Squiffy in Summertown

I never really found this time of year particularly endearing when I was growing up. It’s still cold, still muddy, still not light enough to play outside after dinner. The lengthening days means the snow doesn't settle, yet still it falls (normally while I was doing cross country in running shorts and an aertex t shirt). Most of my memories are waiting with a child-like impatience for something good to actually happen. 

Now I’ve slowed down a little, although no less impatient, I can appreciate the subtle changes that herald a new year rolling around. The wonderful pale light that bathes everything in a Northern Renaissance glow as the sun climbs a little higher in the sky each day. Then the first of the snowdrops peeking through, followed by crocuses followed by daffs followed by bluebells followed by blossom.

In another nod to the rituals of growing older, we seem to have started taking an annual late winter pilgrimage to Oxford, which always seems a touch too early to see my favourite blossom – the pink blooms on the almond tree outside the church of St Mary the Virgin on the High Street - in its full splendour. This year, however, we made up for it by taking a lovely walk along the canal path in the low sun for Sunday lunch at Pompette in Summerstown.

Currently the critics' darling, the space at Pompette is split into half restaurant, half wine bar the former offering a tight menu of French classics, the latter a separate selection of snacks and charcuterie. As I fancied a relaxed afternoon of getting sloshed (the name is the French for tipsy) and eating a variety of cured meats and fried things, we chose the latter option, a good call as we ended up with all the warmth and atmosphere without the slight starchiness of the other side of the room.

We started with glorious bread and glorious salted butter and more glorious salt to sprinkle on the salted butter and all accompanied by a cold bottle of Austrian pet nat, as that’s what all the cool kids drink. I thought it tasted like funky cider, The Ewing thought it tasted of ‘funky grapes’, both of us enjoyed it a great deal as we are obviously still cool, if slipping further and further away from our youth.

The cervelles de canut -  a fromages blanc flavoured with herbs, shallots, cider vinegar & walnut oil – has got to be the best thing (fifty pence under) a fiver can get you in North Oxford, or North just about anywhere. A Lyonnaise favourite, the name translates as "silk worker's brain", after the canuts, or weavers, who worked in the city; thankfully the dish itself is far less gruesome than it’s moniker might suggest.

The aforementioned glorious bread here has been turned into crisp, golden toasts for dunking, with the only disadvantage being the airy holes give the cheese more escape routes as you move mouthwards.

Anchovy, shallot & butter toasts were yet another incarnation for the humble loaf, and possibly the best of all; lightly toasted and topped with a slab of butter you could leave teeth marks in (the correct depth, according to my wife) and topped with plump salty anchovies and small rounds of sweet shallot. An unassailable combination one I’m already excitedly thinking of replicating in the garden with a cold bottle of rose come the first sniff of summer.

Croquettes were crisp breadcrumbed nuggets of wobbly fried bechamel, studded with chunks of superlative ham. Available per piece, I could easily have taken down a dozen. In the back ground you can see a superlative celeriac remoulade; an unassuming looking dish of the finely shredded root veg in a creamy dressing that packed a huge mustardy and caper-flecked punch.

Terrine maison — classic pork, chicken and veal terrine with pistachios, was a stunner looks wise but could have possibly benefited from a little more time warming up before I launched in. That impatient streak again.

Alongside the terrine came a large terracotta jar with a pair of wooden tongs and the announcement; ‘cornichons, for you’. Possibly the three most romantic words in the English language. Certainly the three most dangerous, as an unlimited supply of pickled cucumbers to accompany the cured pork products saw me eating well into double figures, as attested by the Zantac later that evening.

Cornichons also came adorning the plate of duck rillettes. Originally the Ewing wanted to eschew either these or the terrine, but I pressed for both and was rewarded with what I named ‘rillettes face’; the look of joy when she had scooped up some shredded meat and a little pickle onto a crust of bread and popped it in her mouth. The fact it was initially neglected, due to a surfeit of other goodies, allowing it to warm up a little also helped boost unctuousness.

'Green salad' was tacked onto the end of the order to try and make myself feel better about eating my greens. I'm not sure the wonderful creamy dressing had any tangible health benefits, but it tasted bloody good. 

You would think after such vasts amounts of food even my wife would be satisfied but, after finishing the second basket of bread she forlornly proclaimed 'is that all' in a mournful Pooh--like voice, before confessing she briefly thought the succulent decorating the table was another dish we had ordered. She was only thwarted when she inspected it a little closer and realised it was still potted in soil.

Luckily, and this was a pre-requisite on eating in the bar, puddings could be ordered on both sides of the divide, and the Ewing was most excited by the kirsch choux bun with Griottine cherries and hot chocolate sauce  and, despite my sugar ban, I was excited for her. While the first attempt arrived sans crème pat the second bun was plump with custard and gave her another chance to anoint it with the jug of hot chocolate sauce it came served with; immensely satisfying, even just to watch.

Obviously I was still being superciliously smug about not eating sugar, before promptly ordering a glass of Sauternes that was pretty much liquid honey, and quaffing a good bit of the Ewing's port - Graham's Six Grapes - for good measure.

A wonderful lunch with wonderful company; and another reason to love this time of year is the light flooding through the window that made my wife postprandially glow in the most lovely way - ably aided and abetted by all the desert wine.

Tapas Tuesdays

While writing this blog I've frequently flip-flopped on many food related issues. My favourite cheese; my favourite roast; my favourite curry; my favourite sandwich - currently Roquefort; rib of beef; lamb dhansak (with peshwari naan and a bhindi bhaji) and bacon with butter on white bread - but my devotion to lunch, my very favourite meal of the day, hasn't wavered.

