular called out to us - a chocolate fondant, stout ice cream and salted caramel sauce. Neither of us are particularly fussed about fondants, however I was intrigued by the stout ice cream and my OH has a definite love for salted caramel (with thanks to the Pony and Trap's salted caramel ice cream they serve with their Sticky Toffee Pudding). The fondant was sticky, rich and glorious and came floating on a pool of salted caramel sauce that was truly exquisite. The stout ice cream had an almost flowery, fragrant flavour but was creamy, soft and smooth. It came but with one regret. That we ordered one to share instead of one each!

After our meal, one of the chefs came out from behind the kitchen to ask if we enjoyed the meal and to answer any questions we may have had. I fired off questions about the olive oil, and the meat and he graciously supplied me the names and locations of the various butchers they use and seemed to genuinely believe and be excited about the ethos of the restaurant - locally sourced and seasonal food. 

One of my only irks is that they serve you very small glasses of water but then proceed to come by every five minutes or so to top them up. It's all very nice to not be without an empty glass but it's rather disruptive to have to acknowledge and thank someone every few minutes when they could just leave the bottle...

That said, with the promise that the menu changes every week, I will definitely be back and have already named it one of my favourite restaurants in Bristol, a rather heady title, I'm sure you'll agree but one very much deserved.

http://www.cherryduckbistro.co.uk

Cafe Retreat - Whiteladies Road

Cafe Retreat could have so much potential. First impressions promise so much - the eye catching aqua exterior, the sun trapped (when it appears) deck - ideal for people watching, the close proximity to some truly fabulous suppliers like Ruby & White and one of the only places within a few hundred metres to offer freshly made sandwiches for those on a hurried lunch. And most of all the promise that their food is locally sourced and is of the best quality. 

Unfortunately it rapidly descends into the realm of disappointment. 

With the loss of the Friary Cafe on Cotham Hill, the latter end of Whiteladies Road needs somewhere that offers a decent bacon / sausage / fried egg sandwich. We ordered sandwiches from Cafe Retreat one Friday morning. One of us ordered a bacon, sausage and egg bap. The other ordered, simply, a bacon sandwich. 

We were expecting the bap to be a pillowy, floury base to slurp up bacon grease and runny egg yolk but it was rather small, stale and crumbling. The poached egg (they told me they couldn't do a fried egg despite all food being cooked to order) had a hard yolk. The sausages were clearly not of 'the best quality' and appeared to be one of those pale imposters served up to school children who don't know any better. The bacon sandwich had two tiny rashes of bacon in it. They wanted to charge extra for ketchup but not before they had slung a very tired side salad into the takeaway box. Salad? Really? On a hungover Friday morning? Despite the fact that both breakfast items each contained the same two limp slices of bacon but the 'bap' also had two sausages and an egg, both of these things cost £4. EACH. 

To add insult to injury, the bread we spied in the kitchen to make the bacon sandwich wasn't homemade and didn't come from the bakery on Cotham Hill. Or Chandos Deli. Or in fact the bakery counter at Sainsburys. It came from a Hovis bag. I don't think the words 'rip' and 'off' could be used too frequently here. 

I gave it another go one lunchtime thinking they were probably just having an off day. I perused their menu online and rang up to place my order. A BBQ chicken and mozzarella panini. I was asked to wait while they checked that they still had BBQ chicken which pleased me as I thought it might have been freshly cooked. I was told to pop by in 10 minutes time. Fabulous. 

When I got to Cafe Retreat, they charge me £1 more than the website prices because those were 'out of date' which meant I paid £5 for a panini.  I was then told that I can't have been looking at their current menu because they 'don't do BBQ chicken anymore' but (BUT!) 'we still had some of the ingredients for it, so it's ok.' As I sadly received my box (is this why things are so frigging expensive because they insist on giving you food in a box unlike any other sandwich shop anywhere who gives you food wrapped in paper?) and trudged over the road, I secretly hoped that this panini would be the best panini Bristol would have to offer. Alas, on opening the box it revealed a rather tiny panini (shop bought ciabatta bread), bland plain chicken doused in HP BBQ sauce and one of their very limp side salads which sadly and curiously smelt of parmesan cheese rendering it inedible. 

I don't doubt that their food is locally sourced - most probably from the value range at one of the local supermarkets, but I DO doubt their food is of the best quality that they boast about on their menus. 

When you have Ruby and White down the road offering ready to go sandwich baguettes the length of your arm, crammed with free range egg mayonnaise and their own short date bacon that they need to use for £3, Schnafel offering delicious wraps stuffed with a huge variety of salads and falafel for £4 and the Town House offering a steak lunch for £4.95, you do wonder what Cafe Retreat have going for them. My guess is that they rely on frequent visits from staff at the BBC looking to escape their own abysmal canteen or that they take advantage of weary passers by who have walked the length of Whiteladies from Blackboy Hill and view it as a last chance saloon. 

So when you see Cafe Retreat, do as it asks. Retreat elsewhere if you want food that doesn't leave you unsatisfied and out of pocket.