Goings on

Like everyone else in Britain, I thoroughly enjoyed the weather this summer. I went to Larmer Tree Festival in Salisbury, I enjoyed some outdoor theatre - the fantastic production of 'The Boy Who Cried Wolf' courtesy of Bristol Old Vic and I attended quite a few of the brilliant festivals that we are so lucky to have in Bristol.

Now that we're moving into autumn, I'm sad to see the warm weather go but so excited that my love of everything and anything musical and theatrical doesn't have to stop, we just get to move inside... 

My fridge door magnets are straining with the tickets for these little beauties:

'Great Expectations' & 'The Little Mermaid' at Bristol Old Vic

'Cabaret' at the Hippodrome

Russell Brand at the Colston Hall

Hayseed Dixie at The Fleece

The Darkness at Bath Pavilion

And I'm hoping to add a few more to that list by the end of the year, in particular 'The Last Voyage of Sinbad the Sailor' at the Tobacco Factory Theatre. 

Bring it on, Bristol!

Bristol Bites

I'm very proud to say that I will be writing a few pieces here and there for Bristol Bites. It's blogs like Emily's that inspired me to start writing again and so am seriously pleased to be able to contribute towards their output.

Am off to my first official outing for them on Thursday so watch this space (and theirs!).

Bengal Raj

This review also features on Bristol Bites - Bristol's biggest food blog...

The first curry house in England opened over 200 years ago and thus began the great British love affair with Indian food. From Queen Victoria to those of us craving a post pub meal on a Friday night, we can’t get enough of the stuff which is why I find it truly astonishing that there are so many bad curry houses about. You know - the ones that serve tiny cubes of meat lost in a luminous sauce topped with a scalding pool of florescent oil. But here in Bristol, we’re blessed enough to have the pick of some very good Indian restaurants, the Bengal Raj being one of them.

Opened in 1998, it was the second of two Indian restaurants opened by four brothers. The first one is the acclaimed and multi awarded Brunel Raj in Clifton Village. The Bengal Raj is situated within a few doors of the excellent Stoke Bishop Fish Bar (it’s sister shop also residing in Clifton Village), and its tranquil location belies the cuisine inside.

I visited the Bengal Raj with my OH, mother and brother at 7.30 on a Friday evening and the first thing I noticed that the inside of the restaurant was a bit beige and entirely different to the more quirky Brunel Raj but it was packed out – surely a good sign! Although busy we weren’t kept waiting at all and our waiter was quick to collect our drink  and food orders.

We opted for popadoms to start with and they came with a fully laden tray of delicious looking dips and pickles – cooling minted yoghurt, fragrant mango chutney, sweetened coconut, sour lime pickle and a very finely diced onion salad.

For our main dishes we ordered a lamb dhansak, chicken tikka rezala, chicken kerala and a chicken achari. My mother ordered the achari but as she rarely finds Indian curries hot enough for her we spoke with the waiter and he offered to take it to the level of a madras but offered more chillis should she need them. We also ordered sides of sag paneer (spinach with Indian cheese) and brinjal bhaji (aubergine) along with a variety of naan breads and a tandoori roti.

Our food was brought to us steaming hot in beautiful hammered curry bowls which our waiter told us were made to order especially for them from a manufacturer in London – they were deceptively large as they were much deeper than ordinary curry bowls which meant the portions were very generous.  All of the dishes smelt wonderful and were extremely appetizing in appearance – no day-glo sauce and certainly no pools of oil floating on the top.

The dhansak was hot, sour and sweet all at the same time with a great depth of flavor and made the perfect pairing with my peshwari naan which was light and fluffy with sesame seeds scattered over the top providing a pleasing texture. The chunks of lamb were tender and meltingly soft, I was able to cut through them with just my spoon.

The chicken dishes were packed full of large pieces of moist chicken breast but most important of all – they all tasted completely different. I’ve been to so many curry houses where the dishes all look the same and barring different ‘heat levels’, all of them taste the same. The rezala was thick and flavoursome with tomato and onion and the kerala was highly spiced with fresh coriander, fennel, cloves and red chillis but could definitely have been hotter.

The achari came and it was delicious – sharper than you would expect as it is cooked with both lemon and lime juices but not in an overly acidic way, just enough to enhance the taste of the other spices and as requested the chef had slipped a few fresh green chillis into it to try and bring up the heat level. Although still not hot enough for my Mum, it was great that they had tried to cater for her and she was very pleased with it – no easy feat, I can assure you!

I’m a massive fan of spinach in general and sag paneer is one of my favourite side dishes – again we were given a generous portion and the iron heavy spinach was cooked with fragrant garlic and lovely chunks of paneer cheese with the texture of firm tofu.

