Rooting for it

I've pontificated on age before, but I'm definitely coming to realise that getting older is (mostly) a good thing. Apart from things occasionally popping and cracking and creaking, you don't really notice it's happening. You just begin to start waking up early and liking ready salted crisps and going to garden centres and voluntarily watching Sunday night TV.

I mention this after reading Grace Dent’s review of Woky Ko. A 'restaurant' housed in a shipping container at Bristol’s Wapping Wharf. While the level of cooking was ’very high’ she also decried the location as not a place to linger. Timely, as Woky Ko happens to be housed in the container right next to Root, the location for a recent long lunch date with my wife.

After Dent surmised ‘although I enjoyed myself, it was Saturday night and I wished I’d gone to a restaurant’, I wondered, as we turned up just as biblical rain clouds opened, are we just too old for this? (In my head narrated in a Carrie Bradshaw-esque voice, but really the only similarity was the way my hair had gone hella curly, thanks to the inclement weather.)

Things took an upward turn after we arrived, to a very genial, welcome to be presented with a drinks menu that included several local ciders, Being in the West Country, how could we resist? I chose a bottle of Pomme Pomme, a crisp keeved cider with quince from Pilton, and the Ewing went with Smokey Plum, a collaboration between Pilton and Wild Beers (who also have a bar opposite Root). 

They offer a seasonal sharing plates menu, consisting mainly of vegetable dishes with a few sustainably sourced fish and meat specials, from which we picked oysters, served topped with blackberry vinegar, herb oil and lime pickle. Of all my attempts to try and enjoy oysters (as opposed to just closing my eyes and thinking of England) this ranks up there with one of the most successful. Certainly one of the prettiest.

I do sometimes question why I keep persevering – I mean, I dislike hard boiled eggs, and I’m not planning to turn into Cool Hand Luke any time soon - but it’s moments like this when it seems worth it; the sharpness of the lime and berries taking the edge off the plump mollusc without overwhelming it’s creamy subtlety.

Purists may scoff at what sounds like such an outré combo, but it’s not that far from mignonette and a squeeze of lemon. Even the Ewing, who prefers her oysters au naturel, rhapsodised about these while lamenting we didn’t go for four for a tenner.

Gnudi - gnocchi-like dumplings made with Homewood ricotta instead of potato - had an ethereally light punchy cheese, filling barely contained inside a gossamer thin polenta crust. 

These glorious nuggets were served on a very good romesco - made with roast pepper, ground almond and sherry vinegar - sauce and were topped with 'wilding leaves'. While it felt a bit weird at first to have the lettuce getting warm on top of the hot dumplings, I really enjoyed this.

Beetroot came in lightly pickled discs and cooked chunks, alongside toasted hazelnuts and blueberries. It was the kind of simple arrangement that makes you think ‘oh, I should try and knock this up at home’, only to quickly realise that anything involving a beetroot in your own house – save popping open a jar of the stuff once a year, to go with Boxing Day dinner – quickly leads to the kitchen resembling a crime scene.

Far better to let the experts don the latex gloves and do the hard work, especially when the result looks as pretty and tastes as good as this did.

Cured sea bream with dill, cucumber and pickled chilli was pleasant without quite living up to the heady heights of the previous plates, with the fish rather lost by all the accompaniments. I did, however, very much enjoy how the blobs of (caramelised onion?) puree complimented the astringent pickles.

Isle of Wight tomatoes with baba ganoush and toasted homemade focaccia was delicious. So much so that, after being given first bite of the cherry tomato, as it were, the Ewing watched me carefully cleaving each chunk of bread in half, and then again in horror as I ate my share plus half of hers, too. 

What can I say, I think I was concentrating so hard on not hoovering it all up, so that pretty much what seemed to happen…. Or I was distracted by her sparkling wit and conversation. Either way, I’m hoping to atone by recreating something similar at home with our home-grown toms later in the summer (if we ever get a summer).

There’s few things – well, that I can talk about here, anyway - better than a dish of buttered cabbage and here a wedge of hispi cabbage – currently still on a one man mission to make the cabbage trendy – was charred until blackened around the edges and served in a pool of brackish seaweed butter punctuated with pickled shallots and covered in a neat carapace of raw, thinly sliced radish. 

Again, another dish that was beautiful to look at although slightly trickier to eat, as I watched the Ewing contrive to cut into and manage to flick a perfect arc of sauce all over herself. Still, worth the grease stains when brassicas taste this good.

