Nottingham Contemporary Cafe: When Art becomes Food

Posted on September 3, 2012 by Delia

I have to admit some art galleries intimidate me. When people talk about the likes of the Tate Modern and the Louvre in excited tones, I nod in agreement. I do not tell them that the first thing I look for is the board that tells you which floor the cafe is on. And I definitely do not tell them that I have been to the cafe of any good art gallery about 10 times more than I have visited the exhibitions. Until now.

An all-time favourite cafe of mine is that of the Tate Modern’s, which can be found on the sixth floor of the former Bankside Power Station; boasting stunning views across London with a wonderful selection of food and fine wines. And I can’t tell you how delighted I was when I realised that you could walk all over the roof of the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art in Nice. Just thinking about endless floors of art makes me crave a pastry of some kind and a frothy coffee.

So whenever I tell people I have visited the Nottingham Contemporary, the chances are I didn’t explore its three impressive galleries of regularly-changing modern art. No, no, I probably went straight down to its wonderful cafe on the basement floor. And when my two friends Nicki and Nick came up from from London recently, that’s exactly what we did.

The Contemporary is a wonderful airy space that opens out onto a lovely, large terrace area for alfresco snacking. Its exposed concrete walls are decorated with quirky, arty features and its high ceiling exacerbates the size of the room.

See, you can get your art fix without even leaving the cafe!

Perfect for a light lunch, the cafe has a ‘buffet table’ of salads, pasta and noodle dishes, and freshly baked tarts. You buy a small or large plate, for about £6 and £8 respectively, and you can fill it as high as you want. Almost like a really posh Pizza Hut salad bar.

Our salad plate did not disappoint. We tucked in to a delicious spicy brown rice and pea salad, which was reassuringly al dente. Packed with kidney beans and chick peas, it had fresh herbs shredded through it with crunchy vegetables mixed in. We also enjoyed a kale and green vegetable salad, a wholesome dish that would have made Popeye proud. Meanwhile the sweetness of the honey roasted butternut squash was the perfect antidote to the crab and sweetcorn tart, which had a wonderfully strong fish flavour. I hate a bland tart.

The menu also has a good mix of sandwiches (of the chunky ciabetta and doorstep style) as well as a mix of grilled meats (I intend to go back for the lamb kebab) and burgers, if you fancy something a bit heavier. We opted to also share a spicy bean burger and chunky chips, which was mouth wateringly good. The crispy coating of the burger held the spicy, mushy bean mix together perfectly and the chips were served piping hot.

Just to round things off, we opted for a slice of the coffee and walnut cake and a rhubarb and ginger cheesecake slice. Both disappeared from the plates quickly. Here’s a little pic of the coffee cake, which was wonderfully moist, before it was devoured. I didn’t even get a chance to photograph the cheesecake…

The exhibitions at the Contemporary change every few months. The salad bar, I am told, changes every month. And while the roasted butternut squash may not have the same mystery as the Mona Lisa, nor the coffee cake have the longevity of Van Gogh’s Sunflowers, these muffins my friends, are my Water Lilies.

Best pubs in Nottingham for Sunny Nibbles

Posted on August 11, 2012 by Delia

This summer I vowed I would sample every single sunny terrace, garden, bench and patio that Nottingham’s pubs have to offer. Often disappointed by the lack of sun traps that serve beer in the city I think this is an important task that must be carried out so we know once and for all where we can chase the sun with our favourite tipple.

Unfortunately we haven’t had that much sun. This means when he does come out, with his hat on, I run to my two favourite sunny retreats, too terrified that I may stumble across a terrace of shade if I try elsewhere.

These staples are, my friends, The Lion in Basford, with it’s large, sunny beer garden and ample seating, and the Golden Fleece, with its sun-kissed inner city roof top terrace. The Lion, which is nestled in the heart of Nottingham’s old factory quarter, has a fantastic range of ales and is the sort of place where you can take a blanket and throw yourself on the grass for the day. Don’t be surprised if a group of Morris Men rock up for a dance.

However, this summer I have discovered a wonderful addition to the summer dining scene. It’s called called Tapas Tuesday and can be found at the trusty Golden Fleece.

It was any other Tuesday afternoon, except it was sunny, so Matty and I abandoned our shopping trip and made our way to the Golden Fleece (Mansfield Road, Nottingham if you’re not a local). We were actually the first people there (note the Golden fleece opens at 4pm on Tuesdays and not 11am, I promise) so we easily bagged ourselves one of the large wooden tables that adorn the roof terrace.

