Brew Coffee Company - Whiteladies Road

Readers who have read my blog previously will know that I didn’t hold Café Retreat on Whiteladies Road in the best regard and while it is sad when businesses close down, it’s always exciting to see what will spring up in its place especially as Bristol is making such a name for itself in the national food stakes. One only has to look at the last few weeks and the evidence speaks for itself – I’m talking of course about the Bristol Food Connections Festival, Eat Drink Fashion and the Good Food Awards.

But I digress. Café Retreat shut up shop for the last time a couple of weeks ago and this morning, after a paint job and a refurb, Brew Coffee Company threw open its doors to the public. Gone is the bright turquoise façade, replaced by a more muted, timeless taupe and the billowy sheeted ceiling sacrificed for clean lines and a large bar groaning with delicious looking eats.

Joe, my lovely server at Brew, was quick to point out that it was a soft opening and not all of the drinks were available just yet so I’ve made a note to try out the very interesting looking ‘lavender hot chocolate’ next time.

So, let’s move on to the food. How far could they come from supermarket sliced bread and what would appeared to have been sandwich filler from a carton? Polar opposite is the answer.

I chose a slice of hand made slow roasted tomato quiche with a gorgeous, crumbly crust, packed with sweet, delicious tomatoes and a potato salad dressed in a light mustard dressing with cornichons and dill – no claggy mayonnaise to be seen; and a charred cauliflower salad with toasted hazelnuts and pomegranate seeds. Other temptations on offer included an equally delicious looking salmon quiche and a range of freshly made sandwiches and bagels.

As I stood waiting to pay, slabs of rocky road piled high on a dish were brought out but I found myself drawn to a sticky, glorious looking cinnamon roll from Everything Bagels who are opening their first bakery in Bristol soon. I can confirm that not only is it a thing of architectural beauty but it tastes pretty darn good too!

Brew CC might have opted for a soft opening but judging from the diners outside they’ve burst on to the Whiteladies scene with quite a roar. 

Chinese New Year!

Edited, coz quite frankly it was rather lame!


Gong Xi Fa Cai - Happy New Year to all my friends and family. It's the Year of the Horse (the green, wooden horse to be exact) and it is looking like a good one for me - I'm a goat and according to the horoscopes, goats and horses get along because they're both quite similar animals.

Tradition dictates that you should have a reunion dinner to close the previous year so strictly, you should travel back to your elder's homes for a big feast. Unfortunately I don't live very near my Mum so we generally travel back on the weekend after to celebrate. This year, New Year's Day fell on a Friday so Si and I travelled back on the Friday evening.

Mum had been planning her menu since Christmas and Saturday was a major day of prepping and cooking the many dishes she had planned. She had already made curry puffs, a childhood favourite of mine for breakfast the next day. They look like mini pasties and the pastry is filled with a combination of curried minced lamb, peas and potatoes all highly spiced and very delicious. They are then deep fried and eaten hot or cold.

She had planned a huge amount of dishes, many of which are favourites of mine and they included prawn sambal - a sour, thick curry made with large tiger prawns flavoured with lime and kaffir lime leaves. This was my grandmother's recipe and brings back wonderful memories of Malaysia for me. We had steamed rainbow trout, wontons (deep fried dumplings made with minced pork and prawn), crispy belly pork, beef curry, chicken and cashews in black bean and a variety of other things. We also had a couple of traditional Malaysian desserts including Kuih Talam, a layered 'cake' made with coconut and pandan - a Malaysian leaf.

On Sunday she treated us to another variety of amazing food including curry petai - my second all time favourite curry, again made with prawns but with a distinctive bean called buah petai or sotu bean. It offers a pleasing crunch and a rather unique flavour but again, it was a dish from my childhood when I lived in Malaysia. We also feasted on a Chinese turnip dish cooked with spring onions and dried scallops which is then scooped and rolled up into a lettuce leaf before eating.

My mother is the most wonderful cook and I would love to see what she could knock up with a larder full of fresh Malaysian food in front of her!

(Above) Wontons - minced pork and prawn flavoured with coriander and sesame oil and stuffed and folded (by me!) into a wrapper and deep fried - this is obviously before they were cooked!