We finished our mains with john dory, from the specials menu, served with smoked cod’s roe and chargrilled fennel. The dory was nice - pale yet interesting, the well-cooked flesh breaking in fine flakes – and who wouldn’t love fronds of slippery, sweet fennel with fish, but I was really here for that sauce. A big puddle of that with a bunch of crisp radishes, or raw fennel to scoop it up, plus a glass of crisp picopul would be almost as much fun as you could have on a summer afternoon.

Like the seldom seen rice pudding and spotted dick, rum baba, here served with carrot jam, is one of my must orders if I ever see it on the menu. Obviously, this was the only dish that was off on our visit. No matter, as it meant I got to branch out and try the pavlova with Cheddar (the nearby town, not the cheese) strawberries, strawberry sorbet, lime curd and, just to gild the lily, a jug of custard served alongside.

Normally not much of a meringue fan, this was an excellent pudding. Sharp curd and sorbet cutting through the sweetness of the fruit, with the lake of glorious vanilla custard tuning the crisp meringue all gooey and chewy. Along with the oyster that kicked things off, this was my standout dish.

The Ewing chose ice cream – chocolate malt with a pleasingly chewy texture and a cherry ripple, mined with chunks of fruit which she mixed together to make a kind of hybrid, frozen black forest gateaux. Good, and good value at £3.50 for two scoops, but not a patch on my pud (which, needless to say, I had eager assistance to help me finish).

The most scathing commentary in Dent's review was saved for the queue for the loos, housed away from the restaurants and accessed by a passcode and described as ‘all a bit day three at Glastonbury – jolly, but directionless’. Also timely as I sit here watching the evergreen Cure rip up the Pyramid stage on iPlayer.

Yes, the loo thing is a pain. Not helped by the fact we then had take it in turns to put our coats back on and navigate the delightful June weather. Although, after all that, I have to report, rather mundanely, the loos were absolutely fine. Rather nice in fact and far better than any festival I have ever attended.

In the end, though, it was the quality food that shone through (and the quality of my dining companion), even if the sun wasn't following suit. 

If you had told a younger me that the older version would be rhapsodising over raw radishes and tomatoes on toast, I probably wouldn't have believed you. But then I wouldn't have thought I'd have started enjoying Hoovering and walking up steep hills and watching Antiques Roadshow and Countryfile. No, I still draw the line at Countyfile.

Douze huîtres

When we originally picked Leap Day as the day to finally tie the knot not having to celebrate annually seemed one of the selling points. Until I realised my wife actually wanted to celebrate on the last day of February and the first day of March. Roll on a few years and the lack of a definite day means the celebrations seem to now extend over a space of weeks.

Which is how we found ourselves at Bar Boulud, for a fancy lunch before seeing Massive Attack performing Mezzanine. Between realising one of my favourite albums is over twenty years old and I’ve been married for seven years (or one and three quarters, if you want to be pedantic about it) I felt sufficiently decrepit and was fully in need of a strong drink.

I fancied a dirty martini, which seems to have become a bit of an anniversary tradition, and while there is huge range of gins behind the bar, for reasons I couldn't fathom only a handful are actually listed on the drinks menu. Which seemed even stranger when the wine list resembled a volume of the Encyclopedia Britannica.

Of the suggestions made by our waiter the Cambridge gin stood out as one we hadn't tried (or didn't have hoarded in the cupboard under the stairs at home) although it wasn't until he bought our drinks that he told us the back story of this being the first truffle infused - with the prized white variety from Alba - gin on the market. So caveat emptor if you don't like your drinks with an earthy and funky edge. I thought it was delicious, although I was still tasting fungi for hours afterwards.

Despite not really ever managing to find raw oysters anything more than 'meh', I was keen we had a dozen to share anyway. The Ewing, who knows exactly what I'm like (I normally eat one and then declare I am done) suggested six, but I was hell-bent on a dozen and had spent the morning saying douze huîtres in a more and more flamboyant French accent, until she gave in just to get me to stop.

You can see I looked pretty pleased when the huîtres arrived. Probably as I hadn't eaten one yet although I was steeling myself with the fact that the glutamate levels of oysters (providing the umami hit) are apparently highest in February and March, imbibing them with even more natural MSG. These looked lean and lithe and briny, although I think I'd have found anything sexy after drinking enough of the heady truffled gin.