The brinjal bhaji was also delicious – due to it being an aubergine dish, it was understandably quite oily but that was to be expected. Cooked with tomatoes and onions, the smokey aubergine’s white flesh was almost creamy and was delicately flavoured with cumin. The only thing to question was that the tandoori roti was quite soft like a chapatti rather than being crispy on the outside but that might just be down to a regional variation

The dishes were so huge that we had to take a lot of it home with us and the very friendly waiters were more than happy to bag everything up for us. It was a thoroughly enjoyable meal and we will definitely be back to tackle other things on the menu, especially the many cast iron sizzling dishes that we were eyeballing at another table! If you haven’t found your ‘HG’ go-to curry house yet, I urge you to try the Bengal Raj – and wear your stretchiest trousers!

Harvest Time!

After the most fabulous summer, it really is starting to feel autumnal - misty mornings, dew on the grass and a chill in the air in the evening. It's my favourite time of year and I expect many others feel the same. One other reason I love it is that the shops are full of amazing, recently harvested produce and the glorious weather is certainly showing in the size and taste of the fruit and vegetables.

I've bought bags and bags of heavy, sweet cherries and punnets of gloriously fragrant strawberries. The other day I picked up a bag of juicy English plums the size of small apples and crowned a home made tarte au citron with jewel like clusters of redcurrants, blackcurrants and raspberries. One of the best treats though has to be fresh figs. I love the colours - the wonderful pinky red against the sumptuous aubergine shade and the flash of green and they're so cheap! I stopped at a farm shop and bought six plump and soft beauties for 50p each, easily enough for two meals.

Back home, I cut the figs into 6's, and sprinkled them over a rocket salad dotted with mozzarella and salty sheets of parma ham. I finished off with my home made balsamic glaze et voila - a salad fit enough for the kingliest of kings.

Balsamic Glaze

1 cup of balsamic vinegar (no need for an expensive sort)
1/2 cup of water
1/4 cup of brown sugar - I used dark brown muscavado

Pop all the ingredients into a non-reactive saucepan and bring to a slow simmer.

Simmer for about 30 minutes, stirring frequently to avoid burning all the while reducing the liquid to its desired consistency. (Be warned though, it will thicken as it cools - I tested the viscosity by taking teaspoonfuls and cooling it quickly on a plate)

You will be left with a sticky, unctuous sauce that you can use for sweet or savoury dishes.

BBQ Dreams

Back in 2010, I attended a small festival in Bristol called Grillstock packed with meat, music, mojitos and Dr BBQ. Fast forward three years and Grillstock has firmly established itself into the heart of Bristol with the annual festival growing in size and reputation and the opening of a stand in St Nick's Market. But a little over two weeks ago, they set up a new home on the Triangle in the form of the Grillstock Smokehouse.

Sometimes when you go to a restaurant, you're not sure what to expect. Will you need to dress up? Is it gonna be fancy? Will there be three dozen pieces of cutlery to use in a strict protocol of etiquette? But sometimes what you hope for is exactly what you get. The name Grillstock promises music. It promises a good time. It promises BBQ sauce. Most of all, it promises lots and lots of meat. And boy does it deliver.

The first impression you get from the Smokehouse is the smell. The gorgeous, mouth watering aroma of BBQ wafting out of the door is enough to start you dribbling in anticipation before you even step foot inside. And once you do, you're greeted by an immense communal table constructed from railway sleepers and steel, and rock-a-billy music inspired by the festival. One of the walls is papered with pictures from the festivals and gleefully we could point out my brother who took part in the chicken wing eating contest this year.

The menu is very basic and split into BBQ plates where you can choose from various meats - pulled pork, beef brisket, chicken and ribs all served with a side of fries, slaw, cornbread and sausage. Yes, you heard that right. A side of sausage. It's the thing dreams are made of.

Next come the sandwich / hotdog / burger options including the awesome Lockjaw Burger - a beast of a thing consisting of burger patties, beef brisket, pickles and cheese which is so big it's held together with a knife (A KNIFE!) staked through the middle. Also available is the 'Grand Champion' - a gut busting dish of all four BBQ-ed meats with the usual sides plus BBQ beans (that also contain meat!) and burnt ends, the equivalent of BBQ gold in the form of the charred but flavoursome ends of the beef brisket. Finish it and you get a t-shirt and a bottle of sauce.

The four of us all went for a plate - two of us had the brisket, one had the pulled pork and the other opted for a half chicken. The food comes to you on a tray which adds to the no fuss charm of the place - our only complaint was that the paper the food rests on disintegrates after a while so you inevitably end up eating some of it but it's a small price to pay. All three meats were delectably soft - brisket was so meltingly soft, I could barely keep it on my fork without it falling apart and the pulled pork, unlike so many attempts at this dish by other restaurants, was flavoursome and very moist. I can't comment on the chicken as I didn't try any except for the fact that it too looked delicious.

