crispy squid Archives - Time for a coffee

February 6, 2024January 30, 2024

Time for some Tapas at the Brunello

We were out and about in Weston last April. Feeling peckish, we decided to head to the Brunello Lounge for a bite to eat. I did the tapas deal for three tapas dishes. They have a nice range of tapas dishes, I think they would work well if you spending an evening in the Lounge drinking (and chatting). They also work well for a light lunch.

I went with the hummus, crispy squid, and some chicken wings. The hummus was my favourite of the three little plates of food.

This was a nicely presented dish, the garnishes enhancing the hummus. I liked the flavours and there was enough flatbread to go with it.

The crispy squid was a little overcooked for my liking.

The coating was a little too crispy, more like crunchy.

I liked the chicken wings, but I wanted more of them.

Overall I enjoyed the three dishes, it was a nice snack for lunch.

December 20, 2023December 19, 2023

Very Crispy Squid

I was in London and staying at The Fox and Goose close to Hangar Lane. The restaurant is in the older part of the hotel, as the hotel part is now a new build at the back.

The menu changes every so often, and they always seem to have a range of choices, that means it can be difficult to choose what to have.

One dish I have a lot, at a lot of different places is crispy squid. So seeing it on the menu this, I decided I would try this version.

This was a nice sized portion for a starter, the squid was in a crispy batter and was garnished with coriander, sliced red chilli, a wedge of lime, and some sriracha aioli.

The batter was very crispy, probably too crispy. When I tried to cut the squid, the batter more often than not fell off the squid. The squid was tender though. I wasn’t totally enamoured with the sriracha aioli, I think I would have preferred to have some good old plain aioli.

I did enjoy the starter, wasn’t the best crispy squid I have had, but certainly it was better than most.

November 2, 2017February 25, 2024

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.

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.

August 17, 2017November 2, 2020

Crispy Squid

The South Street Kitchen run a regular crispy squid stall, though the menu had the odd special dish, the usual offer is either salt and pepper crispy squid or sweet chilli crispy squid. Both dishes are served with pickled vegetables, new potatoes and chorizo.

Each serving is freshly cooked to order in front of you. The squid and the potatoes are taken and cooked in the deep fat fryer, before being tossed in the appropriate seasoning then dressed with the picked vegetables and garnished with sesame seeds.

The squid is tender, the batter is crisp with a real crunch. The potatoes add substance to the dish and the vegetables enhance it. Overall a great dish of food.

For me this is what street food is a really about. This is proper fresh food, it isn’t been hanging around under a hot plate, drying out! It’s not something that has been cooked in advance and then heated up in a microwave.

One “problem” with enjoying street food like this, is when you go to another eatery, which doesn’t cook the food this way, then you really don’t enjoy the experience.

March 5, 2017

Sitting on the dock of the bay…

There is something really nice about having a wide choice of places to get your lunch and then sitting on the riverside in the sun, watching the world go by.

There is something extra special when that happens during what most people would call a winter month, when the norm is to run indoors and turn the central heating up.

There is something extra extra special when the food you are eating is perfection on a plate (well perfection in a box).

It was one of those days.

The Thursday market at Temple Quay is one of my favourite places for lunch. There is always an exciting and tempting range of places to get some delicious food. After the nightmare that was Doris (the storm) and the cancellation of the market the previous Thursday I was pleased to be able to go this week. As usual there was a wide choice, I did quite fancy the idea of the barbecue box from Low N Slow and the Jerk Chicken Wrap from Biblos looked very tempting. However I do make the point of checking out every stall to see what there is before making my final choice (okay virtually every time).

As I walked around and turned the corner there was the squid place, the one where I had the really nice squid a few months back. This was Audacious Squid who do a lovely dish of crispy squid. Well I enjoyed it last time, so guess who ordered the squid?

There were three dishes on the menu, the Sweet Chilli Squid (which I had last time), Smokey Chilli Squid (which was new) and a Squid Ink Bun with Crispy Squid.

I always try and have something new, so though I enjoyed the Sweet Chilli squid last time, I went with the Smokey Chilli Squid. This is cooked for you in front of you with care and passion. You can see the intensity of the chefs as they bring your dish together. They were cooking to order and dish after dish of freshly cooked squid was being served, then it was my turn and I got my box of squid.

The dish comprises freshly cooked crisp squid with ‘slaw, baby corn and picked vegetables. It looked fantastic, fresh salad, crispy squid, chorizo and the tantalising pickled vegetables.

Rather than take it back to the office, which is the norm for me, and as it was actually sunny and rather nice, I sat “on the dock of the bay” and ate my squid. Well is was in Harratz Place next to Temple Quay.

The sun was shining and it was really nice eating outside in March!

As for the squid, well this was delicious. The batter was crispy, the squid was tender, almost melt in the mouth. The slaw was crunchy and fresh. I really liked the pickled vegetables. I am not sure how smokey the smokey chilli was, but it was quite nice.

Overall it was a delicious dish of squid, it was perfection on a plate (well perfection in a box).

January 10, 2017

Well that was really tasty squid!

It was a Thursday and wanting lunch, well if you are in Bristol then the regular Temple Quay lunchtime market is really the place to be.

It was my intention to visit Low and Slow again after having a really nice lunch there a few months back. As I arrived (early) there was no queue, so I thought I would take the opportunity to check out what else was there at the market. There was a already a massive queue for the Thai stall, one day I might try it, but the queue always puts me off. The dumplings place had a queue and then I saw a new stall. It was called Crispy Squid!

Now, those of you who are regular readers of the blog will know that I have a soft spot for squid. It also one thing that when cooked well cane great, however my usual experience is that it is done badly.

So though I really liked the idea of the squid I was slightly sceptical that it might not be nice.

However I decided that it was worth the chance, so I looked over the menu, there were two choices, sweet chilli squid or salt and pepper squid. Both choices were served with potato, chorizo and salad.

I took the plunge and asked for a portion of chilli squid for £6. The lads at the stall got cooking and the dish was freshly cooked to order in front of me.

I have to say it looked fantastic.

It also tasted fantastic!

The batter was wonderful and crips and the squid was beautifully tender. I really liked the combination of squid, potato and chorizo, very Spanish and really tasty. I did feel that it was a probably a little too salty for my taste and I think if I was to order it again I would ask to “hold the salt”. The reason I chose the sweet chilli squid as I thought the salt and pepper squid would be too salty!

Update: have since realised the stall was called Audacious Squid.