While raw oysters aren't my fave I love vinegar with an unholy passion, so a spoonful of mignonotte sauce helped two of my four happily down. Followed by one with lemon and one au naturel, which confirmed that snot that tastes like you've been sea swimming is still not really my thing. 

That left the Ewing with huit huîtres, which sounds like the perfect number when said in an annoying cod french accent. Well, it kept me amused. She enjoyed hers greatly, slurping and chewing happily between crusty hunks of bread and butter.

The burger was really what we were there for and I chose the flagship BB Burger - beef patty, foie gras and short ribs stuffed into a black onion seed bun with confit tomato, salad and horseradish mayo. The best way I can think to describe it is high-end basic. Quality ingredients compiled to taste like an excellent, messy ole burger, that drips down your wrists as you grapple with it – full points for bun integrity, that lasted until the last bite - and makes best advantage of the freshly laundered napkins. 

The smoky patty was nicely pink (medium rare is the furthest they will go), the slick foie gras, although subtle, added further layers of richness and shredded short rib added some toothsome oomph. The confit tomato was a necessary addition to cut a swath through the richness, but sadly the expected sinus prickle of horseradish was too faint to play a supporting role.

Is it ever worth paying twenty four quid for a burger and chips? Debatable when I could have bought 16 of my beloved  McDonalds double cheeseburgers with extra pickles, or three (and a mouthful) of Bleecker's bacon cheeseburgers or two and a half Dead Hippies. Although those prices are without fries and don’t come with a wine list that includes a Baron Thenard Montrachet 2008 at 125 pounds a glass to help it down. 

The Ewing wasn’t up for going halves, so I can only piece together what her Piggie (17 quid) burger - topped with pulled pork and housed in a cheddar bun - was like from her comments, which included ‘spicy’ (from the jalapeño mayo) and ‘beefy’. Probably good that she proof reads this blog, rather than writing it. Although she’s far less verbose than me (and more sarcastic - TE), so maybe a rare treat for the reader…. 

She did have lots of positive words for the chips, mainly they were comparable with Maccy d’s, her benchmark for a good fry. They also give you a ramekin of proper ketchup, not some sort of posh artisan chutney that always tastes of sweet sadness.

As everybody now knows I’m an anti-sugar evangelist (bore - TE) and love to tell everyone at every opportunity I’ve quit the piles of the white stuff (obviously I’m joking, there is literally nothing less interesting than people telling you what they eat/don’t eat). While my resolve remains pretty much intact (honey roasted cashews definitely don’t count) I had already decided the lure of the soufflé du jour was probably going to be too much to resist.

My intention was to share with the Ewing, but as it happened she couldn’t resist the lure of the Pom-Passion - with hazelnut dacquoise, roasted apple sorbet, passion fruit jelly and vanilla mousse - so we ordered both. The apple desert was fine, if a little sweet (not unsurprisingly) for me. I gamefully managed a couple of half-forkfuls, just to be sure, although I did like the mouth-puckering intensity of the passionfruit jelly.

Despite asking what the soufflé was on two occasions neither of us had any idea what the waiter actually said in reply. Being English, we ordered it anyway and were rewarded with the an ethereal confection that tasted just as majestic as it looked. The soufflé was definitely orange-based, possibly Grand Marnier (from Googling it, that’s what Jay ate here when they first opened) although it didn’t taste especially boozy. Although nothing would after that martini. The ice cream was defiantly chocolate, and went nicely with the orange, if you like that sort of thing, which I very much do, although I still let my wife polish most of it off.

It's been said that marriage is like a souffle; beautiful, satisfying and fragile. Although, quite honestly, I'd go with too much sometimes make you feel sick and leaves you deflated (harsh - TE). Not sure that would shift as many Hallmark cards though. Still, there's no one else I want to take long afternoon naps with when half-cut on a Friday afternoon (me neither - TE). Which is exactly what we did after finishing this. Here's to many more years of sleeping and eating with my very favourite person. (Hear, Hear! Chin, chin - TE)

Riddle me this

Just a couple of weeks after enjoying a boozy, seafood blowout overlooking an Essex Estuary, the Ewing was particularly delighted for the chance to enjoy a second one in quick succession - this time at Riddle and Finns in Brighton’s famed Laines.

Inside features the obligatory high-topped marble tables, cool white tiles that bought to mind Soho's Randall and Aubin and Rex and Mariano (RIP, although its successor, Zelman Meats, is also very good).

