I’m sure Stratford-upon-Avon has a lot going for it, but it didn’t seem like a particularly throbbing hub of culinary delights. Needing a pre-theatre dinner, and having done some vague research but not much, when I realise that the Royal Shakespeare theatre has a rooftop restaurant with a strong selection of seemingly vegan options (if admittedly not explicitly marked), that seems ideal - it’s where we need to be, they’ll have to get us out by the start of the show, and the menu looked quite ornate. In retrospect, that should have been the first clue - all the hallmarks of a chef who has learnt how to make complicated dishes, but hasn’t learnt why. The bang bang chicken is barely coated and a little tough, although the dressing and the foliage are quite nice. There’s a wide gap between expectation and reality from the menu description of “slow-cooked confit lamb shoulder, bubble and squeak mash, edamame beans, pea and mint salsa, red currant jus” to the plate that eventually lands in front of me. A stolid cuboid of reconstituted lamb does, to give it some credit, fall apart quite easily, but it’s over-salted to the point that I cannot finish what’s left once I’ve exhausted the not overly generous jus. The mash is dried out and seared into a circular mold, losing even more already-lacking moisture from the dish (this seems to be a theme, with Alasdair’s looking very dry and eventually we conclude that the parsley oil mentioned on his menu has been forgotten). The edamame beans and sauce are delicious in a vacuum, but they belong on a different dish entirely, clashing with everything else on the plate. It’s all disappointing enough that I don’t trust any of the desserts enough to move from a 2-course set menu to a 3-course set menu that I’d been anticipating ordering in the first place. The whole ordeal also very much dragged on, which I’d expect better of a restaurant in a theatre explicitly offering this as a pre-theatre set menu. To end on a positive though: in lieu of dessert, I had a tiramisu martini, their twist on an espresso martini with Baileys, Disarrano, and cream, and it was absolutely perfect.
Zac and Martha are coming over to our neck of the woods to try the new Studio Ghibli themed cocktail menu at Spirited, and have suggested grabbing a bite to eat beforehand. I wrack my brain for where to take them, and realise that Magari is perfectly on their way to us from town, and Alasdair and I have been looking for an excuse to go back for nearly a year now, so why not. One of the newer shipping containers on Wapping Wharf, Magari is a fantastic little pasta spot. A very limited menu is a good indicator of quality, and it matches up to its promise. I decide not to have a starter, but I do nab a bit of Alasdair’s bruschetta, which is perfectly crisp without being tough or displacing its toppings. The main event for me is the sausage ragu, well-apportioned with chunks of meat, well-seasoned without being overly salty, meaning the pecorino on top sits nicely amongst it all. If I had one complaint, it’s that it’s served with only a tiny fork, which makes spiralling the pasta which is thicker in width and depth than the fork can handle rather difficult, let alone a spoon to prop up with. Still, a minor quibble. Tiramisus for the non-vegans amongst us for dessert, with Martha and I opting for the classic and Zac opting for the deluxe option of adding some honey and an amaretti crumble. It does look good, but I think I made the right choice with the classic - the lily doesn’t need gilding.
It turns out a couple of people from Alasdair’s work are also going to Derren Brown at the Hippodrome and have suggested getting a bite to eat at Renato’s beforehand. I’m amenable. It’s good pizza! Previously, I’ve mixed it up between the New York style and the Detroit style pizza - maybe it’s the recency bias of being in New York, maybe it’s the having had too much Detroit pizza at the Barrelhouse over the last while, but today it’s just a couple of slices of New York. Just cheese. Topped with oregano. A garlic and herb mayo. A nice, cool pint of Sky Above. The dream.
Somehow, through work, we’ve swung a trip to Spurs stadium for the interns, including a stadium tour, a private tech tour, and the skywalk. After all that, and having been awake since 4 in the morning and have only had a 6am McDonalds, I’m quite peckish. Luckily we’re hanging around in the M Café, which I think is designed for the media/press at the stadium? In any case, today’s hot dish is a chicken curry, which is surprisingly substantial! As it should be for that price, boy. The chocolate cake is actually very good, a lovely double texture of gooeyness and cakiness. I suppose I would recommend it if you end up as part of the sports media corps?
It’s a week of catching up with people, it seems, and this time it’s Niki! Laden with dietary requirements and also pregnancy hormones, she slightly apologetically suggests somewhere not very interesting but certainly safe for knowing she’ll be able to eat the food - this is of course fine with me. Luckily, the Lounge fits the bill and is all of a three minute walk from my house, so I’m not going to argue. I’ve never been to this specific Lounge, which is I was confused to learn recently the original Lounge. Any charm or history it may have has been wiped out over time and private equity investment, sadly. It’s all fine. Aggressively mediocre. I order a smashed burger, and it comes out looking so sad, so shrunken. It tastes ok, because it’s kinda hard to make a bad burger, but it’s not massively inspiring. Likewise the chips. But hey, they at least bring out a bottle of mayo when I ask for some, rather than an insultingly tiny thimbleful.
Raph and I are long overdue a catch up, and in a mutual convenience we settle on Fluffy Fluffy after work. Unfortunately, we arrive too late for them to still be serving the savoury menu, so we’re straight onto dessert - ah well. I’ve been meaning to come here since it opened, as it arrived in Bristol not very long after I happened to find one in Leicester last year, had the tiramisu pancakes, and wanted to have them again. The moment has arrived. It maybe doesn’t quite live up to my memory of it (although, to be fair, I wasn’t particularly remembering it as fine dining), but it’s still good, the texture of the cream doing a lot of the heavy lifting as to why I liked it. The pancakes are indeed fluffy (fluffy), and the coffee syrup does set it off nicely. I have a mango soda with it, and this is diminishing returns as I drink all the mango puree basically by itself (delicious) and am left with just soda water (less so).
Alasdair has returned from his extended stay; neither of us want to cook; we’re going out to see Tall Tales; Other have posted on Instagram that they’ve had cancellations and that’s difficult for them - it’s a perfect storm. I had forgotten how good the olives are, marinated to within an inch of their lives in lemon juice and then lightly salted. The crisps and dips - a satay sauce and an aioli - are incredibly moreish. But I must make them lessish because there’s so much more to come. I go for the special, barbecued red mullet, some battered and fried, some not, with an abundance of greenery and a gorgeous sauce. Almost overshadowed by the confit potatoes in the “million layer” style, with a pesto mayo. But still, after all that, the main event remains Zak’s doughnut, today with a lemon and poppy seed drizzle. I savour each and every morsel of it, the most delicate bites I have ever taken. I could eat these on a conveyor belt. I must be stopped.
