Cafe Kino, Bristol
We recently made a long overdue trip to Bristol. The primary purpose of our journey was to see Kurt Vile playing at the The Fleece (who was excellent) but also as an attempt to sample some of the local eateries.
It seems we didn’t head to Bristol earlier enough and after exploring Park Street, Stokes Croft and St Nicholas Market we were a bit late for the lunchtime sandwich trade. A special mention should go to St Nicholas Market which contained some amazing looking food stalls and cafe’s especially the gloriously titled Sourdough Cafe, this alone justifies a return trip to Bristol!
After a fair bit of walking we settled on Cafe Kino, just opposite The Crofts music venue, which from the outside looked very welcoming. We both went for the spicy option of the Kino Burger. This was a lovingly crafted home made burger that came with mayo, salad, a fennel seed relish, home made ketchup and an option of chips. The price was very good, £4.00 burger or £5.80 avec des frites.
We would highly recommend this, the food service and atmosphere were all excellent and from the posters on the inside there seemed to be regular events on there as well. The only disappointment was that the burger had zero spice to it, despite going for the spicy option!
Lost in translation
I’m not going to name the place, but I’ll say this, it was in Wales and it was NOT a Chinese.
The main meal was great and when the dessert menu came around quite a few things caught my eye. A sponge band? Topped with milk? Maybe I’m not reading it right, but I still like the way I’m reading it before anyone says otherwise. Then there was the fluff white chocolate on a layer of crunch. Any takers? What’s one of those?
As funny as these are without doubt the best part of the menu was the drinks. Coffee £1.80 and liquid coffee £3.50. Someone please explain. You can have a banana or pineapple FITTER for £3.50. I guess that’s cheaper than your average IKEA fitter, but here they are limiting their trade to just fitting bananas and pineapples. Finally, a random picture of some one horned monster for the kids. Without doubt my favourite menu. Good work.
Pulled pork from Melbourne
One of my best pals is currently bumming around in Melbourne and after the sandwich clubs pulled pork effort they wanted to give it a go. I think they have outdone the clubs effort, the rub sounds incredible! From Melbourne:
@thesandwichclub has been bugging me for weeks to send him something on the sandwich experiments I’ve had over the last few weeks. I’m glad I waited, as this was the best I’ve ever made. FACT.
This is more of a recipe than a write up. Cook it as you see fit, but I’ve given the directions as I did it.
Pulled Pork Rolls – Stuffs 8 – 10 people
Total time – about 6 ½ hours (EPIC) @150/160° C. It didn’t need to be that long but it was sunny so I went for a few afternoon pints and left it. However, the longer it’s in, the more tender the meat.
The Meat – Pork Shoulder 6 pounds, roughly 2.7kg, about the same size a Shetland Ponies back. Keep it on the bone if the butcher gives you the option.
The Rub – 3 tbl spoons ground black pepper, 3 tbl spoons sea salt, 3 tbl spoons of soft brown sugar, 2 tbl spoons of ground cumin Seeds, 2 tbl spoons of ground fennel seeds, 2 tbl spoons of cayenne pepper, 2 tbl spoons of hot paprika, 2 tea spoons of olive oil
The mop – 1 cup (235ml) of cider vinegar, ½ cup of water, 1 tbl spoon of ground black pepper and salt, 2 tbl spoons of Worcestershire sauce, teaspoon of veg oil.
Directions:
- Marinade the pork in the rub, preferably over night, but I would say at least 2 Hrs.
- Preheat the oven to 160°C (or 175°C if you’re cooking it quicker, say 4 hrs total). Stick it in the oven in a roasting pan/dish sat in the mop (to about a 1/3 of the way up the meat, so you may not need all of it), covered with foil. I sat the pork on some fennel and garlic, it braised down nicely in the juice/mop, and went well in the roll. Try it.
- Go out and have a cycle, drink a couple of pints, maybe eat some other food. I went for sneaky egg and bacon burger in Port Melbourne. Tasty. Sorry, no photo.