Beware that if you are in a pair you have to sit adjacent to each other, like old people in garden centre cafes, and you may also have to share your table. Probably not an issue, but even the Ewing was frustrated by the woman opposite us, and her insistence on loudly instructing her builder on the kitchen extension down the phone.

Good sourdough came with homemade mackerel pare, taramasalata, aioli and... horseradish. Clearly I had zoned out when the waitress announced this nugget of info, so it made a surprise sinus-clearer when I loaded it up on a crust of bread.

We started with half a dozen oysters - rocks, as they hadn't had their first natives of the season - a mixture of Rossmore, Carlingford and their oyster of the day, which I felt sure I wouldn't forget, then promptly did.

You can add sauces and toppings, for an extra fifty pence per bivalve, from a comprehensive list including Killpatrick - barbeque sauce and bacon lardons; Porthilly - deep fried & served with pickled vegetables and citrus mayo; and the classic Rockefeller. And while I do, sacrilege, like a cooked oyster, we ate these au naturel (don't worry, we both remained fully-clothed), although I did anoint mine with a liberal splash of red wine vinegar with finely chopped shallots.

The Ewing took advantage of the excellent value set lunch menu, two courses for £14.95, picking the mussels as her starter, with a spare spoon for me. Having eaten plenty of mussels in my life - many of the best looking out at the flat, windy beaches of de Panne on winter trips to the Belgium coast - these were, with no sense of hyperbole, some of the nicest. (oh they were so plump, silky and delicious - TE).

Big and plump and sweet, but not like the tasteless green lip behemoths, with a velvety sauce that we both clashed spoons over. I also enjoyed the late addition of baby spinach leaves and cherry tomatoes, not quite as strange as it seems.

At nearly twenty quid (it's simply listed on the menu as 'Riddle and Finns fish pie') I hoped my choice of main would be worth it. But when a bubbling dish full of chunks of smoked fish and salmon, topped with a burnished carapace of cheesy mash and crowned with a king prawn and a scallop, appeared (I asked for it to be served without the pesky half a boiled egg) I knew I had made a good decision.

A slightly less successful one was to serve the whole thing on a round of slate. Not only did it make the thought of turning the molten hot pie out a rather unappealing one, but it made it nigh on impossible to cut my veg without the shiver inducing screech of metal on rock. I'm not normally overly fussy about my choice of crockery, but this time I was firmly on the side of We Want Plates.

My unadvertised veg meant we also ordered a side of samphire; entirely superfluous, but very good. Especially when the brackish fronds were dragged through the accompanying dish of ethereal hollandaise sauce. A pairing to rival the more familiar asparagus, with the sea vegetables' season conveniently running on right behind.

The Ewing's main was a kinda re-hash of her starter, but with with the addition of squid and clams and served with pasta, and was no worse for that. A generous portion, well seasoned, with well-cooked pasta and a cold glass of vino blanco - you couldn't want for much more.

Dessert - a chocolate ganache creation with a base of tonka bean shortbread and layer of raspberry and lychee bavarois, decorated with a melange of flowers, mint and berries - looked the part, but failed to deliver. The shortbread was soft and the ganache a little chewy instead of melty. The unadvertised chocolate truffle-type things, rolled in coconut and embedded in a swirl of lemon flavoured cream, were pretty good, though.

After several glasses of prosecco and a very nice white Bordeaux, double espressos were in order, taken while chatting with the - super lovely - staff about the influx of Wycombians to the town that weekend.

The total bill just nudged a ton. Yes, a fair bit of cash to drop for lunch, but well worth it for fine quality fish and seafood served in lovely surroundings. You could, of course, get out for far less and far quicker than we did while still having a thoroughly lovely time, but probably not quite as much fun.

We emerged into the daylight to be greeted by a bright and breezy early autumn afternoon, The perfect weather for a slightly pissed (well, the non- designated driver), walk along the shingle, both buoyed by another wonderful seafood lunch and already planning our hat trick. In fact, the only thing I wouldn't want to repeat was the unplanned dunking in the North Sea. Eating all that fish hasn't metamorphosed me into a mermaid quite yet.

Oystahs and Crystal, Y'all

In the second of a series I've titled 'take your wife somewhere she wants to eat so she won't complain about walking around a housing estate all afternoon' (the series kicking off at the Big Easy in Chelsea), we trekked back to the Kingsland Road for a visit to Pamela, erstwhile home of Southern-style specialists Decatur, for a spot of weekend brunchin'.

