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.

The cat that got the cream

I like curry; I like a the Guardian food review recommendation; and I very much like the company of my cousins, Uncle and Aunt. So when the latter proposed a Sunday drinking beer and eating at The Cat’s Pyjamas, recently favourably rated by Jay in the Grauniad, what wasn’t there to like?

It’s unavoidable that the combination of craft beer and Indian street food in this part of the world will bring comparisons to Bundobust, whose first branch is just five minutes down the road. Although here the menu sees the addition of more substantial meat and fish dishes.

They also serve their food on proper plates, with real cutlery. I have no objection to using a plastic fork to shovel up the last scraps of bhel puri from a paper dish when half-cut on fancy double IPAs, but sometimes it is nice to hold a proper knife and fork (then promptly abandon them to scoop everything up with up with a basket of fluffy naan bread...).

Speaking of the beer, I had been promised good things by my Uncle, who had eaten their the week before. Although, clearly our visit had been preceded by some thirsty Loiners and sadly half the choices were scratched off the board, including the tasty-sounding First Chop Mango Pale, that ran out just as we arrived.

In the end I went with a pint of the Wild Beer Lobster Gose - a beer made with cockles and lobsters, seaweed and sea herbs, and seasoned with Cornish sea salt, saffron and star anise. As you can imagine, not a choice for everyone, although the briny, spicy undertones matched up well to the punchy food.

My Uncle's curiosity overcame him and he also ordered a bottle of coconut beer to share, spurred on by the Ewing's enthusiastic love for the tropical fruit. While it smelt unnervingly like Ambre Soliare, it was also strangely delicious; although I heard its sun protection isn't great. 

We started with baskets of poppadoms, obviously, with a tray of punchy fresh dips - tomato, mango and an appreciated raita, they haven't stinted on the spice levels here. Followed by sharing platters of tandoori mixed grill - including chicken and prawns - and fiery seekh kebabs packed with flecks of fresh green chilli and served with a zingy green mint chutney.

We also shared a plate of pani puri, little bite sized baskets of crisp dough stuffed with spicy cubes of potato and pomegranate seeds, served with a dish of fiery tamarind water to pour over, before devouring in one with as much decorum as you can muster. (Not much, based on the amount of my Aunt’s Vanish Gold I got through later that evening).

The Ewing’s sea bream was a whole fish grilled in a spice paste of lemongrass, red chilli, ginger and lime  and served with a chopped salad and more mint chutney. A decent specimen, nicely cooked to be both crisp and yielding, and at five pence under eleven quid, it was also good value.

Keema mattar, or minced lamb and peas, is a childhood favourite that my mum often used to cook from her battered copy of Madhur Jaffrey. This version was light and delicately fragranced, perhaps a little too underpowered, but served in a generous portion. I also loved the nostalgic fresh pop of peas added towards the end of the cooking time and not boiled until mealy and grey (my Mum’s peas were always perfect).

To accompany our mains we worked our way through the naan menu, from classic garlic and coriander to a great peshwari, stuffed with plenty of coconut-ty filling. I went a bit more outré with the Yorkshire cheese naan, spurred on by Mr Rayner’s words; ‘ordered because it would be rude not to in Leeds, is the sort of thing you order early here, when you have somehow managed to arrive drunk. It’s oily, melted cheese and oven-scorched bread. It’s filth.’ 

Having managed to arrive not only early, but drunk too, I can also confirm it is filth. Of the highest order; shared with these Filthy Animals. I wouldn't want it any other way.