With large planters of colourful flowers sitting on green painted wooden panels around the terrace, it has a bit of a secret garden feel to it. Feeling smug with ourselves (warning – you can’t always get a seat), we were delighted to learn it was Tapas Tuesday. This not only means they are serving an exciting range of tapas dishes that are not normally on the menu, but you can have four dishes for £10 – and a bottle of wine for £7.50. Folks, it does not get much better than this. Especially on a Tuesday.

The chef was still writing the menu and preparing the food but at 5pm, with the ink still wet, we were handed the first-printed menu of the day. On it was a delicious selection of mouth-watering dishes, which we inevitably failed to narrow down to four.

Sipping our £7.50 bottle of wine (which admittedly is not the finest wine available to humanity but nevertheless is an adequate bottle of plonk that comes with an ice bucket) we eagerly awaited our dishes. Slowly they were laid out in front of us.

The chorizo slices came in narrow strips, perfectly fried so their juices and flavours were contained by the crisp finish but oozed out as you bit into them. The king prawns were just that, king of the sea world, and beautifully marinated, while the patatas bravas resembled sliced, roasted new potatoes with a tangy tomato sauce. Perhaps the star of the show for me was the slices of halloumi cheese which were served piping hot and melted in your mouth, alongside a sun blushed tomato salad.

It was a feast that would not have been out of place in Spain, and as the sun beat down, you could almost, almost imagine the alleyway below was an infinity pool and that the distant hum of cars on Mansfield Road was actually the waves of a far away ocean lapping the golden shores. Almost.

My search for a healthy restaurant

Posted on April 22, 2012 by Delia

I DID quite well this Easter. A couple of eggs, a delicious Lindt bunny and a ginormous slab of Hotel Chocolat’s finest. I did try to ration myself but the inevitable happened and it was all scoffed within a week or so.

It was with this in mind that my friend and I went in search of a “healthy restaurant” the other day. This is a bit of a rarity for me; I usually see eating out as an opportunity to break free from healthy eating; after all restaurant calories don’t really count and it’s such a pity to not make the most of three courses when someone is offering to cook them for you. But this was different. With a belly full of Easter eggs, all my principles went out of the window.

I was totally out of my comfort zone. Googling “healthy eating Nottingham”, I realised I had no idea where to start.

It was my friend who suggested Yo! Sushi. It was the obvious choice. Under normal conditions, it’s somewhere I would probably disregard – fine for a lunch option but eating raw fish is not top of my agenda when it comes to the dinner-time-gorge.

Plus it’s a chain, and with so many fantastic independent restaurants in Nottingham, I try to avoid the big names. Nevertheless, a bit of rice paper and smoked salmon seemed the perfect solution to an over-indulgent Easter.

We walked into the bright, airy restaurant and were shown to our seats at the conveyer belt. For those of you who have not been to Yo! Sushi before, the seats line a circular bar with chefs in the middle preparing the food. A conveyer belt lines the bar, carrying lots of little dishes that look a bit like spaceships – and you just grab what you want.

Normally the dishes are different colours, each having different prices, but turns out we were there on bargain Monday so all the dishes were a mere £2.50 – and it was a selection of hot and cold sushi dishes rather than the whole menu. Being a bit of a magpie with food I was in my element.

“Ooh, let’s have this one… and this one… ooh, and that one.” That was pretty much how the evening went (accompanied by a bottle of sauvignon blanc). We began with a dish of edamame beans – I always find it immensely satisfying to suck out the fresh green beans from their deliciously salty shell – and then grabbed a passing rice dish which I can only describe as a salmon-paella, bursting with flavour and very moreish.

We were also big fans of the raw beef strips – like carpaccio – they were drizzled in a tangy dressing with some pickle garnish – so good we had to have two and, after all, the rest of the week they’re one of the more expensive dishes.

My friend grabbed some smoked salmon slices that tasted so fresh they almost melted in your mouth and a delicious salad/vegetable dish that we also went back for seconds with.

However, the real star of the show was the Hairy Prawns. Wow. The Hairy Prawns were something else; giant, meaty prawns wrapped in wispy strips of light tempura batter and deep fried, accompanied by a wasabi mayonnaise. Incredibly juicy and so big that it would have been a challenge to eat in fewer than three bites. Yes, we went in for seconds – it would have been rude not to.

After slowly grazing through the savoury dishes we started to take note of the sweet options that were passing in front of us. Suddenly Easter felt like a really long time away as we reached for some little pancake custard sandwiches that came with a little pot of raspberry coulis. They went down a treat – we might have had seconds. We also tried some more unusual multi-coloured “rice cake balls” with a sweet prune filling that didn’t really taste of much at all.

