food, reviews and of course coffee
One of the reasons I like coffee from Caffe Nero is that the experience across the different branches is consistent.
It isn’t necessarily the best coffee you can buy, but I like the coffee. It also helps that I have a regular Three offer a £1 coffee deal.
In Bristol in the Clifton Triangle is a branch of Caffe Nero which is deceptively larger on the inside than it looks on the inside.
I had a flat white, which was really nice.
Back in 2023 I had made a couple of visits to the Illy Cafe at the top of Park Street. On a recent visit to Bristol I did like the idea of a coffee and so headed to the Illy Cafe and was disappointed to find it had closed down. So, went to Caffe Nero instead.
It was a grey Wednesday in Bristol, so I headed off to the Finzel Reach street food market to get some lunch. It wasn’t as busy as it can be, so the queues were shorter.
Across the Bristol street food market, one stall stands out as being slightly different and that is King Fin, which sells freshly cooked seafood.
Over my many visits to King Fin I have enjoyed many different kinds of fish dishes. My usual and my favourite has to be the calamari. I also enjoyed the monkfish tempura when I had that last year. The soft shell crab burger was a great concept, but I do feel it lacked the intense crab flavour I would like from it. I was though less impressed with the fritto misto I had back in 2022.
One of their offerings I have never tried is their fish wrap with fries. This week it was haddock goujons with pea puree, tartare sauce, lettuce, in a wrap with double cooked fries and house sauce. Other times they have had cod goujons on the board.
As they messed up someone else’s order (who didn’t want tartare sauce) I got my food quite quickly.
As the fish was wrapped the photographs doesn’t really do the food justice. The haddock was cooked well, and I liked the crispy coating. The pea puree was quite rough, but I liked that it added texture and taste. The double cooked fries were a little limp, with double cooking fries, I like them to be crisp on the outside and fluffy in the inside.
Overall though it was a delicious dish, which I really enjoyed, and would certainly have again.
It was a Friday in April, in Bristol and I headed off to the Finzel Reach street food market to see what I could get for lunch. A guest food van was there, the Cyprus Kitchen.
They offered a choice of flatbread wraps and a meze box. In the wraps you could choose between lemon and oregano chicken, halloumi, garlic beef sausage, or aubergine.
When I got there, they had sold out of aubergine. I did think about a wrap, but liked the idea of the meze box, so I went with that. I had mine with the garlic beef sausage, and lemon and oregano chicken. It came with chips, salad, and various pickles and relishes.
This was a delicious generous meze box and I really enjoyed it. My only comments really are that the sausage was slightly overcooked and the pomegranate seeds were under-ripe. The rest of the box though was excellent. The chicken was moist and tasty. I liked the salads and the fries. The flatbread was a nice addition. Delicious box of food.
I hope that we see The Cyprus Kitchen back at Finzel Reach in the future.
The smell of cooking chicken over hot coals was a real feature of relative newcomer to the Bristol street food scene, KC Peri Peri Chicken.
The smell of the barbecue was very tempting, so I thought okay, lets go for it.
For £8.50 you get barbecued marinated chicken with yellow rice, lime and charred corn greenslaw, and a peri peri sauce of your choice. I went with lemon and herb. Service was a little slow, but eventually I did get my box of food.
This was a really nice looking dish. The rice was great as was the greenslaw, though I am not entirely sure what greenslaw actually is. I did feel a little short changed on the chicken though. I would really like to have had more chicken in the box. The chicken though was great, nicely cooked and full of flavour.
I certainly would go again, wonder if they would do a large version of the box with more chicken.
We had a team dinner at The River Station in Bristol. I was quite looking forward to the meal, as I have never eaten there before. It’s a lovely venue and we were given a warm welcome.
We had chosen our menu choices well before we sat down for dinner. I am not a fan of that, as what I like the look of when I am choosing from a menu, may not necessarily what I want to eat on the actual day of the dinner.
After sitting down we had to wait a while for our food to arrive. For my starter I had harissa glazed carrots, roasted pears, beetroot hummus and watercress.