- After about 4 ½ hours I drained the juice in to a pan and separated the fennel (heat the fennel back up when you serve). Then baste the meat in the juice and put it back in at 150. I left it like this for another 1 ½ hours as I went for a few more pints.
- I then basted the meat again and uncovered it for ½ an hour.
- Take the meat out and let it rest for 20 minutes, or as long as you can wait.
- Flake out the meat, serve in soft seeded rolls with the fennel and the mop drizzled on it, and anything you want. I went for a homemade coleslaw, potato salad, and a bowl of salad.
- Eat
Not sure how to rate it as I made it myself and ate it at home but…..Taste 5/5, Cost 4/5 considering how much I have left over for the week. I can’t really rate the establishment, or the presentation. I don’t want to rate the company in case I offend my house mates. So I’ll just give an extra general enjoyment rating of 4/5, would have been 4 ½ if the sun was still up, and 5 if it was cooked for me. So…..all in all, 13/15.
Gourmet Scoffs, Bath
This post is long overdue. San Pellegrino Orange was my drink for the summer. I discovered it for the first time when visiting Scoffs a while back and I wanted to share the delights of this drink. Well, summer is officially over but I’m still going to say “you should try this drink”. I don’t know why its better than Sunkist but it just is. Without getting too carried away with myself, neither compare to the greatness of original San Pellegrino from a glass bottle.
For its size Bath has a well stocked supply of café’s and deli’s. This proved difficult when deciding where to head for a sandwich. Fortunately on this day I was guided by someone in the know who took me to Scoffs. Located near the river Avon opposite Parade Gardens the shop front looks like an inviting place. The kind that doesn’t need to use some flash banner to attract custom because its the locals that use this venue for their sandwich staple.
On this occasion and if I’m honest, whenever I see Pastrami on the menu board, a Reuben on brown was ordered. As the sun was out I thought it would be ideal to park on a bench in Parade Gardens and have lunch. Error, £1 entry for non-residents! Paying to get into a park? Say wha? This seems a bit of a joke. I think the council are milking the tourists a bit too dry with that. Anyway, the view from the park wall was good enough and the sandwich more than made up for my displeasure at the £1 entry. If your in Bath and hungry for a sandwich, head to Scoffs for some excellent sandwiches and a friendly vibe.
Pulled Pork
Here at the Sandwich Club we are huge fans of pulled pork. In the USA they do pulled pork and they do it well, it’s something us Brits haven’t really got to grips with yet.
For the uninitiated, pulled pork is a very long slow way of cooking the shoulder (often referred to as the Boston butt) at a low temperature, this can be done in the oven or often on a barbecue.
For some reason there aren’t many places that do pulled pork in the UK and to the best of our knowledge no where that does it in Cardiff. One of the best we’ve come across is Bodean’s in London, we advise you to check it out.
So, we finally got round to having our first attempt at cooking our own pulled pork supplemented by our own homemade BBQ sauce.
The recipe was as follows:
First mix up your rub, we went for a simple one of chilli flakes, mustard seeds, salt and freshly ground black pepper. This then needs to be rubbed well all over the pork shoulder. Placing the pork shoulder into a baking tray we then poured over some cider and white wine vinegar and scattered over chopped onions and garlic. The shoulder then needs to be wrapped in parchment paper and foil and put into a pre-heated oven, ours was set to 170℃/Gas 3. This cooks for 3 hours before removing the paper and foil and cooking for a further hour (times will vary depending on the size of the shoulder you are using).
For the BBQ sauce we followed a recipe by James Martin. Fry onion and garlic in olive oil with chilli, fennel seeds and sugar. Add soy sauce, ketchup and season with salt and pepper. Bring to the boil and simmer for a few minutes.
To serve you will need to ’pull’ the pork by putting a fork in the shoulder and shredding the meat into small pieces using another fork. Heap into buns with the BBQ sauce and coleslaw.
There you have it, Pulled Pork!
No doubt we’ll be attempting this again, experimenting with different rubs. If you have your own pulled pork recipes we’d love to hear from you.
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