st nicholas market Archives - Page 3 of 3

August 1, 2019January 15, 2024

Time for a salad box

One place in St Nicholas Market I have not been to for ages is the Olive Grove salad bar. They do a lovely salad and tapas box which you can have either just as, or with lamb kofte, grilled chicken or halloumi.

I really like the choice of salads and tapas they have. Pulse power comprises a mix of pulses. They usually have a pasta salad and a potato salad. Should say that the potato salad is not your usual mayonnaise covered potatoes, this has none of that! They are very tasty as a result. I like the Greek salad they have too.They have a choice of different kinds of olives, stuffed vine leaves.

Overall if you are looking for salad I think Olive Grove is a great place to go for.

July 30, 2019June 10, 2023

Time for some tasty new tacos

There have been quite a few changes in the food markets at St Nicholas Market. The Brozen stall has been replaced with Low and Slow. Grillstock shut down and their space taken by Wokyko with an Asian inspired menu. The Sausage Station has closed and their stall has been replaced by Taco Barra which as you might guess from the name sells tacos!

Regular readers of the blog will know I quite like tacos and so it wasn’t too much of a difficult decision to try out some from the new stall.

You can have a single taco for £3, two for £5 and three for £7. I quite like the concept of a single taco, sometimes wandering about the food market in St Nicks (and other foodmarkets) I sometimes wish I could get smaller portions, as I fancy eating a range of dishes (like tapas) rather than just a single bigger portion. A single tacos would be perfect in that scenario. However as no other stall really does that kind of offer, so I went with two tacos.

They use white and blue corn tacos.which are heated to order and then filled with your choice of filling. The menu changes, but I went two two tacos, crispy chicken and pulled pork. You have a choice of salsa and they also include salad.

I liked the freshness, textures and varied tastes of these tacos.. The crispy chicken was tasty, crisp on the outside and tender on the inside. The pork was tender and tasty. The salsa was full of flavour and added the necessary kick that the tacos needed.

Overall great customer service, tasty unique tacos and some great flavours. Definitely worth a return visit.

October 10, 2017

Spicy Pumpkin Wrap

For me one of the challenges I find deciding what to choose from the many lovely food stalls in St Nicholas’ Market is not only which stall to buy lunch from, but once that choice is made, what do I choose from the menu.

The choice of stalls is not vast, but the variety is certainly there, you won’t finding anyone selling toasted panini or boring sandwiches. There are still a few stalls I’ve not yet tried, it does appear I like to go back to where I have been before.

I have really enjoyed the many dishes I have had from Caribbean Wrap in the market. The Jerk Chicken is delicious and I love the accompaniments that come with it, the spinach is scrummy.

So out for lunch the other day, I decided after perusing all the different places (as one does) to try something new and different and so I went for the Spicy Pumpkin Wrap.

This huge beast of a wrap was stuffed with beautiful cooked spiced pumpkin chunks, spicy chick peas and fresh avocado and served with a swirl of hot sauce. The combination of flavours and textures was delightful. Oh it was vegan too.

July 23, 2017

She doesn’t just sell sushi!

One of the regular stalls at the St Nicks market in Bristol on Friday is SheSellsSushi and it is one of my favourite, even if I have never actually had the sushi from there…. yet!

My usual lunch order with the stall is the bento box containing a choice of two dishes from the menu. I usually go for the Donburi, which is slow cooked beef rib in a teriyaki sauce combined with some octopus (or duck) balls (takoyaki).

However Lisa, on the stall has been recently selling steamed Hirata bun, so in my bento box this time, I once more had the Donburi, but this time I went with the Hirata bun.

This was a charcoal bun (not what I initially thought was a squid ink bun) with delicious tender pork belly, spring onions and tasty sauce.

The bun was light and fluffy, the pork tender, all in all great flavour. I really wanted another one. I do like the takoyaki I usually go for, but now, I will always go with the Hirata bun.

The Donburi beef was as usual delicious, the flavour is perfect, you can sometimes overdo the teriyaki, but this was well balanced and so tasty. Served with rice and spring onions.

I have spoken to others who really recommend the sushi, so I think I will have to try that next time (with a Hirata bun).

June 16, 2017

Moorish Calamari

Over in St Nick’s Market in Bristol are many stalls including a really nice looking Moorish place. As well as serving food to take away, they also have a few tables and seats for table service. I’ve always meant to give them a try, but either didn’t fancy the food that day, or there was no space!