My return to the UK happily coincides with Mum’s birthday, so I conspire with Dad to surprise her by him picking me up from Heathrow and me being in Harpenden for a birthday dinner. We go to Pasta Cibo, which used to be the go-to family restaurant, and I have not been in at least 10 years. Thankfully, literally nothing has changed at Pasta Cibo in that time. The over the top tat all around the walls and ceiling, including the creepy clown doll; the menu that genuinely includes “Spaghetti ‘Lika Mamma Used To Maker’”; it’s all there. I have pretty much what I would have had back then - whitebait to start, a margherita pizza for the main, nothing for dessert (they buy them all in, Punky Penguin ice creams and all). It’s nice to be back.
More food! Enrobed in White Company bedding in my own little pod, I sink into a fully reclining seat, put on Paddington In Peru, and await the Club World meal service. Today I have already eaten too much food and drunk too much alcohol. Let’s have more of both, please! The welcome glass of champagne starts me off nicely, before a healthy gin and tonic with dinner. I pick my dinner options strategically. A creamy broccoli soup doesn’t overwhelm me, even with the croutons, and was perfectly nice. Not being able to handle any more pasta, I go for the braised beef short rib, with potato fondant, green beans, carrots, and some kind of gravy, all absolutely fine! Better than the premium economy food, which is better than economy food, but it’s all relative, isn’t it. The blueberry bread and butter croissant pudding, with a fine-dining-esque smear of vanilla custard nearly finishes me off, but I survive to vaguely doze off for a bit - massively helped along by a hot chocolate topped off with Baileys. In the morning, I am treated to some tea and orange juice with a breakfast ciabatta, some muesli, and a chocolate muffin that I realistically get one bite into before realising that it simply wasn’t going to happen. Next time, I’m getting business class in the day time and not worrying about being able to sleep or not.
The perks of having actually paid for business class in advance rather than being upgraded at the last minute is spending time in the lounge. I can’t tell you I took full advantage of this (see immediate prior entries), but I did my best. I checked out the buffet and had a small selection of anti pasti, all of which was fine. The main draw was the fact that all of the alcohol was self-pour. Just bottles of red/white/rose/champagne, multiple variants of each, waiting for you to serve yourself. Any spirit you can think of was represented. Even after a couple of glasses of wine, when I really did not need anything further, I still had to try the build your own bloody mary bar. A not great cookies and creame cannoli, an oat cookie, and a weirdly rainbow coloured battenberg cake makes for a hodge podge of a dessert, but I am satisfied.
We continue the day of eating! We spotted Pastagasm, just a block over from the hotel, on our first night, and made a note of it for future reference, despite having most of our meals booked already. I really shouldn’t have, I could barely eat, but I also couldn’t leave New York knowing it was there and not trying it. In a tiny, garish spot with purple neon signs and black and white chequered tiled flooring, I am served a healthy (quantity)/unhealthy (nutrition) quantity of cacio e pepe in tonnarelli, parmesan piled on, and it’s very good! The sauce clings to the pasta nicely, substantial but not thick, bound together perfectly. Delighted that in Bianchi’s fashion, I’m given some (very rosemary-y) focaccia to mop it up, and I make sure to do so. I would have loved to have tried their tiramisu, but I genuinely don’t think I could have managed a spoonful. Good to have a reason to come back to New York, I suppose.
So begins a day that, in a holiday full of eating too much, is the day of eating too much. To kill time before the airport, we go for brunch at Little Ruby’s. For a place full of “bowls” and “avo on toast”, it’s amazing how little they are prepped for vegans - in the UK, that kind of place would be on it. We each have a pineapple mint juice (lovely, too small), and unencumbered by dietary requirements, I am quickly able to metaphorically jump on the breakfast sandwich - a slightly spicy sausage patty, topped with all manner of accoutrements: fontina cheese, scrambled eggs, pea leaves, a lemon aioli. All of this crammed in a potato bun (which the server “reckoned” was probably vegan before checking to find out it definitely was not). It was good! It’s a rich breakfast, I’ll give you that.
The culinary centrepiece of the whole holiday. Eleven Madison Park - the only vegan three Michelin star restaurant in the world; for Alasdair especially, this is a big deal, as even when we go to other Michelin star tasting menus and there’s a vegan option, it’s typically the veggie dishes minus cheese, which is a shame when the whole point is that everything on the plate is there for a reason. The first time I have been to a three Michelin star place (not even a two before!). I think I now understand. Let’s start with the drinks. There is a binder of a wine list, centimetres thick. We come to the conclusion that the wine pairing might be too much to us (although in a genuine rarity, we do treat ourselves to a glass of champagne to start the evening), so we propose an alternative to our waiter - can we please have three cocktails each throughout the evening, whatever you think will work at each point? Of course we can! Absolutely no problem at all. We are treated to the snap pea cocktail, the banana cocktail, and the strawberry cocktail, all more complex than those sound but I shan’t reel off the ingredient list here. Suffice it to say that we were feeling it at the end, especially then the aperitif was brought out with dessert and the bottle explicitly left on the table for us to top up our glasses as we saw fit. But there was also the bonus cocktail! Prepared at the table, no less! Which, I admit, we both temporarily thought was the first one that was ordered on our behalf, and got excited that all three might be made like that. But no! This was actually just a bonus part of the first course proper (preceded by a bread course that we spent the rest of the evening remembering even 20 minutes or so and exclaiming “oh but the bread!”, a mushroom brioche with truffel and morel butter that melted and flaked like a dream come true). This was their spring celebration, a pea salad with mint, and the best damn lettuce you’ve ever had, with an almond ricotta for dipping. I shan’t recount every course in detail, we don’t have the time - a precise and delicate jenga of asparagus, artichoke fried like the sun, soba noodles made upstate, a luminescent romanesco. A single hasselback potato, prepared tableside and seasoned with a smoked potato powder and “land caviar”, is concentrated goodness of the highest order. Dessert is a multifaceted affair of a strawberry and raspberry mochi, a vanilla cream, and strawberries for dipping. There’s an amuse bouche of a sesame chocolate pretzel, dangling from a tree. The whole thing is simply remarkable. But. But but but. None of that is what I’ll take away from this evening. Sat next to us for most of the evening was a couple with a young daughter, maybe seven years old or so - who, to everyone involved’s credit, was on impeccable behaviour the whole evening, happily enjoying it and reading Matilda and The Twits when she was less engaged. When they reached the dessert, our waiter said to the little girl “we’ve got a special treat for you” and handed her a chocolate bar - “open it!”, she was told. She did, to find a golden ticket to give her a tour of the kitchen, the Roald Dahl story of her dreams. The sheer attention to detail and to providing an unforgettable experience for that little girl, simply remarkable. We were not so lucky to receive a golden ticket, but we did go home with three jars of granola (one each of cherry bakewell, and a third of black forest gateau). I’ve not eaten mine yet, but I had a bite of Alasdair’s and it’s like crack. Genuinely a high water mark for restaurants, as well it should be.