I liked this dish, though I thought the watercress spoiled the look of the plate of food. The carrots had bite and the harissa added a nice element of spice. The hummus was tasty. I couldn’t taste the pears! I am not even sure there were any pears.
There was quite a delay before the main course arrived, I had the chicken supreme, sautéed Cornish new potatoes, roasted romanesco cauliflower, truffle cream and salsa verde.
The chicken was cooked well and I liked the sauce and the potatoes. Though I had no romanesco cauliflower, just plain old regular cauliflower.
Due to the lengthy delays in getting our food, I ran out of time and left before the dessert arrived. I had ordered the apple, fig and chestnut crumble, with a lemon thyme custard. Sounded interesting, but wasn’t that disappointed I never got a chance to try it.
I did enjoy the food, but the long service was a little disappointing.
One of my favourite dishes from the Bristol street food scene is the bento box from She Sells Sushi. Virtually all the time when getting lunch from the stall I get the bento box with a portion of beef donburi and a hirata bao bun.
Over the many years I have been enjoying this food, the beef donburi hasn’t changed much, however there have been many variations of the hirata bao bun.
Back in 2017 I was enjoying the delicious tender pork belly hirata bao bun. In 2019 it was the Finzel Flapper bun; same soft charcoal infused bao bun, but inside was tempura battered chicken.
Over the last few years though, She Sells Sushi had replaced the crispy battered chicken, in the first instance with panko crumbed chicken strips, and recently crunchy chicken strips. They were nice, but I prefer the crispy chicken that came with the original Finzel Flapper.
So on a recent visit to the Finzel Reach street food market I had my regular bento box from She Sells Sushi, I was pleased to see that the crunchy chicken had been replaced with crispy chicken.
I don’t know if this is a permanent change, or a temporary thing, but I really liked the crispy chicken hirata bun. The chicken had a nice crispy batter, and chicken was nice and moist. The softness of the bao bun contrasted well with the crispiness of the chicken.
The beef donburi was slow cooked teriyaki beef rib on a bed of rice, topped with crispy onions and pickles.
This a street food dish I have had many times from She Sells Sushi, and this was just as nice as I’ve had on previous visits. The beef was delicious and full of flavour and the garnishes just added to the dish.
Overall a lovely bento box, which I really enjoyed.
It was a Thursday and I was looking for some lunch, so I headed to the Temple Quay market. I had planned on having one of the delicious fish dishes from King Fin, however they weren’t there. I was short on time, so no time to head anywhere else. I did think about having some Gurt Wings, but as I looked around the market and saw the Wood Chop Pizza stall.
They had a choice of four pizza, and I liked the idea of the burrata pizza for £7.50. I thought this was good value, they did a salami or an nduja pizza for £9, or a margarita for £6.50. I went with the burrata pizza.
They made and cooked the pizza to order. It was cooked in their (huge) wood fired pizza oven. After it was cooked it was cut and placed in a box.
There is something about a freshly cooked pizza, the doughy base was delicious. The tomato and fresh mozzarella was excellent, and I liked the addition of fresh basil.
I do like pizza, but rarely have it for lunch. This made a nice change from other things I sometimes have.
On a lunchtime walk I noticed that there was a new cafe on Wine Street next to the Tesco Express. Didn’t have a chance to go in and try it, but I have added it to places I might visit.
Looking online later, it was apparent it is part of a wider chain of Bristol based coffee places.
On our menu, there’s a rich selection of coffees, teas, chai and matcha lattes, and refreshing cold options like our fresh fruit smoothies and protein shakes. For lunch and light bites, we offer seasonal homemade sandwiches and wraps, toasted sourdough sandwiches, fresh salads, Cornish pasties and sausage rolls. A variety of vegan, vegetarian and meat fillings are included. For those seeking a sweet bite, we have freshly baked pastries, muffins, cakes, and more, perfect alongside a hot drink.
I haven’t been to Cabot Circus for a while now, but saw on a recent visit that there will be a new German Donor Kebab branch opening there.
No indication of the date of opening.