The other week they had a specials board out and on there along with a grilled halloumi special was a Calamari Salad. Regular readers of the blog will know I have a fondness for calamari or squid and see it as a benchmark about a restaurant or place.

Sitting down I ordered the calamari and the service was excellent, the order was taken quickly and the food arrived just as quickly.

The dish comprised freshly cooked squid rings in batter with a selection of salads, dips and potatoes.

The calamari was delicious, the batter had a nice light crunch and the squid was very tender.

The salads and dips were greta, very fresh and full of flavour.

I enjoyed the dish.

June 8, 2017

Porcetta from the Piaggio

The Piaggio Ape is a three wheeled motorcycle based truck, which is seen all over the place in places like Italy. Here in the UK they are quite rare.

They are quite popular in the UK with some street food vendors, one which I remember was outside The Brewery in London serving really nice coffee from the back.

The St Nick’s market on Friday had a yellow Piaggio Ape serving Italian pork or beef sausages in a roll.

I have seen them before, but didn’t really fancy what had been on the menu. However as I passed I noticed they were cooking something different, though the blackboard talked of Italian pork sausage or beef sausage, on their griddle was some porcetta. They had some to taste

The porcetta was served with salad, mushrooms in a toasted ciabatta bun. There was quite a choice of toppings, with the first one free.

I was really impressed with the service and the speed of cooking. The guy behind the grill, spoke a lot of Italian as he cooked, and he expertly took the cooked porcetta and heated it on the griddle along with (what I think was cheese, or could have been garlic butter). This was served in the bun with some (alas bland) iceberg lettuce, tomatoes and some tasty mushrooms.

The porcetta was delicious and I really enjoyed it, and it was something I would get again.

November 17, 2016

Spicy!

If you live in Bristol you’ve probably heard of Chilli Daddy and you may have even eaten there. They have relatively recently taken on a stall in the St Nicholas Market and as that is a regular haunt of mine for lunch, I have been thinking about eating there for a while. When they first arrived in St Nicks I did find the menu somewhat confusing, since then they have appeared to simplify it.

On my most recent visit to St Nick’s the staff from Chilli Daddy were offering free samples of fried spicy chicken, pepper chicken and mini spring rolls. All very nice and tasty. Though what I didn’t see was where they were on the menu!

Looking over the menu, I decided that noodles would be a messy affair so went with a rice dish, the Paojiao Chicken Rice Box.

So the dish didn’t look like the picture, well it was a square box.

The dish was mainly rice with ground chicken with some vegetables and some peanuts. The pajiao was Sichuan pickled chili pepper. This was a very interesting dish and I did find it both tasty and spicy. Even though I went for the level 2 spiciness it was still quite a hot spicy dish, I don’t really want to imagine how hot a level 5 dish would be.

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 22, 2015

A tiny corner of Kurdish tastiness

A tiny corner of Kurdish joy

If you are in Bristol looking for 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 Caribbean, Moorish, Italian, Vegetarian, Vegan, Modern, 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. Oh on Thursdays the choice gets even more difficult, as there are loads of new food stalls in the weekly food market.

One stall which seems to have a permanently long queue at lunchtimes is Matina right by the magnificent Georgian entrance to St Nicholas market on the High Street. Matina is a Kurdish takeaway selling delicious wraps and boxes. Keeping it simple you choose a freshly made Kurdish wrap (more like a naan bread than a wrap) or a box with rice (or cous cous). This is then filled with fresh salads, humus, sauces and topped with a choice of grilled marinated chicken, lamb kofta or hallumi and vegetables.

The bread is made in front of you to order in hot oven. They take fresh balls of dough, flatten them out into a circle on a mould, before sticking it to the side of their hot oven. These are then, once cooked, taken out and covered in your choice of salads, sauces, humus and chilli, before the addition of the main filling. Wrapped for you and ready to eat, though sometimes too hot too handle with the freshly cooked bread.

The bread is amazing, this is down to the freshness, you have warm bread, that is still a little doughy as you bite into it, and unlike a wrap, quite happily soaks up the juices from the salad and meat.

I went with the marinated chicken, which had been freshly cooked, so was hot, crisp on the outside, moist inside and full of middle eastern flavours. The salads are fresh, seasoned and full of taste. It was a joy to eat. The combination of textures, flavours and colour, makes this an incredible tasty lunchtime treat, and you understand why there is always a large queue. These are also very good value, all under £5.