Named after a Street in New Orleans, Decatur was started by owner Tom Browne 'as a celebration of food I couldn’t get here'. And, after contriving to miss them both at their pop up at Mother Kelly's and their stall at Druid Street market - where an endless stream of grilled oysters populate my Instagram on a Saturday morning - I was determined to finally track them down. Auspicious timing, as it later transpired.

While the brunch menu doesn't list their Kentucky style beer cheese - disappointingly for someone who could subsist on beer and cheese (and often does) - it does feature a solid roster of classics with a Louisianan twist that include bananas foster french toast, crispy veggie hash and steak and eggs. 

They also have a whole section called 'biscuit station' (the freshly baked American type, and not related custard cream or jammy dodgers), as well as a bottomless brunch offer that includes as many mimosas and bloody Pamelas as you can manage during your meal.

Tempting as it was (nothing says Sunday, or heartburn, more than a stiff vodka and tomato juice), it was impossible to resist the charms of iced chicory coffee, served sweetened with cane syrup and a splash of milk and finished with a shot of banana infused Jamesons for good measure.

Originally used to 'stretch' the coffee, chicory root is now a common addition to a New Orleans style cuppa joe and the addition of the sweet fruity whiskey here provides the perfect foil for its bitterness. This cocktail was bananas; Gwen Stefani eat your heart out.

As I have pontificated at length on this blog many times, raw oysters don't really do it for me, but a starter of half a dozen of their famed grilled oysters to share- topped with butter, garlic, pecorino and hot sauce and served with chunks of sourdough for mopping up the briny juices - were sweet, tangy little nuggets of joy. 

While purists may baulk at the idea of not just cooking an oyster but smothering it with cheese and chilli, it's not just me who has good things to say about them - just after our visit, Time Out bestowed first place on their list of London's top 100 dishes to theses very bivalves. And after tasting them it's hard not to agree. (Timeout confirmation unrequired...I never choose cooked oysters but these were outstanding - TE).

To a Brit, biscuits and gravy – essentially scones served with a peppery béchamel sauce made with a roux of flour and pork fat and studded with odd lumps of sausagemeat - might seem like a strange concept. I was an early convert, after going to a branch of Rax on my first trip to Florida as a child and discovering the delights of the breakfast buffet piled with strange things such as corn grits and shards of crispy bacon, that I could pile up on puffy little pancakes and douse in maple syrup without a second look from the waitress; although the rest of my family looked suitable disgusted.

Here biscuits are paired with sausage gravy and fried chicken, served with a token scattering of redundant greenery that only serves to highlight the fact everything else is so gloriously saturated with butter. Thankfully, any guilty feelings are fleeting, counteracted by the effects of the banana whiskey. The chicken -  tender boneless thighs, with a carapace that shatters pleasingly as you bite into it – is pretty much on par with the glorious birds being fried by Carl Clarke a couple of doors down. Very high praise indeed.

Named after the town of Breaux Bridge - which has been named 'la capitale mondiale de l'écrevisse' or, more mundanely in English, the crawfish capital of the world, The Ewing's Eggs Pont Breaux also came on a bed of fluffy biscuits. This time they were topped with crawfish etoufee, a spicy seafood stew, accompanied by eggs with perfectly oozy yolks. Pretty much perfect brunch fare.

It wouldn't be brunch N'awlins style with out a plate of freshly fried beignets. Bought to the South in the 18th century by French colonists, these pillow-shaped yeasted fried pastries became so popular they were declared the 'official state doughnut of Louisiana' in 1986.

Traditionally served, buried under a flurry of icing sugar, these three squares of puffed up perfection provided the final gilding on the lily. And while a cafe au lait may have provided a traditional accompaniment (there are no hot drinks available, so grab your caffeine fix before you get here), I 'made do' with the wonderful Tiny Rebel Cali American pale ale.

On getting our bill, our charming waiter told us that the year long Decatur residency - after they were initially only supposed to be there for three months - was finally looking likely to come to an end. Something that has now been confirmed on the Decatur Instagram page. Not all bad news though, for all those craving that Southern fix, they are still serving at Pamela until December 23rd and there are more projects planned for 2017.

But for now, there is still time to treat yourself to an early present - a platter of fine oysters and a fine view of their wall of Pamelas. As Ms Anderson herself said; 'I'd rather be looked over than overlooked'.