Not just any lunch, of course. Most of my lunches, like most of us, are extremely ordinary (excuse me? ordinary? - TE). Consumed hunched over my key board, trying not too get too many crumbs wedged in my space bar. Which is what makes a 'proper' lunch so very wonderful. The kind when you start early with an aperitif and a nibble or two, before segueing seamlessly into the evening on a crest of food and booze and good conversation.

Which is why I was particularly looking forward to our lunch at Ultracomida in Narberth - a deli-cum-tapas bar deep in the heart of rural Pembrokeshire. A whole day with nothing much to do except eating and drinking and poking our noses into charity shops and butchers and bakers and staring at community notice boards and estate agent's windows. The Ewing even found West Wales first zero waste store and spend a happy half an hour buying strange herbal infusions and hippy soap (a shampoo bar actually which has been a real success - TE). Getting old can be truly brilliant sometimes.

All Tuesdays should kick off with a cold glass of cava and gratis dishes of stuffed olives and fresh bread. Even better if the olives are the salty green kind I used to love as a kid, stuffed with a strip of red pepper paste you can tease out with your tongue. 

The Ewing also had much fun trying different blends of oil and vinegar, from the various bottles found on the large sharing tables that dominate the light and airy room where the restaurant is housed - get here early for lunch, queues were already building at half twelve. The best combo being judged as a mix of organic Spanish olive oil with a balsamic style PX sherry vinegar.

For such a small space the menu is surprisingly comprehensive, starting with a range of breakfasts - including the classic pan con tomate and huevos rotos, or 'broken eggs', served with fried potatoes  - before moving on to a wide range of fish, veg and meat tapas that are available all day, plus a range of toasted sandwiches that are served at lunchtime.

You can also order platters made up of a selection of the various cheeses and cured meats that they also sell in the shop, or just order drinks and nibbles or coffee with a slice of cake or a pastry. I'm not sure how Spanish rocky road or carrot cake are, but they seemed very popular.

Initially I was pretty against the crab croquettes; I mean, I love a croquette, but I had already spotted the peerless jamon version on the menu and I doubted these could be any improvement. 

So the Ewing pouted, and I relented and I was (this seldomly happens) happy to be proved wrong. The croquettes were utterly joyful; a delicate shell of golden breadcrumbs encasing a hefty nugget of crab-flecked bechamel, fried until the outside was crisp and the inside all gooey and melty.

They had both chopitos (baby squid) and calamari (squid rings) on the menu on our visit. Which, as a squid lover, showed admirable attention to detail. Tempted though I was, it was even harder to resist the cazon en adobo; school shark marinaded in garlic, vinegar and paprika, before being floured and deep fried.

These were the most glorious, and generously portioned, springy nuggets of fish. Arriving fresh from the fryer they were scoffed with an indecent haste - with only the briefest pause to sweep them through the wobbly aioli that left me with the ability to repel Dracula for days after our visit.

I also ordered the paella - which I had pre-warned the Ewing I wasn't going to share, under any circumstances - to quench a raging craving for I had had for weeks. Not only is seeing paella on a menu still a rare find, it usually necessitates two people minimum, plus an interminable wait while it's cooked. Here they prepare a batch each morning, ready for the lunchtime service, so it's ready to go when you order and there is no minimum portion size.

This was a paella Valenciana, named for the city where the dish originated, made here with roasted peppers, rabbit, chorizo and iberico pork. While I do love seafood in my rice, an unfortunate incident with Stealth, the opened wine and the unopened mussels did put me off for a while and I actually think I prefer the classic land-based version. This version was simple lovely and perfectly itched the scratch.

The Ewing, on hearing that I wasn't planning to share my rice (bar the odd forkful, I'm not a complete monster) chose the bacalao con hinojo, salt cod with roasted artichoke, lemon and more of that fearsome aioli.

This was a superb dish and I was suitably jealous - a thick tranche of fish, with burnished skin and flesh that broke into pearly white flakes that possessed the lovely gelatinous quality that come from being cured with salt before being cooked. And an utter bargain at eight quid. Throw in a couple of spuds and it would go for twice that in many restaurants.

The only real duff note was the heirloom tomato salad, with a generous topping of inky purple olives,ordered to bump up our veg quotient. There wasn't anything wrong with it, just that it seemed very 'meh' in comparison to the other dishes and the toms weren't a patch on those grown by the Ewing this year (awww...thanks babe - TE). 

Chocolate con churros feel like the kind of thing you should order when you're propping up a bar on holiday in Spain, only to presented with disappointment and regret when the bowl of tepid dishwater and greasy, cold dough sticks arrive.

Here they were everything they always promise to be; hot puffy twists of crisp batter served alongside a cup of gooey, thick chocolate for dunking. As if that wasn't enough, we also had glasses of Orujo, a strong pomace brandy, and Ponche Caballero - a brandy with added oranges, plums, sultanas, cinnamon.

After the inevitable detour on the way out to buy cheese (a palate-stripping blue and a manchego wrapped in rosemary) and vermouth, our postprandial stroll took us to a second pudding stop at the gelato and gin shop, Fire and Ice. Whilst I picked a restrained (and exceptional) frozen yoghurt with blackcurrant a ripple, the Ewing went full out with Gethin's cider sorbet and a gin and tonic sorbet with orange.

The only downside was, after enjoying such a joyful day of half-cut gluttony, it had to be followed by worse for wear Wednesday.