This won’t be a long one. It’s a slice of New York pizza. Cheese. Add some oregano on. Bosh.
I am determined, in the pre-planning of this holiday, to make sure we’re going to as many restaurants as possible that Alasdair can enjoy. So when former Simpsons head writer turned fast food critic extraordinaire, Bill Oakley, recommends Superiority Burger on his story as being so good he didn’t realise it was vegetarian, well here we go. We are shattered from a long day of eating and sun and the Guggenheim, so we decide to head straight here for an early dinner before crashing in the hotel in the evening (via, with any luck, Milk Bar). Simple, easy, quick. Let’s do this. I think because of the sun, when I see that Pimms is an option, I’m right on it, and only when it arrives do I remember that I’m drinking an American-proof cocktail and hooh boy is that stronger than what I’m used to when I think of a Pimms over here. The burger arrives, and it’s pretty much the platonic ideal of a fast food burger - the patty well-seasoned and slightly crumbly, the muenster cheese melted, the sauce doing its lubricating job. The fries are chunkier than I’ve tended to see in America, and what a relief. Alasdair has a chocolate mousse cake which I’m not ashamed to say I sample, knowing that soon I won’t have to stir from bed ‘til morn.
A meal without Alasdair! I was saddened to see that Joomak Banjum, one of my favourite new discoveries last time I was here, had since closed. I was then trilled to learn that the chef behind it had opened Ddobar, serving an incredibly well-priced omasake menu featuring his now supposedly renowned Yubutarts. I can’t say I had heard of this phenomenon, but given how much I loved Joomak Banjum’s combination of Korean dishes seen through a French patisserie lens, I was all ears for this continuation. Admittedly on this random Saturday lunchtime at bang on opening, I was the only one there, but still, a remarkable efficiency of getting 11 courses in me and the bill paid in less than an hour. 11 bite-sized (ish) courses that nonetheless left me full at the end. The first few coures take a bit more variety - a shotglass of cacio e pepe, some beautiful scallops in a brown butter dashi, fluke served with a wasabi foam and apple - but then we hit the tarts. Imagine sushi but instead of the - let’s be honest with ourselves, quite boring at this point - rice, a small choux tart with an appropriate filling. The hiramasa, paired with a yuzu creme; the botan ebi with egg and ikura; the replication of the effect of a classic New York bagel with a slide of salmon on a tart with everything seasoning and horseradish filling. This continues through variations on lobster, tuna, duck pastrami, before we hit the wagyu beef - something I don’t think I’ve properly had before, and oh boy is it good. Served with maitake mushrooms and a truffle royal sauce, this didn’t need a tart; it stood alone, confident in what it was. And then! After ten courses of tiny, perfect bites, they offer me a giant swirl of soft serve earl gray ice cream. It’s delicious, and I do finish it, but it’s too much, and when they ask me if I’d like anymore, even I suprise myself by saying no. A single glass of white wine sees me through it all; I don’t think I’d have had time for a second.
Finally! Some oysters! I knew The Smith wouldn’t let me down. A bite to eat that is not quite quick, but is very much pre-theatre. So I knock back a couple of oysters (again, they offer a selection, I have no idea how on earth I would ever be able to differentiate them) with a variety of dressings, and they absolutely hit the spot. In an effort to keep rotating through different cuisines, I’ve also yet to have a steak this holiday, so why not! I go for their house special, a flat iron steak (appropriate for the district, I suppose) with peppercorn sauce, fries, and spinach - a classic. Medium rare, of course. It’s a steak, not really much more to say than that, it’s all done well (but not well done, wahey). But it’s enjoyable with a cocktail and the anticipating of a night at Varietopia.
I suppose you don’t really need a reason to go to Brooklyn - it’s like Manhattan with shorter buildings - but if you do, a Michelin starred wine bar owned by James Murphy is certainly a good one. I think it’s genuinely brilliant, that the typical thing of a rock star deciding they want to own a restaurant has turned into an absolute triumph long beyond any sense of name recognition. It eclipses his reputation, which is a thrill (that being said, as a side bar, I did on my first visit here manage to bump into Murphy in what was a perfect little interaction, and that has reduced the pressure each time I’ve been since). Another slight challenge on the veganism front, but not impossible, and it also means I get some delicious Hidden Falls brie. To start, scallops, beautifully prepared with a shiro dashi. Some of the best I’ve ever had. For my main, the “spring allium rice”, which is a risotto full of cultured butter to its very heart, with a selection of garlic, ramps, and onions to perfectly cut through the richness. I am livid that the Americans have somehow done a better sticky tofee pudding than us, not too datey, a sumptuous caramel sauce, and a resounding tuft of whipped cream to top it off. The service is impeccably friendly, the playlist is banging - what more could you want?
We have eaten altogether too much food, both on this holiday in general but specifically today. This means we are both disinclined towards going anywhere to eat a substantial meal, and really going anywhere at all. So the tapas in the lobby bar feels oddly appealing, especially if we can hit happy hour, which we just about manage. A couple of gin and tonics ordered, we peruse the menu and order the bare maximum of what we think will be enough, and we still over-order - god bless America. My hero dish, so to speak, is the jamon croquettes, which are to be fair quite good, the right mix of crispy exterior and fluffy interior, served with a suitably rich aioli. Alasdair opts for the pan con tomate, which I nab a slice of and is very good indeed. We share some shishito peppers, as well as the “house olives blend”, which actually turns out to be a whole mix of olives and peppers and gherkins. Not bad, but I think we were both in the mood for just some olives. We tip a suitably indifferent barman and head back up to our room to lie down for a good long while.
After relistening to the (incredible) Claudia Winkleman episode of Off Menu a couple of months ago, I began to research tuna melts in New York. An early consensus formed around Golden Diner, so who am I to refuse? Unfortunately, this is maybe the only real food disappointment of the trip. This is, to be fair, potentially slightly influenced by being too full, but I still think in a vaccum, I wasn’t overly impressed. The sandwich was over-stuffed with tuna mayo (which, to be fair, was nice, but it was also cold? In a tuna melt?). It was like they’d toasted some cheese on some bread, and only then added the tuna and, for some reason, crisps? Very confusing. I get it with a pickle and some fries, both of which are perfectly fine if nothing special. On a very hot day, though, the very refreshing lager is doing a lot of heavy lifting, so I don’t regret it all too much. Maybe another time.
