Time for a coffee

August 4, 2016

Time for a salad

If you are in Bristol looking for somewhere to lunch, there are lots of chains of restaurants and coffee shops across the city centre; however those looking for something different, tasty, individual and good value, need to look no further than St Nicholas Market. Within the narrow passages you can find all manner of foods and tasty treats. The range of smells, flavours and colours as you walk between the crowded stalls both stimulates and inspires, as well as making your mouth water. The choice is almost overwhelming, you can choose Portuguese, Chinese, Caribbean, Moorish, Italian, Vegetarian, Vegan, Modern, American BBQ, so much choice you often have no idea where to start. The place is usually packed and there are long queues for virtually all the stands, so I am sure they move quite quickly otherwise people wouldn’t join them.

Down in the St Nicholas market there is the Kofta Bar, well I think it’s the Kofta Bar, the aprons of the staff say the Olive Company. Well whatever they are called, if you do know please let me know in the comments, they do offer some lovely food, including freshly made wraps.

The salad boxes are my favourite. You get to make four choices from a wide variety of salads and what they call tapas choices.

They include cous-cous, mixed pulses, butterbeans in harissa dressing, Greek style salad, dolmas, sun dried tomatoes, pesto pasta salad, pecorino salad, falafel and a wide choice of olives.

On top of this you can choose between hummus, focaccia or flat bread as an extra.

There is also a choice of dressings, including pesto, yoghurt and harrisa. What this means is that it makes very easy never to have the same salad twice.

You can have extras added to the salad, a choice of lamb kofta, grilled chicken or halloumi.

The cost of a salad box is £4.50 and with the addition of 50p you can choose from a choice of cans of San Pellegrino or a bottle of water. Lamb and chicken salad boxes are a reasonable £5.50.

Though I’ve not tried them, the wraps look equally tasty.

So if you are looking for a nice salad for lunch then I would recommend the salad bar in St Nick’s market.

July 30, 2016January 28, 2025

Time for some dumplings

I did think that I might miss the Temple Quay market this week because of the rain, however it stopped so off I went.

There were fewer stalls this week, and fewer regulars, but even so there was a great choice of food. I thought the rain might have put people off, but the queues were already really long. The queue for the Thai stall was already across the square!

I did start queuing at the Scoff and Relish stall as the salad and grilled chicken sounded great and looked fantastic too, being chargrilled on their tiny portable barbecues. I also liked the idea of the accompanying scoff balls, savoury scones. Alas they were struggling with the demand and the queue wasn’t moving and the food wasn’t quite ready. Maybe next time…

In the end I went with Ah Ma’s Dumplings. There was a slow moving queue here too. The stall has these huge towers of bamboo steamers laden with freshly steamed dumplings containing a choice of fillings. There was no tiger prawn, scallop and leek (probably sold out) today, so the choice was pork and ginger, beef and spinach, chicken and coriander or vegetarian.

I went with the veggie shiitake and cashew pan fried dumplings along with the pork belly with hoisin bao.

I was impressed and tempted with the dumpling pots complete with vegetables, noodles and broth, likewise the sides of Asian salads sounded very interesting. That day they had carrot & courgette ribbons with a tahini, honey, lemon dressing; the other choice was sweet chilli pickled cucumber with toasted black sesame seeds.

The dumplings were really impressive, beautiful steamed dough that because of the pan frying. Inside was a filling that was deep, tasty and even a little meaty, but they were vegetarian (well ‘ish they are pan fried in the same pan as the pork and chicken ones, so if you are vegetarian you might want to have them steamed instead).

The bao was delicious, the slow roasted pork belly was both sour and sweet, full of interesting deep flavours and very tender. The steamed dough made is substantive. I have seen neater and tidier bao buns before, but the flavour of the filling made up for this.

Ah Ma has a growing reputation, having been mentioned as one of the top sixteen street food stalls in the UK in both the Metro and Olive magazine. In my mind that is a well deserved reputation, delicious food, beautifully made and presented and lots of interesting choices of flavours and textures. I hope to visit them again.

July 25, 2016

Grilled Halloumi

One staple of many of the salads I have been making over the recent weeks has been grilled halloumi. I don’t recall the first time I had this Greek cheese, but I have over the years found it a tasty addition to salads. Halloumi is a Cypriot semi-hard, unripened brined cheese made from a mixture of goat’s and sheep’s milk.