(Clockwise from top left): Prawn sambal, a fragrant, sour curry made with dried chillies and flavoured with kaffir lime leaves; wontons after they've been cooked; Chinese turnip that you stuff into lettuce leaves; Curry petai made with prawns and a lot of chilli; crispy pork belly

(Above) The huge prawns that went into our Sambal

Great Bristol Cake Off

Jack FM in Bristol are running 'The Great Bristol Cake-off' looking for the best cupcake in Bristol. I thought I'd enter for fun so cobbled together a recipe and sent it off.

Had a call yesterday and I'm one of the five finalists! I have to compete in a bake-off tomorrow with an hour and a half to bake and decorate 6 cupcakes. Argh! 

Only problem is that I've NEVER baked these cakes before so it'll be down to test batches tonight after work. Wish me luck!

Everyone loves a macaron...

I normally make big things. A big, rustic loaf of bread. A big joint of beef. A big mess... you get the idea. I thought I'd go for refinement this week though and knock up a batch of macarons. 

I adore macarons - I've been fortunate enough to go to Laduree on the Champs Elysee to sample them and could literally wolf down a dozen of the chewy, crispy morsels in one go if it wouldn't cripple my wallet. I've never made them though but have seen dozens of people do them on TV so thought I'd have a go. 

175g icing sugar

125g ground almonds

3 large free range egg whites

75g caster sugar

1) Preheat the oven to 160°C/fan140°C/gas 3. Sift the icing sugar and almonds into a bowl.

2) In a separate bowl, whisk the egg whites with a pinch of salt to soft peaks, then gradually whisk in the caster sugar until thick and glossy. I also added some food colouring and cherry flavouring - you can add almost any flavour, just remember to avoid oil based flavourings as this will destroy the integrity of the meringue.

3) Fold half the almond and icing sugar mixture into the meringue and mix well. Add the remaining half, and fold the mixture until it is shiny and has a thick, ribbon-like consistency as it falls from the spatula. Spoon into a piping bag fitted with a 1cm plain nozzle.

4) Line 2 baking sheets with baking paper. Pipe small rounds of the macaroon mixture, about 3cm across (I drew round a pot of bicarb to give me guide lines to pipe to), onto the baking sheets. Give the baking sheets a sharp tap on the work surface to get rid of any air bubbles. Leave to stand at room temperature for 20-30 minutes to form a slight skin. Bake for 15 minutes. Remove from the oven and cool.

5) Fill the macarons and sandwich together - I use passionfruit and lemon curd but you could use buttercream, jam or ganache

For a first effort they turned out pretty well - crispy and chewy, although I wasn't too pleased with the colour. However, winging their way to me is a set of Wilton colour pastes so I can get a really intense colour next time. (That's a mini cake stand in the pic, I haven't made giant macarons!)

Get out of bed bread

How many times do TV chefs bang on about making your own bread and how easy it is? Of course they're right - it IS easy and I love doing it but often I just don't have the time. I used to have a sourdough starter. In fact, the first few posts on this blog are about it but I rarely got to make a loaf with it. It wasn't practical for me to make one during the week when I was at work as it would have over-proved and if I was out of the weekend it wouldn't get a look in then, either.

I have since discovered the absolute joy of soda bread. I don't have kids but I imagine it would be fab to do with them as not only is it ridiculously simple but it's so quick - this weekend it was ready within an hour of getting up out of bed. It's best eaten on the day but makes good toast the next day

You need:

450g strong white bread flour
1 level tsp salt
1 level tsp bicarbonate of soda
300ml buttermilk
tepid water - about 6 tbsp / 90ml

The buttermilk I buy comes in 284ml cartons but my digital scales tell me that if I scrape every last bit out, it generally comes to 300ml. Otherwise use a little plain, live yoghurt to make up the difference.

1) Preheat your oven to 200 / 180 degrees C (conventional / fan)

2) Lightly grease a baking tray

3) Sift the flour, salt and bicarb into a mixing bowl

4) Pour in the buttermilk and water and combine the ingredients with your hands or a wooden spoon to form a very soft dough

5) Tip the dough out on to a lightly floured work surface and shape into a round about 7 inches in diameter. Place on the baking tray and using a sharp knife, slash a cross shape into the top

6) Bake for 30 mins, then turn the loaf upside down and bake for a further 10-15 mins until it sounds hollow when tapped. Cool on a wire rack

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.

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.

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. 