Another New York mainstay for me at this point, from all the way back in 2019. I cannot resist the lure of the Buvette waffle sandwich, so much so that a) I am eating this all together too close to lunchtime for my own good, and b) I am dragging Alasdair along to really the only place this holiday where he really cannot have anything to eat. I am willing to burn that much goodwill for it. Two beautifully crisp but fluffy waffles, sandwiching bacon, gruyere, a fried egg, and maple syrup. An absolute smorgasboard of flavour profiles that mingle beautifully. I am and remain obsessed. Maybe one day I’ll come back and actually be sat at a table rather than the bar, but it’s all fun.
The first of the American Michelin stars! Last time I came was a quick drop in for lunch with Alex; this time, a more relaxed, sprawling evening with Alasdair. Unfortunately, I’m not able to go for the tasting menu as it requires the whole table to take part and there are simply not enough vegan options, but no matter. I’m mentally prepared to spend as much money on pasta as the tasting menu would cost, so it all evens out. A cheeky amuse bouche of a miniature brioche bread with an onion pureé and crème fraîche starts us off, before I start doubling down and order the gnoccho fritto, three puffs of fried dough topped with parma ham, mortadella, and guanciale each. All need to be savoured; none are. I’ve already eaten enough for the week, so I only order two of the pastas: the anolini di parma and the cappellaccio ripieno di piselli. The former, a simple but effective stuffed pasta, filled with meat, and a light cheese sauce; the latter, my favourite, fragant with split peas and fresh mint. For dessert, a double caffeine dose of an off-menu espresso martini and their tiramisu, one of the best I’ve ever had, described on their menu as “enough for two, better for one”, and I’ve never been more glad to have a vegan boyfriend. A couple of chocolates for petit fours, and off we stagger to the hotel.
The brief for this afternoon is a vegan place near the theatre, and we are thrilled to find PS Kitchen. It’s only lunch time, so I treat myself to a Shirley Temple, which is oddly nostalgic (memories of my friend Jack’s bar mitzvah [at least I think it was Jack’s, there were a lot in year 8]), and hits the spot without putting me to sleep in the theatre a couple of hours later. It’s a quick bite, but it turns out by no means a small one - I order a chicken caesar wrap which emerges from the kitchen the diameter of my forearm. Impressive though that is, a lot of it is greenery. Good greenery, don’t get me wrong, but greenery nonetheless. I’d describe the pie chart of greenery and non-greenery, but that would just be a cross-section of the wrap itself. The vegan chicken, though, is very good, nice and crispy; the dressing is well distributed; the tomatoes eventually come to the fore. A few of Alasdair’s chips, and the job’s done.
The nostalgia tour begins! I first went in 2019 when the then-new Off Menu podcast had Acaster and Ed Gamble recommend it. A not insignificant reason for our return was to have some oysters, but alas my hopes are dashed when it turns out there’s a six oyster minimum, and I am not a six oyster man. We stick to the mains, then - or, at least, I do. Alasdair suffers his veganism through a plate of broccoli, a plate of fries, and the pained expression of a waiter seeing a larger tip going down the drain (we do our best to make it up). I, on the other hand, treat myself to the duck meatloaf with a cherry glaze, and root vegetables served in a variety of styles, including some delightful crisps. Unspecified on the menu is that it’s served with mashed potato, and our server does not stop me from also ordering the “potato pureé” (further mashed potatoes). Even he, an actual American, describes it as swimming in butter, and my god he’s not wrong. But the hint of horseradish gives it a nice kick, and when in Rome. For dessert, an absolutely devine salted lime pie, a perfect ratio of crust to filling, served with some surprisingly unsweet (it is, after all, America) whipped cream and a breathtaking “passionfruit caramel” that I am savouring until the last bite. It’s good to be back.
One of the great pleasures in life is having friends in places you like to go on holiday. I get to catch up with Alex and Shuyang, and also enjoyably get to introduce them to Alasdair and vice versa. We end up at Spicy Moon, not far from their apartment in the East Village, a veggie/vegan Chinese joint. Still pretty full from the earlier bagel, we go for the lunch deal, with some fried vegetable dumplings, in a luminous green wrapper, and the vegetable ramen which is absolutely unnecessarily stuffed with noodles. Like, too many noodles. It’s delicious, laden with tofu, bean sprouts, and other veg. I devour the broth, even if I simply cannot approach finishing the rest. We make a move and go see the changes Alex and Shuyand have made to their apartment, making the most of our brief overlap.
You can’t go to New York and not get a bagel. Surely. I have long been thinking about the bagel Alex picked up for me on my last visit a couple of years ago, and there’s a Brooklyn Bagel Company outpost not far from the hotel, so we head over for a quite sizeable breakfast - for as much as I’ve been reminisicing about that previous bagel, I’d forgotten just how substantial they are. I go for a pretty much classic - smoked salmon and a scallion cream cheese, with some capers and red onion, on an everything bagel, lightly toasted. It is perfect, and I will later pretty much not eat lunch. Alasdair finds they have a tofu-based vegan cream cheese, so gets to enjoy that on a blueberry bagel, and we both have an orange juice which really does hit the spot.
After a 7 hour flight and navigating our way from JFK to our midtown Manhattan hotel, we need a bite to eat - mostly to keep us up to a normal hour to avoid horrendous jet lag. Alasdair has found Planta Queen, a very short walk from the hotel, which is an all-vegan Japanese restaurant (a general New York/American theme: restaurants tend to be all or nothing on this, either fully plant-based or with minimal adjustments possible, as opposed to the UK’s pretty consistent multiple options in any restaurant). It is also Maki Monday (a decidedlt different concept to Maccies Mondays at work in the old days), with $9 maki rolls all round. I go for the Hawaiian, with pineapple and avocado, served with a mango aioli. I think I prefer Alasdair’s torched and pressed avocado rolls with a miso truffle glaze. The bao slider of crispy fake chicken is pretty good, but the star of the show is the 1000 layer crispy potato, with sour cream and caviar (take the quotation marks around the above as read). Both too full and too tired for a dessert, we take our leave to finally crash.
Once again, I enter the fine dining stylings of BA’s premium economy offering. I’m not going to do the same conceit as last time. Sparkling wine to start, many other alcoholic drinks as we go. A perfectly acceptable ricotta mezzaluna dish, with a perfectly acceptable salad to start, and an actually quite nice passionfruit panna cotta for dessert which really does feel like you’re eating a tropical Solero. A chicken pastry thing for a pre-landing snack which does the job. It’s just nice to have actual cutlery, to be honest.