I usually slice mine into 5mm slices and then fry (so not grilling) in a hot frying pan with a little olive oil. They only take a few minutes to cook on each side. The end result is a crispy outer and a soft salty inside, that complements the greenness and freshness of a salad.

Some people like to add a little rock salt to their halloumi, but I find it salty enough.

One thing I have not tried yet is cooking it on the barbeque.

July 24, 2016

Coffee Aroma

Knowing my proclivity for coffee on a recent visit to Lincoln, Marcus and Kerry who I was visiting for a meeting took me to a wonderful little coffee bar (well they sell coffee and alcohol) called Coffee Aroma. They had asked if I wanted coffee, either near to our main meeting, or did I mind going a bit further for a better coffee. I of course opted for the better coffee.

It was a lovely day and it wasn’t that far before we arrived at Coffee Aroma. It was early in the day, so the seating outside was empty and inside the place was quiet and peaceful.

It had a real hipster feel to the place and I did feel slightly out of place (as I am no hipster). Inside it reminded me though very much of the cafes I would visit when I regularly went to Italy in the 1990s. These little coffee places would serve wonderful coffee during the day, along with snacks and sandwiches, but by the early evening most people would turn to alcoholic drinks and would be drinking wine, spirits and occasionally a beer.

We ordered our coffees and I went with a Cortado, which was served as I expected in a glass, not expected was the glass of water and the wooden board upon which both were served. The barista took his time to make our drinks and did so with real care.

We went upstairs for our pre-meeting and the walls were covered in sheets of music and notes. There was a choice of seating arrangements, soft chairs, benches, sofas as well as some “normal” table and chairs.

It was a great place for a meeting and the coffee was excellent. I really found it smooth and full of flavour and the hipster barista had done a great job. It’s a pity that I don’t get to Lincoln that often, as I could see myself being a regular customer of this place.

July 23, 2016

Dosirak for lunch

Though I go to London quite bit, as I have been at events I’ve not needed to go out for lunch. So I was quite looking forward to choosing a place for lunch during a recent day in the big smoke.

Last year I had been to Kimchee on the Strand and had a really nice meal in a box. Kimchee sells a range of Korean take away boxes (hot and cold), salads, soups as well as a range of drinks and snacks.

I really like the feel and environment of the place, I felt very comfortable eating there the last time I went.

This time looking over what was available I really did like the look of the Chicken Dosirak.

Chicken cooked in a sauce, steamed cabbage and carrot mix, steamed rice, a side of chicken dumpling [mandu], broccoli and sweet omelette.

It looked great and was well presented. The chicken was lovely and tender, with a really great flavour. I enjoyed the mandu and the omelette. It was a really nice combination and tasted delicious.

July 22, 2016

Well that was nice

Popping over to the Temple Quay market for lunch it was a nice walk in the sun and there is something nice about buying street food in the summer weather. I managed to get there quite early, so was really spoilt for choice. Even getting their early there were already long queues for the Thai food and the slow cooked pulled pork.

I did think about getting Peruvian from the Uchu Perú stall, but though the food looked fantastic, I have tried to try new things, rather than buy things again. For those same reasons I also didn’t go for the tacos from the Little Taqueria as I have had them before (still need to write that blog post).

In the end after much thought, I went with Wild and Rustic who usually sell venison burgers, but this week had sous-vide chicken thighs cooked with lemon and thyme. These were then chargrilled before being served in a rustic sourdough bun with wild rocket confit garlic mayo, parmesan gremolata sweet potato crisps.

This was really delicious and I am glad I went back to the office to eat it, as I can imagine that trying to eat it straight from the box would be a somewhat messy affair.

The chicken was really nice, cooking sous-vide and then finishing off on the grill results in moist tasty chicken. The accompaniments really helped to finish off the chicken.

I really liked it, I did think it was slightly on the pricey side at £6.50 but then again getting the dish prepared in front of you and it tasting delicious, meant that I think it was a price worth paying.

June 28, 2016

Eating at the diner

Recently I was on holiday at Butlins in Minehead. One evening we went to the relatively new Diner. This is an American style diner complete with booths, signage and singers.

