After years of umming and ahhing, Alex and I (Ella) have finally decided to have a crack at the food blogging game. On the hunt for delicious, good value food in Bristol and beyond, this blog will be an honest review of our foodie findings, and hopefully help a few of you decide which places are worth dishing out the hard-earned pennies for, and which are not!
Happy reading,
love from
the Two Spoons x
04.07.19
The Two Spoons’ visit to Box-E on Wapping Warf a few weeks ago. We enjoyed chewing on the crusty bread with salty seaweed butter, while we perused the small but appetising menu, surrounded by other young and trendily-dressed foodies in the shipping container-turned restaurant. Miss Spoon chose to start with the charred hispi cabbage with shrimps, with Mr Spoon going with the asparagus and cured trout, followed by two portions of duck breast with chard and Jersey royals. The hispi and shrimps were sumptuous and melt-in-the-mouth (an outcome only achieved to this level by cooking in lashings of good butter), and the trout delicately flaked and on top of the crunchy asparagus. Happy with our starters, the main followed suit, hitting all the right spots with blushing duck and buttery veg. Perhaps they could have mentioned that the main came with a salsa verde (Miss Spoon has a particular aversion to parsley), but thankfully there was not too much on the plate to be totally overpowering. Good food at a reasonable price – 4 spoons!!
04.05.19
Lunch at @yakinoribristol today – my friend had this salmon poke for £9.95, and I bought a @wrigglebristol bento box with rice, chicken and prawn katsu, yasai gyoza and chilli sauce for £5.95. The poke was reported to be fresh and colourful, while my katsu was crispy and suuupperrrr filling (it may not look like much but it tasted lush!). Great value lunch from this Park Street spot.
15.04.19
An absolute Bristol foodie essential is Bravas. For us, the authentically run, always-vibing tapas restaurant on Cotham Hill is somewhere we like to have a rolling-reservation at. This is for two reasons: firstly, Bravas is now so popular that a spontaneous dinner is not always possible, and a table usually needs to be booked a couple months in advance. Secondly, we have now grown to have a physical dependence on it’s uber-indulgent food… and I am frankly too scared to imagine a life without it!
Our visit last week was required so soon after our last (04/04), because we enjoyed far too much of their house Tempranillo, for it’s flavour and price in equal measure (no need to look any further down the wine list than this if you ask me!). Subsequently, we only had hazy memories the day after of just how amazing the food had been, and required a more sober-investigation in order to accurately detail the meal for this blog!.. I know – a real burden!
We glanced at the menu out of politeness before ordering all of the classics: pan con aioli, patatas bravas, sweet potato and goats cheese, aubergine fries with molasses, mussels with salsa verde, chorizo cooked in cider, bottle of Tempranillo! All that bang for under 50 bucks (£’s*). Now despite being baptised as a child, I don’t regularly go to church, or pray, but when I get a little chunk of chorizo, some sweet sticky sauce, crispy aubergine and a healthy dollop the garlic-heavy aioli all in my mouth at once, I go to heaven.
The staff were, as always, on point, and their seeming love of working there is infectious – nothing is too much trouble, and they know every item on the menu and specials back-to-front. As we left, a cheery smile and enthusiastic wave from the lovely couple who own the restaurant (after so many visits, we know them by face but not by name, shamefully) was a cherry on top of another perfect evening.
If you haven’t been, rectify that ASAP. If you have been, you should go again soon. We will probably be there.
10.04.19
Last night, before nipping to Pets at Home to stock up on bunny supplies (we have a bunny, have you heard?), the Two Spoons squeezed in a visit to our favourite Bristol pizza parlour – the fantastic Bosco Pizzeria. We were seated in the bright back area of the Clifton Village restaurant, and given the menu by a fantastically friendly and fresh-faced waiter.
After doing the traditional pretend-to-look-at-the-menu, we placed our order. I must admit that we are exceptionally unadventurous with our choices at Bosco – having been regular customers for the last 5 years, we rarely stray from our favourite order: 1 Calabrian pizza, 1 Funghi pizza, 1 rocket salad and some aioli for all-important dipping!
Our pizzas arrived quickly, and we were immediately hit by the smoky fragrance of truffle. With the speed and slickness of a couple who had practiced this hundreds of times (literally!), we sliced the pizzas in half, and swapped them over, creating our beautiful 50% Calabrian, 50% Funghi hybrid. Then all there was to do was dig in!
The Funghi pizza has a white base (I know, I know, but trust me it works!), but the mushrooms, mozzarella, mascarpone and lashings of truffle oil make the pizza rich enough that you really don’t miss the tomato sauce. On the other hand, the spicy Calabrian is topped with melt-in-your-mouth ‘njuda sausage, hot enough to satisfy us chilli-lovers, with sweet juicy plum tomatoes and aromatic basil that immediately whisk you off to Italy. Together, they are a match made in heaven. The creamy mascarpone is the perfect accompaniment for the fiery ‘nduja, and who doesn’t love a bit of truffle with every mouthful?! All of this was topped off with an astonishingly-sized rocket and parmesan salad, and an anchovy-rich aoili to dip our crusts in. The bill was £27.