A nice opportunity to catch up with Zac at St Nick’s market on a Friday lunchtime. With all the available options, we’re feeling a big box of meat. Low And Slow it is, once we’ve snaked through the always impressive queue. I have my classic order - the pork pitmaster fries, loaded with pulled pork, cheese (early in the process such that it is not a topping and suitably starts to melt under the heat and weight of everything else), pickles, crispy onions, and a dual drizzling of the house barbecue sauce and their pickleback mayo. There’s even a superfluous chopped herb smattering just to make sure you’re feeling at least something green has entered your system in the process. It’s delicious and too much and at least three days’s worth of your recommended sodium intake, but it hits the spot.
Frankie’s, once a brief pop-up in Kask Kitchen last year, is now semi-permanently established in the space, running two weeks of every month (with the other two being reserved for other pop-ups and events). This is music to my chicken-and-waffle loving ears, having been to that initial pop-up and been salivating over the prospect of ever having it again ever since. This is a trip long in the planning with Tom, trying to co-ordinate our availability with Frankie’s itself, but here we finally are. It is sheer indulgence in comfort food form, filling a gap that genuinely I don’t think anywhere in Bristol is doing right now. The menu is straightforward - four variants on chicken and waffles, and a few sides. In this instance, Tom and I are not looking for variety, and go for the maple syrup variant each. No regrets: a smooth, uncrystalline waffle topped with three generous pieces of fried chicken, the meat juicy and tender but maintaining its coating perfectly. A rich maple syrup is cut through with chilli jam and a heavenly bacon butter that implores you to spread it evenly such that every bite has some, but yet also to concentrate it on a single bite such that you might fully experience its depth of flavour. We completely needlessly pair this with the frickles and the parm million layer potato, drenched in marinara sauce, pesto, and parmesan - needless but necessary nonetheless. For dessert, the zeppole, fluffy Italian donuts served with, in our case, one portion of strawberries, raspberries, whipped cream, and Italian meringue, and one portion of whipped marscapone, coffee syrup, and caramel, making a glorious tiramisu-esque concoction. My body absolutely crashed about 90 minutes later, but it was so worth it.
It is a bank holiday weekend - no, better, the Easter bank holiday weekend, an extra day on top of it all - and Alasdair has had a very important week of having a major job interview, and that is something to be celebrated and rewarded. And what better celebration and reward than good food? We’ve yet to pay a visit to Pasta Ripiena this year, and their lunch deal is insanely cheap for what you’re getting. Three courses, £26, let’s do this. Alasdair has his own specially prepared vegan menu, and I am slumming it with the normies. A beef crudo bruschetta sets the tone, beautifully seasoned with a hint of horseradish, the parmesan shavings doubling down on the umami rather than trying to counteract it. For my main, a casoncelli of venison with a peppercorn sauce, with some dried and pickled porcini mushrooms setting it off nicely. I barely have the self-discipline to wait for the inevitable slice of focaccia being offered up for sauce mopping, but I try. For dessert, a mint panna cotta with confit of rhubarb - elegant and simple, necessary after all of the above. And then, for some reason, an espresso martini on Good Friday - it’s what he would have wanted.
We have an embarrassingly small budget for a team meal at work, but the beauty of being a manager is that we’re double counted - I get to take my team out for a meal, and in turn I get to be taken out by my manager for a meal. The system works. So the CDI leadership team heads out to the pub that is a four minute walk from the office, to sample the £12.79 lunch set menu. It is exactly what you could expect. It’s fine. It’s fried. It absolutely goes through me. Beer battered mushrooms to start; beer battered halloumi to follow; and a thankfully un-beer-battered apple pie with custard for dessert. It’s all adequate, but it’s a nice catch-up with everyone, and it was a couple of hours not at my desk. That’s a win for a Tuesday.
Making the most of being near London, as I do, I’m able to fit in a quick lunch with Andy before my train back to Bristol. With the constraints of “being done by 2.30” and “next to either Kings Cross or Paddington”, Andy goes on the hunt and finds us Hoppers, which he’s been to once before. It’s a flying visit, so I don’t get to fully sample the menu, but dive straight in with a black pork curry and a titular egg hopper. They are not particularly up front about the spice level, and that’s not a problem per se, but oh boy did it hit me when I wasn’t expecting it. Lovely! But unexpected. The pork was beautifull tender, and the curry itself still flavourful betwixt the heat. A thicker curry than is maybe scoopable by a light pancake, but that’s my problem I suppose, at the end of the day. We have enough time, amidst an always lovely catch up, to have a Watalappam pudding, a caramel-y, coconut-y, bread-and-butter pudding-y concoction, with a candied nut and coconut cream.
One of my favourite London secrets is Carousel, a wine bar nestled away on Charlotte Street which upstairs is its own thing, but downstairs acts as the host for weekly guest chef residencies from across the world. It’s a favourite of Milly’s and mine, and an ideal fallback for when we can’t think of anywhere else we’d like to go when catching up. This time: Andy and Tiff from The Catbird Seat, a 20-course tasting menu gaff in Nashville, TN, presenting a cut-down version of their menu with a mere 7 courses. It’s phenomenal from the off, with a selection of snacks including a walnut cookie (that looks like a walnut!) filled with chicken liver paté and a blackcurrent jam that from the first bite tells you what you’re getting tonight: in good ol’ US of A fashion, this meal is going to be in your face. There is no room for subtlety here, you are getting big, bold, punchy flavours. But what saves this from getting tired is that there is variety in just how each course is punching you. The smokiness of the bacalaito, the wonderfully dense salt cod fritters; the citrus of the blood orange granita topping the oysters; the hot sauce cutting through the foie gras and cheese tart; the umami of the pork loin balanced by the richness of the whey sauce and roe; the creaminess but lightness of the Pimms and rhubarb sorbet. The treat of Carousel is that it’s all being plated in front of you at a giant kitchen island, and that Andy and Tiff are coming around and having a chat with you. They are genuinely interested in how you are finding it and happy to talk about what’s going on behind the scenes. Throw in a wine pairing for me and some soft drinks for a recuperating Milly, and this is the ideal backdrop for a good old catch up - and hopefully for many more in the future.
Dad, for some reason, suggests grabbing a pizza when I get back from Bristol because, and I quote, “Mum will be out doing ballet” and that is reason enough. Zio’s is a comparatively new (by Harpenden standards) pizza place on the corner of Station Road, and I recall having had it as a takeaway some time ago when returning home. We dine in, with a beer and a pizza, nothing fancy. I have a pizza with buffalo mozeralla, which is certainly well-apportioned, toppings-wise, but to the shame of its structual integrity. The problem with adding buffalo mozerella is that it doesn’t melt at the same rate and therefore adds moisture and unevenly distributed heft. The dough itself (in the Neapolitan style) is a bit yeasty, a bit bland. It’s not a bad pizza, by any means (is there any such thing?), but I’ve had more fulfilling ones.