While we rubbed our bellies, the waitress counted the number of empty plates that were stacked up in front of us to work out the bill. There were 12. But the plates are very small after all, and we did have some raw fish on one, which is virtually fat free… I concluded our healthy eating night had been a roaring success. Yo! Sushi is now also on my list of places that offer a good dinner-time gorge.

BrewDog Nottingham – A Must for all Beer and Cheese Fans

Posted on March 24, 2012 by Delia

Having lived in Nottingham for the best part of 10 years now I tend to get quite excited when something new opens that is a little bit different. I did it about Coco Tang (shotlived), Tilt cocktail bar (go!) and Spanky Van Dykes (thoroughly recommend). However, I think I might have just made the most exciting discovery yet. And its name is BrewDog.

A couple of people had mentioned it to me and there were excited whispers running around the office this week: “New bar’s opened. Makes its own beer”, that sort of thing. And so yesterday, on a cheeky afternoon off, Matty and I went and checked it out.

I found it on my favourite Nottingham street (Broad Street) in the old Shaw’s building, which is a pretty cool building in itself. The interior has a funky minimalist feeling with exposed brick walls, wooden floors and traditional 1930s style filament light bulbs, hanging naked from the ceiling.

Enough about the decor. We made our way to the bar to be greeted with a very impressive selection of beer. Rows of uniquely labelled bottles lined the fridges while a big chalk board on the wall above listed the ales on tap. My eyes flicked around like a magpie that had accidentally flown into a jewellery shop.

I have to confess I don’t know a great deal about “proper beer” – despite the fact that my work once sent me on a beer tasting course in a desperate bid to culture my lager-loving ways. Determined to keep a lid on my Stella and Sauvignon Blanc habit, I just meekly said: “Do you have anything golden?” Well that brought the bar man to life. His eyes lit up and he said: “Everything we have tastes golden” and I knew then, me and the BrewDog, we were going to work.

He went on to explain that all the beers are very “hoppy” with more hops than your average beer to bring out the different flavours. A consequence of this is that some of the beers are very strong – ranging from about 5% right up to the Anarchist Alchemist which is a whopping 15%. Our Aussie bar man explained the beers were brewed for flavour – not for the strength, and that was just a mere consequence of the process. Skeptical, that anything that strong could really taste of anything but Special Brew, he proceeded to give us a sample. And wow, it was wonderful. Resembling something more like a liqueur than a beer, it was sweet and bursting in flavours, and left my chest with that warm glow not dissimilar to the brandy-effect. Nevertheless it was only 4pm on a Friday so after sampling a few of their best sellers, I opted for the 5am Saint (5% ABV) while Matty went for the Punk IPA. Mine was a delicious rum coloured number – and please excuse the lack of appropriate beer tasting prose here – but it almost tasted fizzy, it was the perfect temperature (colder than normal ales) and had a bit of a sweet aftertaste to it. Yum. Matty’s was more of a pale ale, which was slightly drier.

We took our drinks over to a little booth and started planning what we were going to have next. It’s the kind of place that makes you want to sample everything on offer. Perhaps due to the strength of the beers, they were served in schooners (an Aussie sized beer which is about 2/3 of the size of a pint) and later, when I ordered the New Zealand Hardcore (9.2% ABV) it was served in a half. But the drinks are so rich and flavoursome that actually you don’t drink them half as fast as you would a lager or a pale ale, so the size is perfect. Personally, I love a good schooner – often think a pint can feel too big, going a bit flat at the end if you don’t drink fast enough, while a half is little more than a thimble. Yes the Schooner is the Goldilocks of beer glasses for me.

BrewDog also offers food matching advice for all of its beers and sells a selection of small bites. Feeling peckish we ordered a small cheese and meat board (£5) and were not disappointed. A far cry from the regular board of cheddar, stilton and brie often served at fridge temperature, this board was a little bit special. Yes there was a soft French cheese, which may have been brie, but it was so beautifully mature and so “ready” that it was oozing a little bit. It was joined by two other deliciously mature cheeses that shamefully neither of us could recognise but were wonderfully nutty in flavour.

So there you have it. A winning combination. Oh and girls, if you’re single, it seems to have a rather large male clientele – that weren’t all bad looking either. Right, I’m off for a beer.

Cross Keys, Nottingham: The Perfect Post-Work Drinking Den

Posted on March 23, 2012 by Delia

Nothing beats Friday night drinks. It’s the perfect reward for a hard week of work. But normally at about 7pm, after sinking a couple of aperitifs, you are left with the inevitable food dilemma. More often than not the pub or bar of choice doesn’t serve food, leaving you in an agonising quandary of whether to accept the inevitable and eat a dinner of salt and vinegar crisps or to leave the pub’s warm comfort for a restaurant of some description.

