The Cafe never fails to impress and close enough for me to nip in for an early lunch of Cromer Crab Benedict.
The worst dish I have encountered in a Suffolk restaurant this month. Not saying where!
Some of the best street food on Bury market is from Yakitori Suzuki, on a Saturday,usually close to Moyses Hall. Kaori Dawson (pictured above with her daughter) cooks rolled omelettes for breakfast until about 11.15am then it's lunch with delicate little skewers of meat and vegetables, rice and miso soup. I tried the pork rib (supearibu no Nikomo) Japanese meatball (Tsukune) and the pork skewers (Kushiyaki) Kaori runs the Suzuki Supper Club so if you cannot get to the market, go for supper.
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The Bake Off'ers were on game pies this week and some of them (the pies) looked amazing. We don't eat enough game in this country even though you can see Muntjac deer, and dazed looking pheasants pre-shooting season, on nearly every corner here in Suffolk. Here's a young man who sells local venison and can even help you learn how to butcher a deer (in case you run one over...)
This is what it's all about - small portions, home-made food, disco music - and plenty of it. I had a crab open sandwich draped with just one seductive marinated white anchovy and a blob of mustard mayo for £3 at Donastia Social Club's Basque food wagon at Kerb. Next door was (at last!) a stall selling a good selection (3) of interesting fresh fruit drinks - melon, raspberry lemonade and plum juice sodas at £2.50 from Square Root London.
If you are a lucky farmer, someone brings you this in the back of the car every day at tea time, until harvest is finished.
Some days just don't go very well for restaurants and Fornham Fine Foods was having a bad day when we went for lunch. We were surprised that fishcakes, one of the few hot things on the menu, was already off the menu by 12.30. We guessed that there was probably a 'chef problem' as everyone seemed to be waiting and the staff looked frazzled. But we ordered a steak sandwich and a smoked fish platter. It still hadn't arrived forty minutes later. Then when the fish arrived there was no steak sandwich because it hadn't been cooked yet - even though the menu said 'served pink'. The waitress eventually brought the steak, decided enough was enough and said there would be no charge for the meal. The food was very good in spite of the wait so we wanted to pay something, at least for the drinks, but she wouldn't let us. She didn't know we were food bloggers but she does know that messing your customers about while you decide who is going to be your chef isn't a very good idea.
This year's SuffolkFoodie annual leave was taken on a 48 hour trip to see the best (and probably the most hyped) of the latest London eat-and-drinkeries. Starting at Taberno do Mercardo (via a really nice tea merchants on the way, and only minutes from Liverpool Street station) we had small pretty plates that featured tinned cold monkfish, runner bean 'fritters' on clam broth, cuttlefish with pigs trotters, drippingly soft cheese with toasted bread, prawn rissoles and the runniest custard tart. The waitress was as excited about the food as we were so even with just one glass each of house sparkling rose - shining like a citrine jewel - it was easy to spend half of our budget on the first meal.
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I was late and rushing for the 2pm train. I had had nothing to eat so after I found a seat and had put it off for as long as possible I bought a sausage roll. It was worse than the last one I had ten years ago. I don't need to describe it because you can see its flabby, rusky, microwaved self, for yourselves. Abelio Greater Anglia - your crisps have improved, your drinks have improved, now try serving a nice sausage roll?
On Brick Lane, of course it's complete madness, but only because you didn't think of it first - and they have jobs!
People have been telling me the food is good at The Bear Inn, Beyton, so we nipped in for a family supper, which was just going to be a main course and then the chicken liver parfait sounded tempting with the fruit chutney and homemade bread (which had been toasted over the flame grill) so I ordered that. It was excellent. Much to the surprise of my family, as I never eat steak when I am out, I ordered a rib eye steak cooked rare, which it was. Salad leaves were properly dressed and fat chips crisp. That left no room for a pudding...or did it? I noticed the taster puddings which are scaled down portions so ordered the apple crumble with homemade vanilla custard. Wow, was that good and just £3 for the small, yet not so mini, deliciously tart apple crumble with sugary crunchy top and the best custard that I have eaten out for a long time.
Here is the link to The Bear Inn recipe page. Try making their lemon possett.
'We are always discussing new flavours and combinations and wanted to come up with some way of combining chocolate eggs into one of our products,' says Mr Dun a Scottish butcher. 'We did some experimenting with a plain pork sausage meat with the Creme Egg in the middle which we found was very tasty...' Sounds so revolting I'm tempted to try it.