The day after the work social, we have our own little Thunderball team meal - the sun is out, the skies are blue, it is all together too warm. We originally intend on going to Squeezed, as is the consensus amongst the group, but that is unexpectedly closed. We pivot, as all good agile scrum teams do in the face of adversity, to Salt & Malt for some classic Friday fish and chips. The 7 person order is complex and inevitably takes a couple of corrections to get everything right, but in the end we are sat by the harbour and all enjoying ourselves. A large cod and chips for me, with some tartare sauce and some mayo, and it’s just a lovely time. I feel like I’ve had better chips from them before, but no complaints. We head off for a stroll and an ice cream, in the knowledge that work is paying in both time and money. Cheers, HCOCTO.
It is time for our long-awaited first big work social of 2025, and it is to Flight Club we return for the first time in a few years. I remember it as being really good fun last time (the origin story of the baby guinness becoming the HPE house drink), and it is moreso than I recall. Admittedly, by the time the food comes out, I have already knocked back a glass of white and two salted caramel espresso martinis, so, you know, factor that into my judgement. The food is not quite a matter of quantity over quality, but my god there is a lot of the former. It just keeps coming out! Platter after platter of bruschetta, and falafel & hummus, and pork belly, and cauliflower tempura. Then the pizzas! All of which are fine, even according to my correctly snobbish Italian team mate. The desserts of macarons and brownies are a tad underwhelming, but none of us are particularly mindful at this point. I move onto the water quite early, as it is still a Thursday, but even before my second drink I committed a semi-major faux pas, so here we are. Would it be a work social without that?
I have successfully project managed getting us in and out of the IKEA storefront getting the things we went in for, and very little extra, in under 45 minutes, with minimal scope creep. This is rewarded by getting lunch pretty much the moment the IKEA café switches away from breakfast. What else could I have but the meatballs, complete with mash, gravy, peas, and lingonberry jam. Plus, y’know, some garlic bread. And some Daim cake. And some whipped cream. That all comes in under a tenner and is all actually quite good. I feel nostalgic for my one holiday to Stockholm having the real deal of the meatballs, and for the Mallorcan holidays where Daim cake was in ready supply, and isn’t that the sign of good food? Just ask Proust.
Look. Listen. I have no problem with vegan food. I order it, I eat it, I even cook it. But this was… disappointing. Nestled away on East Street and picked to meet our friend Jenny and honorary nephew Coby over lunch, VX is a proudly vegan café with vegan fast food. I went for the breakfast burrito, which nominally had some sausage in it, but I barely reached the point it was buried in there because the beans and the cheese was so offputting that I was really pushing through. The chips were oddly seasoned and the mayo - which, given we have pretty much nailed vegan mayo as a species at this point, shouldn’t have been the problem - was adding a weird tinge to the whole thing. Stick to Oowee Vegan for your vegan fast food needs; I know I will.
I try not to eat just before doing a gig, and as such am always thrilled when a) a venue does food and b) I am on early enough that the kitchen hasn’t closed by the time I’m off. Both conditions are satisfied at The Greenbank, getting to gig with Alasdair and Jordan Brookes. I go for a classic margherita pizza, and it is fine. The cheese is more elastic than flavourful, and it’s still a bit molten, but I enjoy it in the post-gig buzz regardless.
It’s our second anniversary! We choose to celebrate at Bulrush, a long favourite of mine and a new experience for Alasdair, and I think the first time we’ve gone together to a Michelin starred restaurant in Bristol. It is a pure delight from the off. As with all good elevated dining, there are the most complicated snacks you’ve ever seen in your life, and when the first thing you eat is a savoury carrot XO donut, I mean my god. An eight course tasting menu, spanning asparagus, plaice, and a beautiful scallop. The “main” course, as it were, is one of my favourite things you get at places like Bulrush - one key ingredient prepared five or six different ways. In this case, venison, done as steak, sausage, tartare, and more. Served with a black pudding danish no less! I overindulge and go for the optional cheese course, served with a PX-infused date chutney and some honeycomb, and by the penultimate bite of my petit fours madeline, I am stuffed. The non-alcoholic drinks pairing is a treat alongside this, with highlights being the rosé cordial and the non-alcoholic espresso martini, which Alasdair describes as being effectively a Michelin star milkshake. As if that’s a bad thing. An absolute treat.
A hectic Saturday morning in town and I am absolutely knackered, and I think in the moment that the answer is food. The harbourisde market is in full force (if slightly relocated due to the renovations on the fountains) and I capitulate to Gurt Wings. I eschew my usual (loaded tater tots) for just some chicken tenders, which are much bigger than I anticipate. I am defeated easily and early. They’re fine, but it’s all too much.
Eating at OPPO for the first time this year. I don’t care to get into the argument whether Detroit pizza is really pizza - at the end of the day, it’s dough and it’s cheese and it’s some kind of sauce, and why can’t we all just get along? I do like the Barrelhouse’s magic mushroom one, which has no tomato and is suitably doused in balasamic glaze, which I pair with a slice of the classic pepperoni, with a garlic and dill mayo. I do miss when they used to have the Tuesday deal, not least with the inconsistent but always appreciated act discount, but we move.
I am having a stressful time at work and Alasdair spots the Instagram story from Tess that there’s Friday evening availability. What a lovely way to end the week at my favourite restaurant in Bristol, maybe the world (and, I suppose I should add, my favourite person). It’s the kitchen table menu, of course it is. One of the many things I love about BOX-E is, having been an uncountable number of times, getting to taste the subtle differences that Elliot applies to his favourite bases. It wouldn’t be BOX-E without some hake, but seeing exactly how he’s done it this time (berlotti beans, salsa verde, and a lovely bit of pickled fennel) is the treat. I indulge in the wine pairings (it’s Friday after all) and it is a wonderful evening of de-stressing.
Our friend Hugh, bored in the absence of Emily being in Andover, texts to see if we fancy the pub. We do! But, dilemma - we have been napping, rather than making dinner. So to Hen & Chicken we go, where we will be able to both go to the pub and eat some food. I go for what I had at Christmas, the parpadelle with venison ragu, and it is once again quite nice. I also go for the brownie, which is very “gastropub brownie”, for better or worse. In other words, I am reminded that I can do better myself, but the price I pay for not having to do so is this.