Well last week I found a great solution. It’s called the Cross Keys. The pub at the top of Byard Lane was refurbished about two years or so ago, and it is one of Nottingham’s cosier drinking dens. The pub’s smart yet traditional decor is a mix of wooden panelled walls, tan leather booths and a tartan carpet that would make any Scotsman proud.

Attracting a mixed crowd last Friday, real ale drinkers propped up the bar while 30-somethings sat around a few of the tables, sharing a bottle of Sauvignon Blanc. But the other half of the pub serves as a restaurant; and herein lies the perfect solution to post-work drinks. My friend had arranged it all, and had fortunately called ahead the day before, so when our stomachs started grumbling we just crossed the room and slid into a reserved booth – the only empty table in sight.

The menu is very reasonably priced, making it a good option when you don’t want to blow the weekend budget on the first night. It boasts a good mix of traditional pub grub with some more unusual dishes thrown in – most of which cost around the £8 mark. And it was the more unusual options that attracted our attention. We opted to share the mussels and scallops in a Thai curry broth, followed by The Cross Keys Cassoulet, a sausage, confit duck leg and butter bean casserole, which we both ordered to avoid any cases of food envy.

The starter was impressive; an over-sized bowl held a generous portion of mussels and four large scallops that were swimming in a deliciously spicy broth laced in sweet coconut cream. We shamelessly finished it off like soup once the mussels had gone. The main course shortly followed, immediately leaving us both pleased with our choice. The cassoulet was served in a piping hot ramekin with a crusty baguette on the side and mixed salad. As we tucked in, it felt like a bottomless dish of rich, meaty flavours. The duck was so tender it fell apart around the fork, the sausage was succulent and the crusty bread was just right for mopping up the sauce. Despite our best efforts, the bottomless dish defeated us both in the end and we were left unable to even consider desserts, which include firm English favourites like sticky toffee pudding and apple and plum crumble served with whisky custard.

As our plates were cleared we realised that so had the restaurant side of the pub and we were the last table left. Having been so absorbed by the delicious grub and the flow of good conversation, we’d not even noticed the other tables leave. But even when surrounded by vacated tables, the pub has the sort of warm ambience that prevents it from feeling empty, aided by the chatter from the main pub.

We were then left with our final decision of the night; whether to nurse the remains of our wine at the table or to wander back into the lounge area. Either way, we both agreed it had been a pretty successful Friday night – and a discovery I couldn’t quite keep to myself.(Written for the Nottingham Post)

This is the posh room upstairs that you can hire out

Thai Grub in an English Pub: The Fox and Crown in Old Basford

Posted on March 18, 2012 by Delia

The Fox and Crown is best known for its beer and fine ales. Tucked away in a quiet street in Old Basford, Nottingham it is one of the few pubs that has managed to retain its own brewery. With it being just minutes from Basford tram stop, it attracts real ale drinkers from across the city.

However, I recently learnt that it is also home to a Thai restaurant. Striking me as a rather odd bedfellow for a traditional English pub, and following numerous recommendations, I decided to check it out.

It was a Monday night –the cupboards were bare, the supermarket posed an unthinkable challenge and there was an air of denial that the weekend was really over. The perfect night for pub grub. My partner rang ahead and reserved a table despite my scoffs that it was a Monday night and therefore totally unnecessary. But when we walked into the warm, carpeted pub and spied a reserved table for two tucked in the corner of a throng of taken tables, I counted my lucky stars.

Ordering a couple of Alcazar ales to get us into the swing of things (delicious, golden flavours) we made our way over to our table to pour over the menu. I had been told the Thai food is managed by a family who run a separate business to the pub, renting the tables in one half of the venue. But despite this I still half expected the menu to be pub grub with a few classic Thai dishes thrown into the mix.

Instead we were presented with a comprehensive, hard-back menu with a mouth-watering selection of dishes that would rival any Thai restaurant in town. We ordered some prawn crackers to silence our rumbling stomachs as we flicked through page after page of delicious-sounding dishes. The prawn crackers were top notch; crispy and thin – and not drowned in the greasy oil that many are plagued with. Served with a tangy sweet chilli sauce they were the perfect accompaniment to our menu deliberations.

We finally selected a platter dish to start, followed by a Thai red curry with chicken and stir fried prawns served with cashew nuts, coriander and tomatoes. With pub-style service, the food is ordered at a little counter to the side of the bar with its own cash register and a little bell that brings someone out of the kitchen. In fact the same man who took our order and served us our food, appeared to have cooked it as well. Next stop was the bar, as the food and drinks are run separately I turned 90 degrees to face the barman who promptly opened me a bottle of Sauvignon Blanc (costing a mere £10).