I’ll order something else when this stops being so damn delicious! Good job, Bosco.
05.04.19
So it was the smaller of the Two Spoons (Ella)’s birthday last Thursday, and to celebrate we had booked the highly regarded Tare for Friday night. 5 weeks earlier, when we were deciding where to eat, it had been TripAdvisor’s #1 recommended dinner out in Bristol – although I feel the review site should always be taken with a pinch of salt… or a whole bag of salt in the case of Oobah Butler’s “The Shed at Dulwich”, which literally was just his shed in Dulwich that had never served a dish and yet managed to find its way to the TripAdvisor top rated restaurant in London (it’s true, Google it)!
Thankfully, when we arrived at Tare, there were no sheds in sight – although, the restaurant is part of the trendy Wapping Wharf Cargo 2 development, where abandoned shipping containers have been repurposed as independent bars, shops and eateries. The restaurant only seats a cosy 20 people, and as a result, it offers a lovely intimate feel. After ordering a bottle of South African red, we are greeted promptly with an amuse bouche: mini celeriac tart topped with hazelnut topped with the thinnest layer of raspberry jelly. Holding the perfectly sculpted mouthful in front of me there is a moment of panic, as this sets the scene for what to expect from the rest of the meal… The raised eyebrows and smiles said it all – we were in for a feast.
The first course arrived: cornish gouda beignet, romesco, raisons, almonds. My limited understanding of the French language combined with my sense of taste allowed me to decipher that what I was eating were essentially 3 light cheese-flavoured doughnuts! Placing a little of that on my fork before running it through the romesco sauce led to a wicked sweet-savoury mix!
The second course followed swiftly: cured ‘chalk stream’ trout, radish, mustard seeds, dill. Refined, elegant and amazing. The chef let the cured trout sing (though not like those hideous glass wall-mounts with the Elvis-singing plastic fish that flaps its tail to the rhythm), complimented by a fluffy mouse. The pickled veg offered a sharpness that only heightened the flavour of the fish.
“Another bottle of the red wine please!”
The main course took centre stage: Somerset beef, wild garlic, wye valley asparagus, smoked celeriac. Eating locally-sourced foods is always a pleasure, not just because we boast some of the best produce in our region, but because it ensures the freshness and reduces the carbon footprint involved. If the trout was singing, then the beef was belting at full volume! Served medium-rare (just how we like it!) there was nothing to complain about here. A small, but very welcome surprise on each of our plates was the pulled ox tail – deep in flavour, it did a fabulous job of rounding off a perfect dish.
The dessert course: saffron custard, rhubarb sorbet, oat crumble, pistachio. Now, of the two spoons I am definitely the one with the sweeter tooth, and although reading about the pudding didn’t immediately send my tastebuds into spasm, I found this dessert amazing! The saffron custard and crumble sandwiched between the perfectly formed quinnell of rhubarb ice cream and stewed rhubarb beneath was divine.
5/5 spoons for these guys!
So nearly wokking our world!
24.03.19
Two Spoons came to try the most recent opening in the Woky ko family last Sunday with a great deal of excitement. The restaurant has a fantastic location within the Cargo development, with large terrace in the sun, where we were sat. From looking at the menu it was clear that the food was more expensive than the sister restaurants, and we were recommended to order around 5 dishes between us, with dishes pricing from £3 for delicious garlic soy mushrooms to the £9 octopus and sweet chilli sauce. We ordered garlic mushrooms (£3), charred broccoli (£5), salmon and sesame seeds (£8), charred steak with miso mustard (£9) and chicken thigh skewer (£4), with a bottle of the house white (£22). The food was delicious, if a little on the small side, but with taste like that we were not complaining. By the end of the meal we were both practically licking the plates to mop up the last of the delicious Asian sauces!
Despite our service, from the lovely female manager, being great, the only negative was overhearing the tables around us complaining. 2 tables had to come up to the bar to ask if there was table service, despite there being 4 waiters inside who appeared to be doing nothing, and another table nearby were given the wrong food. There will always be teething issues with a new restaurant but it was a shame that some tables seemed to be ignored when there were plenty of front of house staff. Also, it would be great if there was the option of some Asian carbs, such as egg fried rice or the fantastic Singapore noodles that are offered at the other wokyko restaurants to bulk out the slightly-smaller mains, and satisfy those of us that have a bigger appetite!
All in all, a really fantastic meal, with Asian food that really pushes above and beyond the other Asian options curreuntly available in Bristol, that shows great promise if the service for everyone else was as good as the quality of food!
Two Spoons 