We bravely set out as early as possible on a Saturday morning (around 11am) to Stokes Croft so I can buy myself a new guitar - suffice to say, this is not a common occurence. But if we’re going up all that way, we might as well make a morning of it and get breakfast somewhere. There are many options, but we are gamblers and decide to see what happens if we chance our arm at The Crafty Egg, known for its interminable brunch queues. Luckily, as we are just two of us, we skip past the large (and now pissed off) large group of presumed students who have been clearly waiting some time. I am going hard today - straight into a massive chocolate milkshake and a “Meaty Poutine”. They do, bless them, try to garnish it with a few chives and miscellaneous green stems, but that’s very much trying to make the essay longer by changing the margins. Sausage, bacon, cheese, fried eggs, and a homemade brown sauce get thrown together into a skillet with some roast potatoes, with a side dish of just gravy. It’s all a lot, and I do not finish because I can feel my arteries close in on themselves. The potatoes aren’t quite cooked enough, which makes it a bit tough to get through, but the condiments of the sauce and the gravy are wonderful.
A last minute cancellation of OPPO means 1) Alasdair and I have a new spare evening, 2) we need something to eat because we would have eaten at The Barrelhouse, and 3) I’m on the wrong bus. All of this can be remedied, though, by going to Lucky Strike! Clever us. Lucky Strike was, if I recall correctly, originally a cocktail bar which then did a joint pop-up with the folks from Tomo No Ramen - a good start. At some point earlier this year, that collaboration ended (amicably, by all accounts) but they continued serving ramen. It seems an identical menu to when we went under the Tomo regime. Who am I to argue. This time, though, I go for the chicken katsu and fair play they’re nailing it. The sauce is the perfect thickness and spiciness, the breading on the chicken falls off in just the right way. A bit overloaded on the pickles, but that’s by the by. I’m a tad less impressed by the chocolate mousse for dessert, served with a blood organge compote and sesame tuile, but I have very high standards for that. A perfectly pleasant change in plans.
I have had a varying relationship with Six By Nico over the last seven years. Back in Edinburgh in 2018, in only its second outpost (before it had lowered itself below Hadrian’s Wall), I was enthralled. The concept was simple - a themed six course tasting menu, changing every six weeks. And for a mere £28! I mused that if they’d open one in Bristol, I would probably go every six weeks just to check out each theme. Well, many, many other outposts later, they have finally reached Bristol. In the meantime, I have been a few times in Edinburgh, Cardiff, and London, and the Grace Dent review for The Guardian (“the Pizza Express of fine dining”) lives rent free in my head. I now treat it as an experience rather than a meal. Inevitably, for the Bristol opening, they are doing The Chippie, which I have now had simply too many times, because it’s their go-to when opening a new one or they’ve just run out of ideas. It’s interesting that it has changed subtly over the years, but not by much. It’s, yes, very much the Fisher Price version of haute cuisine - you cannot move for espumas and foams and gels. It’s, as a result, fine. The food prep exists on a conveyor belt in a way that is trying to ape the precision and reproducibility of Michelin star cooking but ends up closer to a McDonald’s assembly line. They’re not convincingly on top of Alasdair being vegan with the snacks, which is concerning to begin with but settles once the first courses come out. The thing is this - I don’t know how well Six By Nico can survive Bristol. The price is no longer £28, it’s £44. They’re now much bigger on the up-selling, with more snacks, add-ons, optional courses, cocktail pairings, etc. If I add in the cheese course for £9, that gets you to seven courses for £53. For 2 pounds more, I can go to BOX-E, arguably one of the best restaurants in Bristol, and have the same courses but immeasurably better, more interesting, and made with love and personal care. The same is true for any number of other places. All in, with the snacks, extra course, and the cocktail pairing (fair play, surprisingly strong), you’re knocking over a hundred quid. Will I be back at Six By Nico? Sure, why not. The mood might strike some time. But 24 year old Sam’s vision of collecting every theme like they’re Pokemon feels a very long time ago indeed.
One of the places where I absolutely know my go-to order and I have no intention of changing it. A trip to the pub with Matt whilst Alasdair is away to catch up on our respective work troubles, whilst we enjoy admittedly over-priced 2/3rds (or, I do, as Matt is driving) and for me, the loaded chicken fries with gravy. The things are drowning in it, and I love it. The chips are sufficiently crisp by themselves that they are not overly soggy-ed by the gravy; they are generous with the chicken, meaning a plentiful ratio; the gravy is hot enough to melt the cheese; and the spring onions on top genuinely do add a little something, a crunch, rather than just being garnish. Long may this continue.
A celebratory sending off breakfast for Clo as she embarks on her indefinite travels around South America and wherever else she finds herself. I tell myself on the way in that I’m not having anything big. This is a lie - I end up with the full English. It’s actually quite a good one, in the pecking order of things. Black pudding is present; tomatoes are not. The bacon is proper streaky bacon stuff; the sausages are actually meaty. I could have done with a few more beans, but the hash browns are top notch. It’s a good, solid breakfast, and there’s nowt wrong with that.
My friend Ruth is briefly back in Bristol and is taken with exploring North Street more now I’m down here, so Alasdair and I invite her out to Cor for the evening. Alasdair spots the person who hired him for his communications job in healthcare working as a waitress, and so the tone for the evening is set. As Cor has a strong vegan menu, and as it’s a small plates/tapas place, it’s up to Ruth and I to share. I guide us through some Cor classics (the lemon cannelini beans with caviar, the potatoes with café Paris butter) and try some new options (the crisp celeriac with polenta mash, a stunning savoury goats cheese canele), before being too full to really eat much beyond the dark chocolate truffles for dessert. Lovely to have such a place a 2 minute walk from the house.
We’re doing the Watershed’s seasonal Valentine’s Day pub quiz tonight, so I’m here a little early to grab a quick bite to eat. I am not feeling a burger, I have been metaphorically burnt by the fish and chips too often, and I’m more hungry than just some chips. I try, for the first time, the penne puttanesca here, which is perfectly adequate. I do think it’s obscene to charge £1.90 for cheese as an add-on, though. I do really like the Watershed - I used to describe it as my favourite place in Bristol - and the food is normally anywhere from good to slightly better than good, and I’m aware that’s damning with faint praise but here we are.
On the gold-paved streets of London for Stage/Fright, we return to BAO Soho, this time knowing it is sensible to have a reservation in advance. Somehow, though, this doesn’t really improve our experience. We’re still left queueing behind people who are trying to walk in; once we’re in, we’re forgotten about for a good 15 minutes without even water. I know it’s not normally that bad, we’ve been before, but it’s a shame. To some degree, I’m repeating my order from last time, finding a range of the bao buns and some of their other small plates. The food, distinct from the service, is very good, and it does almost make up for it. The baos themselves are, as you’d hope from the name, the highlight - a confit pork and a beef short rib both really hit the spot, the fried chicken a bit let down by the (presumably) less traditional sesame bun but still delicious. The pig blood cake with egg yolk is delightfully difficult to eat as it disintegrates, and the sweet potato fries with plum ketchup are deceptively moreish. Honestly, though, the highlight is the pineapple float, with a salt crystal laden Yakult foam. That’s the thing that stayed with me most from our first visit, and I’m vindicated in having it again.
