sweet chilli Archives - Time for a coffee

June 29, 2022

Sweet Chilli Chicken

I wanted a quick meal at Paddington Station, but wasn’t really sure what I was in the mood for. Well I was hoping to get some tacos from Barburrito, which I had really enjoyed on a previous visit. However like Chilango, they’ve stopped selling tacos.

I’ve had the sushi quite a few times from Wasabi at Paddington and have enjoyed it. However I didn’t really want sushi. At the Holborn branch of Wasabi I once had the Sweet Chilli Chicken and didn’t really enjoy it.

I quite like sweet chilli chicken, but in this case the sauce was overpoweringly with sweetness and stickiness, even with the heat of the chilli.

I did decide in the end to give it another go.

Yes the sauce was, again, overpowering, rather too sweet and had a lot of chilli. Yup, probably not the best choice in the end.

September 17, 2019

I knew it was going to be sweet…

Walking around the Haymarket in Edinburgh, there was quite a wide choice of places to eat. My first choice was the Le Marche Francais, however that wasn’t open that evening.

There were quite a few Vietnamese places, but in the end I chose the HauHan.

“Serving up British style Chinese food inspired by the dishes of Hong Kong.”

There was a lovely warm welcome from the staff and as the place was quite empty I had the choice of tables where to sit. Inside is clean and tidy. I liked the Hong Kong style decor, it was elegant and simple. There was nothing pretentious about this place.

From Sunday to Thursday they do a meal for one deal, where you get a starter, a main and a side, served with prawn crackers.

I started with the Ja Ha Mian Bao, Sesame Prawn Toast with Sweet Chilli Dip.

These looked homemade and you could taste the prawns. They were for me slightly too oily and greasy, but even so I did eat all four slices. The sweet chilli dip was rather nice, I thought it might be sticky and sweet, but it wasn’t.

For my main, I chose the Go Lo Gai, Sweet & Sour Crispy Chicken in an Orange, Lemon, Ginger & Garlic Sauce with Green Peppers & Onions. I had it served with a portion of Jasmine Rice.

This was a good size portion of food and rice. There were no green peppers, but there were onions, red peppers and carrot. The chicken portions were crispy and tasty. I liked the scattering of sesame seeds. The sauce was sweet with only a hint of sourness. I kind of expected that with a sauce containing orange and lemon.

It reminded me of Chinese takeaway food, but without the excessive salt and grease that you sometimes have. The portions weren’t too small, nor were they excessive.

Service was excellent, with friendly staff, not over-bearing and efficient.

Overall it was a really nice meal and I enjoyed it.

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.