Spicy Crab Soup with Indian Spiced Crab Cakes

I went to work in Bristol today. It was our co-location day. I had no formal meetings, this was just a chance for people to be in the office together and chat when and if required.

I was looking for something for lunch and of course today was the Temple Quay Market in Bristol. So walking down from my office to Temple Quay I did reflect on what I was fancying for lunch. There is always a wide choice of offerings there, big dishes, smaller choices and all very tasty.

Looking around the different stalls there was quite a bit of choice, however it was a bit of a no-brainer when I perused the menu at the South Street Kitchen. Alongside their regular crispy squid and chorizo they also had on their menu Spicy Crab Soup with Indian Spiced Crab Cakes

I’ve always liked crab, so this sounded delicious. There was a bit of a long queue for the stall and I hoped that they wouldn’t sell out before I reached the head of the queue.

I placed my order and it arrived, cooked fresh to order. There was a paper cup of crab soup and balanced on top were three smallish crab cakes on a wooden skewer.

Spicy Crab Soup with Indian Spiced Crab Cakes

It was a bit challenging to carry this back to the office, I was hoping that it wouldn’t get too cold too quickly and also that I didn’t spill the soup or lose the crab cakes off the side.

The soup was delicious, great taste of crab and not overly spicy. The crab cakes were crisp on the outside and moist and tasty on the inside, with all that crab flavour coming through.

Delicious.

Crab Cake Salad

Taking lunch at Frankie and Benny’s and wanting something rather light, I went with the Crab Salad.

Crab Cake

The menu describes it as “Our large oven baked crab cake served on a bed of mixed leaves with tomato, roasted red pepper and onion, tossed in our sweet chilli dressing with half a chargrilled lemon on the side.”

I was really interested to see how this was going look and taste, I did initially expect a heavy crab cake, with more potato than crab. So I was pleasantly surprised to find that the crab cake was made in the main with crab. There was a good flavour and texture, I liked the subtle crispness on the outside, the soft textured inside.

I did enjoy the salad, though I think if I was going to have this again I would ask for no dressing. The sweet chilli dressing was a little too sticky and sweet for me. I think I would have preferred olive oil and balsamic vinegar. I was slightly disappointed with the salad when writing this review as the menu description talks about roasted red peppers, and there were no red peppers. I hadn’t noticed when I was eating it, so didn’t complain at the time. I didn’t see the point of the chargrilled lemon, why chargrill it, it didn’t add anything and it didn’t really need it.

I liked the crab cake, and enjoyed the dish, I would order it again.