We seem to basically rotate between Pazzo, BOX-E, and Bianchi’s for major days like New Year’s Eve and Valentine’s Day. This time, it’s Pazzo’s turn to host us and my god have they put together a set menu that is simply banger after banger after banger. A classic Bianchi’s Group aranchini as the snack, with wild garlic and pecorino. From there, the taleggio rarebit, so beautfiully rich but cut through by the shallots. The piece de resistance is the spaghetti alfredo with a guanciale and garlic chicken Kyiv (which, fair play for putting this much garlic on a Valentines menu), but let us not underappreciate the innovation of the tiramichoux for dessert, draped in a coffee caramel sauce. We are seated within earshot of the bar, and Dom is getting his hands dirty, so across the room we call for drink recommendations, and end up with a custom cocktail for Alasdair - god bless that man. Round it off with an espresso martini and some truffles, and what a valentine’s night.
A quick bit of sustenance during the Lupe pub quiz - I go for the chicken karaage loaded waffle fries. They are fine! The chicken is mouth-roof-cuttingly hot, and the waffle fries then collapse a little under the weight of it all, but it does the job well enough.
A warm refuge from the cold after wandering around the Bristol Light Festival. Some old favourites (fried chicken with a beautiful soy and honey glaze, katsu sauce-d fried which looked initially stingy on the sauce but soon revealed a deep well underneath the surface), and this time trying the Korean corn dogs, doused in chipotle mayo and a sweet ketchup. The doriyaki, with a green tea filling and cherry couli, hit the spot for dessert nicely.
Grabbing a quick bite after walking Alasdair over to a gig on Wapping Wharf, I have to pick and instinct takes me to Pigsty for the first time in just over five years. I figure I can get in and out in 20 minutes, a theory which is confirmed when I enter to find I am literally the only customer at 7.30 on a Thursday night. Oh boy. The Proper Cow burger lives up to its name - the bacon is a tad much and too crispy (from someone who really does prefer it crispy), but the duelling chimi mayo and chipotle honey ketchup call it a hard-fought draw, the patty itself is rich and deep, and the fries are nicely seasoned.
We braved Cribbs on a Saturday in January and true to that experience, we had a Burger King in the food court. Where 20 years ago I might have told you that Burger King was superior to McDonald’s, that has long since passed - the burgers are practically atomic, the chips few and far between, and this time when I chose to splurge beyond a basic combo meal, they couldn’t even correctly give me onion rings. Ah well.
A quick bite to eat before Alasdair’s preview as part of the (don’t rant, Sam, don’t rant) Bristol Comedy Festival. I do like a banh mi; I’m not an expert, but I don’t think fried chicken is necessarily the most traditional filling - but still. It’s good stuff. It’s well-adorned with veg and chilis, but it’s over-stuffed and the bread is a little too tough, or at least insufficiently brittle, to avoid the filling going everywhere upon bite. The fries a good, if a little overly paprika’d.
I was doing so well, but I was so hungry as I returned from the Watershed that temptation overtook me. The Mucker remains one of the best burgers in Bristol (and, believe me, I’ve checked). It’s the bacon and caper aioli that does it, so much so that I get extra on the side for the ancho fries. The lemonade always hits the spot - the classic for me, although it was a treat to overhear multiple people question what echinacea lemonade is. I remember when these burgers were impossibly wet to eat; how they managed to reduce that whilst keeping it as delicious is a scientific feat of our age.
Grabbing a quick bite to eat after the train up to Birmingham. I note they’re now selling the MOTH cocktails, but alas, Dry January. I have my normal order - the Shackmeister, a perfectly unhealthy cheeseburger with a very nice, creamy, tangy sauce and crispy shallots; the crinkle-cut fries; and a lemonade, a little less nice than usual. Equally, the burger a little overdone on the edges. But, did the job and hit the spot and I’d prefer it to a McDonald’s any day.
A suitably cheap set menu for a section lunch at work. I play it safe with what I assume Bella Italia can not go too wrong doing - garlic doughballs to start, a chicken milanese for the main, a brownie for dessert. They are all the Fisher Price versions of those things - recognisable enough for a child to point to, but uninspiring.
Not the platonic ideal of my standard order of a house burger (today, a slightly over-toasted bun and under-chees-ed patty), but it’s always something of a treat to kick back on the sofa with this before a film. The chips are surprisingly good, or at least hit some specific spot. The construction of the burger appears to be different every time, so it’s nice to add a frisson of chance into the mix.
Gone are the heady early days of the long queues to get in here - it’s not too late in the day and it’s comparatively quiet. Killing time between being in town and Nosferatu at the Watershed, we figure that Tonkotsu’s boast of the importance of the 42 second ramen means we should be in and out quickly. Less so than you’d hope, but here we are. It’s still up there for me (although not the best in Bristol), with a delightfully creamy base, and an extra egg for ol’ me. Chicken karaage on the side is beautifully done likewise. We don’t have time for an ice cream sando, but next time, next time.
Maddie is trying to fit in as many social engagements as possible before leaving for Seattle, and I am delighted to abet. We go for lunch with Alasdair at Oowee, all of two minutes down the road, which is dangerous when there’s an £8.95 lunch deal and the frequency with which I work from home these days. I try not to make it a Friday regular. Today, though, I eschew the lunch deal and splash out on a Big Cheese - a patty and baconaisse-spread bun practically glued together by a mix of American and Swiss cheese (forever chasing that high of the original Moor Burger, Please from Burger Theory), with some Marmite waffle fries on the side. It is all too much, and absolutely cannot become habit.
I enjoy a café trip on New Year’s Day to walk off the hangover. This used to be Flour House as a staple, but now I live quite far from there, it doesn’t quite seem worth it. We strolled down North Street to take in the options and settled on Tin Can. And so 2025 begins with their house baked beans on toast, with added hash browns and sausage. I object - genuinely - to paying £3.50 extra for a single, solitary sausage, and it genuinely is not worth it. The sourdough toast retains just about enough bite post-bean-slathering, and it’s nicely topped off by the herb oil. This won’t - I hope - be the best thing I eat in 2025, but it’s a suitable start before an abandoned walk round the park.