We are blessed by HPE Early Careers with some budget for a “Beat The January Blues” event, and so off to Roxy Lanes for an afternoon of bowling we go. I get some garlic and parmesan coated chicken wings, which are perfectly fine, but so are most things when you drown them in garlic, parmesan, and butter. I’d have liked a bit more crispness to the skin, but there’s at least a decent amount of meat on the bone. The fries are fries, no more, no less.
Thrilled that after many years of having to pay an extra 1.90 to add cheese to the Watershed burger, they’ve seen the light, realised the error of their ways, and just made it a cheesburger. Tonight’s serving has probably the smallest amount of crispy fried onions on it that I’ve ever had, but the garlic mayo still works a treat. The chips are well fried, and there’s an almost patronisingly limp salad on the side, as if they know you’re never going to touch it. But it passes the time before the film, and is not massively far down the Bristol burger rankings.
Towards the end of my two weeks of monastic isolation (staying up in Birmingham at Alasdair’s mum’s house), I treat myself with a Michelin star meal, because what else have I spent my money on recently? Birmingham does surprisingly well with its restaurants, and I’m excited that Adam’s has now got an a la carte menu, so I’m not weighed down fully by a tasting menu of a Thursday evening. Doubly so when I realise I still get the snacks and petits fours. The snacks are an early treat, with a cheese espuma and a Yukon Gold potato crisp, a caviar mousse tart that marries the flavour and texture well, and particularly a perfect one-bite fried raindrop of lamb ragu, bursting in the mouth like a popping boba. The breads, two sourdoughs with two butters are good, but the real highlight is the ginger and Bovril pastry, somehow both flakey in texture but rich and deep in flavour, every bite a dremam. I start with a celeriac and comté cheese agnolotti, with proper thick shavings of truffle, served on a bed of whey. The main is your classic fine dining “here’s how many different ways we can do this meat”, this time with venison, served practically melting as two filets, as well as an adorable little sausage. It’s accompanied by a smokey egg parfait, hiding underneath it a mix of truffle and Alsace bacon, cutting through the richness of it all nicely, as does the slices and gel drops of pear. All of that is nothing compared to dessert, though, a chocolate parfait made of 40% Valrhona Jirava chocolate, encaged in a beehive of a sesame tuille topped with sobacha ice cream, and in the depths of it all, a gorgeous yoghurt and thick, tangy reduction of sobacha, adding an almost balsamic note to the proceedings. I savoured each and every bite. A herby marshmallow and a pretty generously apportioned pastel de nata serve as the petits fours with my peppermint tea seeing me into the evening. An early contender for meal of the year, surely. (A baffling side note: five minutes after I got there, a well-dressed and clearly well off couple turned up with a reservation, sat down, ordered a glass of champagne each, looked at the menu, went “no”, paid for the champagne, and left without even finishing. How on earth do you end up in that situation?)
A proper sausage sandwich! None of your fancy sourdoughs, your artisan sausages, any of that. Thick cut white bloomer, slather of butter that melts under the weight of it all, and the chepaest sausages you can find, all piled up. Add in some ketchup, and that’s what I’m talking about.
I’ve popped into Birmingham itself to get out of the house for a bit of a mooch, and have taken the opportunity to have a bite to eat. I’ve been to a Fat Hippo a couple of times before, and honestly, I think I remembered it being better? The burger - I go for their classic “American” - is pretty anonymous, with a flavourless bun dominating proceedings. The chips are on the cooler side of hot, but yet still the food came out long before the drinks (“yes, that’s because I haven’t made them yet” is the somewhat pass-agg response when I point this out). The chocolate and salted caramel milkshake almost makes up for it, being generous in size and strong in flavour. But it doesn’t live up to the not obcenely excellent memories I had.
I cannot keep making new favourite restaurants in Bristol. There are already too many. But on my second visit to Lapin (the first captured by The Guardian, with me and Ruth in the background of the photo taken to run with Grace Dent’s review), I fear it’s too late - an absolutely gorgeous meal from start to finish. As Raph broadly follows a kosher diet and as two thirds of the prix fixe menu contains pork, this time I feast from the a la carte menu. Snacks to start, though, with heavily marinated provencal olives, some still warm baguette with an intensely rich salted butter, and a blue cheese gougere as pungent as all get out, snowed with grated Old Winchester. For the main, maybe the best chicken kyiv I have ever had, and given this didn’t even have garlic butter, I don’t say that lightly. Instead, a saffron and apricot butter treads the line perfectly between suffusing the chicken and pouring out when the kyiv is cut open. It’s served on a bed of spiced carrot puree and confit fennel, all to die for. We share some sides - the duck fat frites cannot be avoided, and nor should they be, not least when we’ve blagged some incredible aioli to accompany them, and the leek & spinach gratin is done in a way you could only ever hope of the French to do. Such faith do I have in the Lapin team that when I find out the eclair du jour is a rhubarb and custard one, I still go for it! Topped with an italian meringue, the custard positively pools around the pastry after the first cut, more creme anglais than anything else. Almost faultless food (the Old Winchester could have been out of the fridge a little longer first), impeccable service and hospitality. I’m sure I’ll be back very soon.