The cornbread was sweet and dense and the sausage was smokey and moreish. The only thing I wasn't too keen on was the slaw  - it provided a good crunch and change in texture but was a bit blah though I'm certainly not going to say it stopped me from enjoying my meal. I loved the BBQ sauce available in gigantic  bottles spread across the table, especially the hot variety. It was piquant and vinegary and just the thing to cut through the sweet, sticky BBQ sauce. The portions were huge and I couldn't finish mine but nothing went to waste as Si & Jack cleaned my tray up for me.

The drinks ranged from bottled beer, hard liquor and American inspired floats as well as the novel option of beer served with shots of whiskey and pickle juice. Through research, the combination of Jamesons and picklejuice is called a Pickleback and is meant to be very tasty and peps up the taste of beer but no-one in our party fancied it on a Saturday lunchtime. However, we'll definitely be back. I want to get my hands on the ribs and I know that my brother would definitely want to attempt the Grand Champion.

There are a lot of restaurants in Bristol but I would say the Grillstock Smokehouse is in a world all of its own - one that embraces a no fuss, no nonsense atmosphere and concentrates on giving it's patrons the only thing a restaurant should concern itself with - a fully belly, a big smile and a good covering of BBQ sauce.

Watersky - they have knives and forks, don't you know?

I think it is incredibly difficult to find a good Chinese restaurant. I’m not talking about a local takeaway that serves questionable meat in fluorescent sauces and food served with bucketfuls of bean sprouts to flesh out portions or indeed a restaurant that serves a set menu of crispy duck, sweet and sour something and beef in black bean sauce. 

I’m talking about an authentic Chinese restaurant that serves clay hotpot dishes, dim sum and platters of Chinese roasted meat. Roasted meat, namely char siu (bbq-ed pork), duck and crispy belly pork on rice is one of the dishes of my childhood and is still one of my favourite meals. 

There are a few Chinese restaurants in Bristol, namely Dynasty, Hong Kong Diner, Mayflower, Wongs and WaterSky. I’ve visited all but Wongs and some definitely rank better than others but I won’t review all of them here today. 

I’ve visited WaterSky a couple of times, recently. Once with friends for dim sum and once on a mad mission for some crispy belly pork. WaterSky is easily one of the biggest Chinese restaurants I’ve ever been to. It easily seats 300 and is plush and opulent. The ceiling houses several gigantic chandeliers and the gold and scarlet carpet is grand and thick underfoot. And don’t even get me started on the toilets (seriously, if you visit WaterSky ladies, take a trip to the conveniences). 

We’ve been here for dim sum on the weekend when it is absolutely packed and people are queuing to get in but I don’t get it. As a self-titled connoisseur of dim sum (seriously, I come from a family who will happily drive an hour and half each way to satisfy a craving), I found it to be one of the worst places to eat it. 

The cheung fun (think Chinese cannelloni – long flat sheets of rice noodles rolled up with various fillings) with char siu was thick and rubbery and the char siu was unappetisingly pale and fatty. The yam croquettes, instead of being light and fluffy were heavy and stodgy and very dry and the various  steamed dumplings seemed to be over-cooked and soggy. Our fried dishes such as won ton (minced pork and prawn wrapped in spring roll skin and deep fried) and lobster dumpling were very greasy – I guess typical of having been taken out of the fryer and not drained properly. But everything seemed to be tasteless.  It was almost as if the food had been bought from Wai Yee Hong, the supermarket downstairs, and reheated upstairs. There didn’t seem to be any love or care in the dishes.

 All in all, I was very disappointed and won’t be letting either of my parents near it for fear of the months of moaning that will follow - ‘Remember when you took us to that restaurant for dim sum and it was LOUSY?’ / ‘I can’t believe you took us there and we had to queue for such a LOUSY meal,’ etc. (They like the word ‘lousy’).

However, I was nearby the other day and in the mood for a dish of three roasties rice. I was seated in one corner of the vast restaurant away from a crowd of noisy, elderly Chinese folk who I was told were there on an annual ‘Chinese Elders Group’ lunch. Bless… there’s something for me to look forward to in my senior years. 

When my dish came, it looked utterly delicious. Most restaurants try and palm you off with a more generous helping of char siu but the duck and belly pork was in plentiful supply too. However, I was asked if I needed a knife and fork. Bemused, I told the waitress I was Chinese to which she told me that I didn’t look it and started to question me on my heritage. Ok, I know it happens a lot and I don’t look authentically Chinese but who’s to say that even if I wasn’t, I couldn’t eat with chopsticks? Thumbs down for customer service… 

But the char siu was sweet and tender, the belly pork salty and crunchy and the duck was soft and highly spiced with 5 spice powder with a lot of the fat rendered away so you weren’t getting mouthfuls of it under the crispy skin. Except for the service, it was the polar opposite to the food we were served for dim sum and I would certainly go there again for the more traditional menu based dishes. And next time, I’m going to tell them that I’m Swedish… 

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...