I've only gone and bloody done it!

Yesterday saw the very first loaf from my sourdough starter! I'll be honest, I thought I had a dismal failure on my hands as my starter went from bubbling and yeasty to smelling like vomit. I wasn't prepared for this! I took the clingfilm off and the whole kitchen (and lounge) filled with an awful, milky, sourish sweet smell which can only be described as Eau de la Baby Puke. I thought the starter had died and started frantically googling to be met with a mixed bag of results. Some said the bad smell was the result of the starter being contaminated and to throw it out and start again. Others said that this was the smell of the bad bacteria being beaten by the good and to keep at it. I decided to keep at it for a few more days and that if it still stank in a week I'd chuck it. I'm so pleased that I didn't.

After a couple of days, the vomit smelled turned into a paint thinner smell and then mellowed significantly and is back to being yeasty and boozy but definitely bread like. The first loaf turned out great, and not very sour as I didn't let the dough rise for very long. Am now planning to give out lots of bits of starter to friends and get them into making their own bread :)

Peas = Peace?

As mentioned in the previous entry, I'm a total foodie. I love cooking for friends and family but it's a relatively new hobby. I've 'cooked' since I was a student but have only started honing my skills in the last few years or so. Student food was relatively simple - toad in the hole, pasta bakes and the ingenious one tray roasts which, I'll be honest, could probably have scraped a C+ in home economics, but not much else. I didn't realise garlic, salt and pepper could change a chicken so much until Nigella draped herself across my television screen. Nowadays I'm pretty confident in the kitchen and can hold my own in a tarragon vs oregano conversation but I will happily profess that I've still got a long way to go before I can call myself a master-chef.

My love of food comes from my entire family. My dad has been known to hotfoot it down to Chinatown in the middle of the night in his younger days to slurp up a bowl of noodles and my mother looks like she's won the lottery several times over every time she cracks a new recipe. My brother just has fun eating the products of everyone's labour... However, the primary reason I love food (I think) is because I find food = peace. And here, dear ones, is why.

I have grown up in a noisy, emotionally charged family who all lack a sense of tact and see no reason to hold back criticism even though taking it themselves is impossible so you may be forgiven for thinking that I mean peace as silence. In some ways I do but silence is normally the added bonus. The peace I mean is a truce.

Throughout my youth I was involved in countless shouting matches with both my parents and even now, they pull the, 'I'm-not-having-a-go-at-you-because-I-enjoy-it' card, adding a pinch of, 'I-know-I-said-I-wouldn't-mention-it-again-but-I've-got-to-say-something...' along the way but everything always seemed to come together peacefully at the dinner table as if someone had stationed a white flag above the centrepiece of steaming dishes. Dad would spoon things on to my plate - normally things with a lot of sauce that I would otherwise decorate the table mats pebble-dash style with and Mum would push the near empty bowl of broth towards me at the end of the meal telling me to drink it. Ed would eye the last piece of meat sat in the centre of its serving dish and put on a show of humble gratefulness when we all said he could and should finish it. Criticism would be forgotten and instead reassurances that the toyu pork had enough chilli in or that the stuffed tofu was tasty would take precedance.

Even when my parents had one of their huge arguements resulting in radio silence on both sides of for weeks, if we kids were at home, dinner was always served around the table. A swift jerk of the head from Mum towards the lounge where Dad can normally be found, lost in a programme about extreme fishing or silently committing how to build a set of collapsible, rotating shelves out of old floorboards, cotton wool and belly button fluff to memory, is the signal for one of us to alert him to the fact that dinner was ready and he should come and play happy families. It wasn't the most natural of circumstances but everyone always seemed to be quiet, and more importantly, happier when we were all eating together.

I cook now for Si, but I cook to show him I love him and want to take care of him and eventually, our family. I often grumble because he doesn't eat fish and he tells me to cook it for myself and he'll have something else but it's not something I'm happy doing. I don't want to be one of those families with three different meals on the go because it's disjointed and doesn't signify togetherness. I hope that I can distance myself from my family's method of using food as some form of truce and place more emphasis on the connection to love and happiness. So I hope that with further blog entries that I will share particular recipes or meals that conjour fantastic memories of love and laughter not just for me, but for anyone who reads this.

And for one girl, peas definitely don't equal peace. I can't stand the bloody things.