food, reviews and of course coffee
I had a coffee I have never had before. I was up in Clifton and went to the Illy Cafe.
After a nice warm welcome I ordered the Capo Triestino. I took a seat and they brought the coffee over to me.
So what is a Capo Triestino?
An illy espresso with abundant cold emulsified milk served in a small Freddo glass.
I do like Illy coffee and really enjoyed this. I don’t get to Clifton very often these days, so think it will be a while before I can make a return visit. Hopefully not too long.
Working in Bristol and out for a walk at lunchtime. I wasn’t actually intending to have lunch out, but walking through the St Nicholas Market looking at all the different stalls, I was tempted. There are lots of lovely places in the market, there is the new Tibetan stall, MOMO, which had quite a queue. I also did think about Low and Slow, but they were equally popular. In the end I went back to the Spanish stall, La Lola.
Since I was last at La Lola, they have added some walls and windows to their stall, so sitting inside in this cold weather is much nicer. I was given a lovely warm welcome, and I ordered my food, and then took a seat. It wasn’t long before my freshly cooked squid arrived.
The crispy baby squid came in a cardboard container, it would have been nice on a plate (which I have said before), but realise that as a stall, it might not be possible.
The squid had a nice crisp coating and was very tender on the inside. The chipped potatoes had been cooked twice, so weren’t as good as previous visits to La Lola. However they were crisp and tasty. The salad was nice and fresh. It was a delicious box of food, which I really enjoyed.
We were up in the Mall doing some shopping and decided to stop for some coffee. In the basement was the John Lewis espresso bar, which I have visited a fair few times before. More recently it has been revamped and is now a branch of Ori Caffé.
Ori Caffé is a partnership between John Lewis and Massarella, a family run business with Italian origins. Massarella dates all the way back to 1864, when the family came over from Italy with a view to move to America.
The cafe area has been re-decorated, and their is a Mediterranean inspired menu sandwiches, and more traditional British cakes, as well as Italian cannoli.
As we entered it was a little awkward, in that we had to wait to be seated, but it wasn’t table service, you went up to the counter to order your food and drinks. I ordered a tea, a flat white, a vegetarian sausage roll, and a cheese and ham rarebit.
We took a seat and waited for our food and drinks to arrive.
My flat white looked very pretty.
It was an excellent coffee, which I enjoyed. The tea was very nice too.
The rarebit, was not a rarebit. It was a cheese and ham sourdough toastie.
It needed a lot more cheese, and to be a rarebit, needed a cheese sauce. The ham was good quality though. Overall I did enjoy the toastie.
The vegetarian sausage roll was rather good, or so I was told.
Overall it was a nice place for coffee and the food was tasty.
Going for a walk in Bristol today I noticed that in the St Nicholas Market a new stall has opened, the MOMO Bar.
Selling Tibetan dumplings and other stuff, there was quite a queue for their wares.
They sell four kinds of momo dumplings, beef, chicken, a vegetarian spinach and cheese and a vegan mushroom dumpling. You can also mix and match. Eight dumplings will cost you £9, whilst six would be £7.00
They also sell a thukpa noodle box, three choices here, beef, chicken or mixed vegetables. The noodle box costs £7.50, but you can make it a combo box, by adding two momo dumplings for £9.50.
I wasn’t looking for lunch, but it does look quite interesting. Though I felt the prices were a little high, but then again all the prices in St Nick’s have gone up. The delicious Kurdish wraps from Matina use to be £5 are now £7.50 for example.
So one day I may give the MOMO bar a try.
Going for a walk in Bristol today I noticed that at the bottom of Baldwin Street was a new, well new for me, coffee place, called Society.
I didn’t have time to stop for coffee, but did pop inside to see what it was like inside.
It felt very modern inside, so wasn’t sure if it was my kind of place, I quite like the wooden environment in Coffee #1 for example. However the real question is, what is the coffee like?
Went out at lunchtime for a walk on Thursday, I decided to head to the Temple Quay Market. In the end I succumbed to temptation and ordered a bento box from She Sells Sushi, going for the Beef Donburi and a Crispy Chicken Hirata Bun. I noticed that they now also sell an XL bento box, which allows you to choose three dishes. I decided I wasn’t that hungry.
This a street food dish I have had many times, as this was as good as I’ve had on previous visits. The beef was full of flavour and the garnishes added to the dish.
The chicken hirata bun was tasty, a charcoal bao bun with two pieces of crispy chicken.
I will say I prefer the crispy chicken that came with the original Finzel Flapper bun they did a few years ago. The mayo dressing was spicier than I remember.
Overall a really nice lunch.
If you are a regular visitor to the blog then you will know I am a fan of the bento box from She Sells Sushi, one of the regular stalls at Finzel Reach (and Temple Quay) street food markets.
On a recent visit to Finzel Reach, it was raining, so the queues were shorter, but hey ho, I really did fancy a bento box for my lunch.
The last bento box I had from She Sells Sushi I had decided against the hirata bun and had some delicious Takoyaki. The reason was, way back in April I had eaten a panko crumbed Katsu chicken hirata bun.
I have to say I was a little disappointed. I found the chicken rather dry and lacking flavour. Compared to the tempura chicken hirata bun, the Finzel Flapper I’ve had in the past, this new version of the hirata bun was nowhere near as nice. I think if I order again I will go for the Takoyaki instead.
Which on my next visit I did.
This time though they had a different kind of chicken, so why not. So I ordered a bento box with the chicken hirata bun and my usual beef donburi.
The beef was as usual, excellent. It is tasty tender beef rib on a bed of sushi rice and served with pickle and spring onions.
The chicken hirata bun was also really good, though it was slightly “drowned” in accompaniments.
It was delicious, yes back on form and something I would order again.
A lovely box of food, which I really enjoyed.
Well to be honest I had quite low expectations about the coffee I ordered from Soho at Bristol Airport.
However in the end it was okay, even quite good. I didn’t have a huge amount of time following a long queue in security. So with no queue at Soho and an imminent announcement about the gate, I ordered a macchiato.
It was prepared well, good coffee and some foam. I enjoyed it. It did mean that I didn’t need to order a coffee on the plane! Now that would have been a very different story.
Was in Bristol having a walk in the harbourside in the sun. We went to the MShed for a drink.
I had a very nice espresso, accompanied with some chilled tap water. What I did like was that the tap water was chilled. Recently at various places when I have asked for a glass of tap water, it hasn’t been chilled. So it was nice to have a chilled glass this time.
When I was down in Ealing at La Rueda Tapas Bar in Ealing I was initially tempted by the paella choices they had, including a squid ink paella. In the end we had tapas. I would have liked to try a squid ink paella.
Recently I was working in Bristol, and went for a walk at lunchtime with a plan on getting something to eat. It was a Thursday so I headed out to the Temple Quay Market. Didn’t really fancy anything from the market, so I headed to the St Nicholas Market. It was rather busy. In the end I headed down towards La Lola for some squid or paella.
I was impressed to see that La Lola have expanded their menu and one of the choices was a squid ink paella. Well it was bit of a no-brainer, so I decided to try out their dish.
As with previous visits, I was given a warm welcome, I ordered my paella and took a seat. It arrived quite quickly, with some aioli and a slice of lemon.
You have to say that the dish is very black, very black indeed.
I have to say that it doesn’t look that appetising, however it was very tasty. There was squid and prawns in the rice.
I am not sure I would have it again, but I am glad I tried it and it was good.