It was much bigger on the inside then it looked from the exterior, somewhat like the TARDIS. It was quite early and we had a choice of seats, in the end we chose a booth close to the juke box. Alas the jukebox was fake… I didn’t quite understand why there was a fake jukebox, well actually I did, it was there for aesthetic purposes and not so diners could choose some music. The diner had music, but we as diners had no choice. I also wonder if it was a cost saving measure, as I know a juke box can be expensive to run, both in terms of licensing but also in maintenance. I did wonder if they could go with a digital jukebox. I did make the suggestion to the staff that they should get a real jukebox.

As I was in an American style diner, I decided to go with a burger and had the Fonz. This was a prime 6oz beefburger topped with Monterey Jack cheese, crispy bacon, BBQ sauce and diced avocado. Stacked up with homemade onion rings.

Was I surprised when the meal arrived in what could only be called a cutlery draining basket! Why can’t we have plates? What is wrong with plates? I think these basket things are quite normal in US diners. However the burger was delicious. I was less impressed with the roll, which was a standard floured bap. It was supposed to be a glazed brioche bun, but they had run out!

The ‘slaw was really interesting, this was no standard cheap coleslaw. I really liked the small peppers that it had. Not sure for this convention of called coleslaw, slaw, is this an American thing?

I really enjoyed the burger and I did feel that they had captured what an American diner from the movies and television was like. Was it like a real authentic American diner? Probably not, but this was Minehead!

June 22, 2016

A taste of Peru

So how often do you get a chance to sample some authentic looking and tasting Peruvian food?

One of my favourite features of Bristol is the weekly street food market that takes place every Thursday at the square in the newly redeveloped Temple Quay. It is open between 12 and 2, but I suggest you get there early, as there are large queues and many times dishes sell out (especially the vegetarian ones).

There are a range of regular and guest stalls, and when I went there was a real choice. I did like the idea of Greek, the halloumi pitta sounded and looked delicious. There was also a pulled lamb sub, that also looked very nice. After looking around, I went with Uchu Perú, as stall selling Peruvian food, my choice dictated slightly by the shortness of the queue and the interesting sounding menu.

In the end looking over the menu I decided that I would go with the sample menu, so I could have a bit of everything. The sample plate has smaller portions of all the dishes from the menu.

If you stay at the market the stall provides a nice plate, but as it was starting to rain I got my meal to go and they split it between two boxes for me to take away.

Ceviche, which was sea bass cooked in lime with prawns, chilli, coriander, red onion, sweet potato and Peruvian corn. This was fresh and sharp and really tasty. I wasn’t so enamoured with the Peruvian corn, but it was something that I can see other people liking.

The Quinoa Salad was made from black and white quinoa with carrot, radish, coriander, broad beans, feta cheese and Peruvian yellow chilli sauce. I really liked how the team put this together, and was like the Ceviche was delicious. The ingredients were fresh, tasty and worked really well together.

The final dish in my trio was Causa, which was freshly piped potato puree with Peruvian yellow chilli paste, served cold with tomato, avocado puree, purple corn mayonnaise, sweet potato crisp, pulled chicken, topped with togaroshi mayonnaise. As I was eating I did wonder what the pink stuff was, but re-reading the menu, I realised this was the purple corn mayonnaise. Delicious components that worked really well together.

I really liked how the dishes were constructed to order and they looked beautiful. I’ve not eaten Peruvian dishes before, these were delicious and I would certainly go back to Uchu Perú.

June 2, 2016

What type of coffee are you?

What name do you give the barista?

I normally choose Benedict as there are too many people called James. I have found that this naming practice started off in Starbucks which I don’t frequent very often, has spread to other coffee places including some independent coffee shops.

So do you use your name or someone else’s when ordering coffee?

May 30, 2016

Faculty – Artisan Coffee

Visiting Birmingham recently I took the opportunity to visit Faculty, an artisan coffee and tea shop in the heart of Birmingham. This is in the Piccadilly Arcade close to New Street Station. A typical hipster coffee place, with a mix of wooden furniture and bare floors.

I went with the espresso, which really tests the skills of the barista and the quality of the coffee.

Service was excellent, once they knew I was drinking in, they asked me to take a seat and they would bring me the coffee. I really do like that, allows you to get on with stuff at a table, rather than just standing around waiting whilst they make your coffee. You usually get this in the chains, so I always appreciate it when you visit an independent coffee place.

The coffee was, well the best way to describe it for me, it was different. There was a flavour to the coffee that I found not really to my taste. It was smooth and had an excellent crema.

I did like the environment and the food menu looked really interesting, I might go again, maybe go with a different kind of coffee.