We’ve somehow got some Q1 budget left for team activities, and so Sharon has miraculously sorted out a section lunch at Aerospace Bristol, which means getting to eat lunch sat under Concord! Ah it’s a good gimmick. The food is not as plentiful as I might have hoped, a cold buffet with limited range, but it is all actually nice enough. A good potato salad, a leek and cheese quiche that goes well with some chutney, a good hunk of foccacia. It’s free and it’s not work, so who’s complaining.
Ruth and I are due a catch up, and having a bite to eat at the Tobacco Factory before her life drawing class seems the most convenient way of achieving that. We’re brought in by the promise of pie and mash, and today’s option is cauliflower cheese pie - yes bloody please. The pie itself is surprisingly not dense or claggy, with a strong pastry standing up for itself and a filling that is biased towards the cauliflower rather than the cheese, probably for the best. The mash is good but very minimal, which is disappointing. The root veg served with it are very nice, if slightly over-salty in the seasoning department, but go down nicely with a decent boat of gravy.
Alasdair’s mum’s surprise retirement party! (the party being the surprise, not the retirement). Stuart has pulled a blinder and amassed a good 30 of her friends in the function room at Cosy Club, which does necessitate the party menu. An array of starters for the table, with highlights personally being the crispy cauliflower and the Bath chorizo. I don’t really consider that one of them is also the Asian buttermilk fried chicken when I order my main, the (by implication non-Asian) buttermilk fried chicken. It’s a decent slab that is more breadcrumbed than anything else, served with a frisée and green bean salad, dressed in effectively just caramelised butter, which I’m not really complaining about but does feel like cheating somewhat. The fries are acceptable if not massively bountiful. I intuit that ordering dessert would just hold up the dancing, so I make my peace with that and my not too shabby mocktails.
For our last night together in Bristol before a few restricted weeks, Alasdair treat ourselves to Ragu, the sister restaurant to our beloved Cor. Whisper it, though, I think Ragu might have outshone its older sibling. With minimal overlap on the vegan menu for Alasdair, we basically order our own small plates. We do, though, share the olives, as well as the focaccia with whipped bottarga butter for me and olive oil and a balsamic vinegar for him which is so good that our waitress goes and takes a photo of the bottle for us to take a photo of itself. I opt for two big small plates (which average out to two normal plates). The first, pappardelle served with slow cooked pig cheek in a rich, parmesan fuelled sauce that clings silkily to the pasta and coats the beautifully tender cheeks. For the main event, I have a dish that I had last year with Raph but in its full, unaltered form: venison - sourced from the immensely local Ashton Court - with gorgonzola dolce, dresssed in bone marrow butter, and some raddichio leaves for the illusion of balance. I am at least honest enough with myself in the moment to acknowledge that this was not a plate designed for one person, no matter how little else you order, so leave at least a bit of the gorgonzola, but I feel the joy of early onset gout coursing through my veins. We share the crispy potatoes, smashed into rosemary and garlic, and wander off into the night.
As a man who has the correct opinion that Pasture is the best steak place in Bristol, it was an inevitability that I’d have to try their new burger place, Prime By Pasture. And Zac has evenings free with Martha off on holiday, so what an excuse. Let’s cut to the chase, it’s going straight in near the top on the Bristol burger rankings. I opt for the #4: American cheese, crispy bacon, bacon jam, miso mayo, and pickles. All burgers come with a choice of either smash patties or proper juicy thick ones. Given that this is a place that knows its beef, I want that rich flavour so it has to be the pink and juicy for me. It was very good indeed. Crucially for me, not being a massive fan of bacon in burgers, the bacon here is the perfect texture, cooked enough to not bring the whole rasher with you on the first bite, but not so much to be all texture no flavour. The patty itself practically melts in the mouth, combining well with the cheese and sauces. The bun is a nice, lightly toasted sesame bun. The chips are the ideal paradox of crisp but fluffy, and I don’t even resent how much I paid for the beef fat garlic mayo to have with them. The only slight disappointment was the double chocolate brownie milkshake, which was nowhere near as rich as that name would imply. But all in, it’s already overtaken quite a few burger joints here. I look forward to returning to try their breakfast menu soon.
It’s New Year’s Day, I am surprisingly only mildly hungover compared to how much I drank last night, and a good walk is in order. Fuel is needed. Repeating ourselves from last year, what was once Tin Can but is now Peggy’s is open and ready for us. The Brunch Burger is the one. It’s not quite fully balanced, a bit claggy with the combination of brie and a thick caramelised onion jam sticking the sausage patty in place. Not bad, and does the job, but would be more interested if it gets mixed up a bit in the future.