Back on our table, which was beside a small fire, we were quickly presented with our starter. Boasting a fine selection of Thai goodies, it featured a fish cake, prawn toast, curried vegetable spring roll, chicken wings and perhaps most divinely of all, a king-sized Thai battered prawn. The batter on the prawn and spring roll was light and crispy, accentuating the flavours of the prawn and vegetables. The juicy and perfectly cooked prawn was marinated in Thai spices and coriander – my only complaint was that there was not more than one. However, the platter was the perfect size to feed two people as a starter.

The prawn dish that followed was equally delicious. Prawns are so easy to overcook but this place has them down to a tee – firm and juicy – and perfectly complemented by subtle Thai flavours. The dish was dressed in a light, oyster-tasting sauce with crunchy vegetables and freshly ripped coriander. By contrast our red curry provided the creamy Thai kick that we had been craving – my only criticism was it could have been richer in flavour. Nevertheless, the plates were promptly licked clean and we were left with satisfied stomachs and tingling taste buds.

Our place mats and plates were promptly cleared, leaving our little wooden table with just beer mats and ale glasses. We were back in the pub again, as if we had just imagined a journey through Thailand’s culinary delights.

An unlikely bedfellow, yes – but one I thoroughly recommend.

(Written for the Nottingham Post)

A Rather Special Caribbean Restaurant in Nottingham

Posted on March 15, 2012 by Delia

Admittedly there are a lot of differences between the Caribbean and Radford. There’s the weather, of course, and the lack of swaying palm trees and white sandy shores, to name a few. But if you can, for the moment, just forget those few minor details, then you might be able to see a little bit of the Caribbean in Alfreton Road, and it’s really taking off.

The road boasts a growing number of Caribbean takeaways including Dad’s Kitchen, Caribbean Flavours and Mr Cool, offering a taste of the tropics as well as a selection of food stores that stock the vital ingredients to bring the dishes to life at home.

The latest addition to the collection is Big Poppa’s, which opened in a former bank building about five weeks ago. Its incredibly affordable prices make it a good mid-week option and with no more than £15 in our pockets between us we headed down to check it out on a Wednesday night.

With high ceilings and huge windows, the restaurant enjoys a chic minimalist decor in red, cream and black with modern, dark-wood tables and large framed pictures of black icons including Martin Luther King and Bob Marley.

As we walked in we were greeted warmly by a man behind the counter, who ushered us in and showed us to a table. He apologetically explained that they had run out of a few dishes. They had enjoyed a surprisingly busy lunch, he explained. But it didn’t seem to matter as he made some mouth-watering suggestions and volunteered to stray off the menu for us to try and make amends.

While they did not have the right cut of meat for the traditional jerk chicken, he said he could easily prepare some chicken breast with the same sauce, and my partner opted for the saltfish with rice and peas. Unfortunately there was no plantain that night but we threw in a couple of deep-fried dumplings for good measure.

Big Poppa’s is in the process of acquiring an alcohol licence but in the meanwhile it is one of Nottingham’s few BYO (Bring Your Own) establishments – and there’s no corkage charge, making it an extra cheap option for the time being.

We were given glasses to save us drinking from the can (Jamaican Red Stripe lager, of course) and enjoyed watching the world go past through the large floor-to-ceiling windows. Inevitably they do also have an impact on the temperature of the restaurant and we had chosen one of the coldest nights of the year to dine; the irony of eating Caribbean grub in my coat was not lost on me.

Nevertheless, the food was superb. The chicken was good quality and succulent, drenched in a spicy and sweet jerk sauce and provided the perfect antidote to the frost outside. My plate was piled high with chips and chicken, an incredibly generous portion for the £6 paid. It wasn’t the same barbecued, chargrilled jerk chicken I’ve sampled at festivals before but it was very tasty, and I did wonder if the standard half jerk chicken, which is normally available, might be more like this.

Meanwhile, my partner’s saltfish was equally delicious; a melody of ingredients that was soft on the palate but bursting with flavour. The fish was not too salty and was nicely offset by the warm dough dumplings that were slightly sweet in taste. We struggled to clean the plates due to the generous portions but our determined effort to not see good food wasted triumphed in the end.

Staff at the family-run restaurant are passionate about the food and seemed genuinely pleased to hear how much we had enjoyed our meals as they took our plates. With an increasing number of old banks turning into Wetherspoons or Tesco Express, it’s great to see that this one has taken a more independent route, instead providing a very welcome addition to Nottingham’s burgeoning African-Caribbean scene. Now we just need to work on the weather.