B.O.B.'s Lobster at The Rising Sun

OK, so the problem with pop-ups and being me is as follows: by the time I get round to (read: pull my bloody finger out) writing about somewhere, it's gone. 

 

So B.O.B.'s Lobster's residency at the Rising Sun has now totally ended.  SORRY.  But I went so I'm going to tell you about it anyway – because I thought it was brillo pads.  Also, it's not totally in vain because (a) they're still running food trucks around the City; and (b) because it was good I reckon they'll be back for more at some point. 

 

First up on the menu were deep fried oysters.  I think we'd had these before in the US – in New Orleans, no less – and been confused by them.  I don’t think we liked them much to be frank.  So I'm not entirely sure why we ordered them here, but boy am I glad we did – very, very good.

Next up in our medley of dishes was shrimp and grits.  Now I am absolutely certain we'd had shrimp and grits before, again in the Deep South on the same road trip, and I can absolutely remember our reaction to them: We thought it was disgusting.  I have no idea why we ordered something we knew we hated.

But boy am I glad we did.  Because this dish was, hands down, one of the best all-round plates of food I have ever, ever had.  I have no idea how they made it that good, but you can be sure they did.  It was served up with a gorgeous hunk of pork belly - fantastic surf and turf.

Last starter was pig cheek soft tacos.  A little bit like Wahaca's now infamous pork pibil.  Sadly, a slight miss - nothing wrong with them, but I could have lived without I'm afraid.

On to the mains - again shared. 

In keeping with the theme of the place, we ordered the two lobster-based signature dishes.

Lobster mac & cheese was fantastic - so wonderfully homely and comforting.  The chef uses lobster bisque to make the sauce, and the mac is strewn with lumps of tail meat - it's just divine.  I could eat endless bowls of that stuff, I really could.

And then the lobster roll. 

This is kinda their core business - the pop-up being born from the ongoing lobster roll and prosecco truck that you'll see about the place at food fairs and markets (including, currently, Borough Market).  So you'd reckon that they'd get it right.  Fortunately, they did - this was absolutely spot on. Like, really, really good.  Perfect chargrilled brioche bun, stuffed to the gunnels with lobster meat, and very little mucking about with mayonnaise or other sauces to distract you.  Top marks.

They were also dishing up cocktails - some classic (ordered to request) and some less so.  Below we have the old fashioned and a mint julep.  They were good, but sadly nothing to write home about and, even more sadly, they were terribly slow to arrive. 

All in, if I was in the habit of giving marks out of 10 for a restaurant (which I am not, and I aint gonna start now) this would score well.  Sure, there were a few snags, but generally we enjoyed ourselves and ate very well.  I hope B.O.B's decide to give the restaurant thing another go before too long - they did it well.

 - GrubsterBoy -

Wild Honey

So, I might have mentioned that, at some point relatively recently, I got older.  Significantly older. 

 

So GrubsterGirl took me out for dinner.  TWICE.  To Michelin restaurants.  I literally couldn’t be luckier.  I've already written about round one (Story), but now it's time to talk about round two: Wild Honey. 

 

Wild Honey describes itself as "a contemporary Mayfair timeless classic..." which sounds like just too much marketing bullspin to me.  Fortunately, it fails to live up to the self-imposed wanky motto and churns out, instead, phenomenally good food – and drink.

 

In our usual style – and to be fair to other pretenders – we kicked off proceedings with a round of cocktails.

 

I had a vesper.  This was lovely, but I am slightly disappointed – more in myself than anything else.  I could certainly have had something more exciting, even if this was perfectly put together.

 

GG, on the other hand, did have something more exciting: a Professor Cornelius Ampleforths’ Bramble.  Sadly, this didn’t quite live up to the expectation.

 

It's also worth mentioning at this juncture that they serve a lot of their wines in 250ml carafes.  This is a flipping brilliant idea and one that all restaurants should have to do.  It gives pleasure in two ways: one, it lets you chop and change your wine throughout the meal; and two, it lets you not drink an entire bottle if you don’t want to.  Which meant there was more room for cocktails. 

 

Whilst we perused the menu we were brought a plate of spicy fried onions.  These were yummy.  However, they were a touch onion bhaji-esque, and so a little out of place in a restaurant serving otherwise contemporary British food.  I'm also not entirely sure why we had them, or what they were for.

My starter was vitello tonnato, a dish of cold, wafer-thin veal doused in creamy tuna dressing.  It was absolutely divine and, despite its size, not as frighteningly filling as you'd expect.  The veal was beautiful, moist and fresh, not at all dry.  The dressing was similarly perfect, with a hint of tuna rather than being overpowering.

GG had the crab salad with avocado.  The crab was delicate, fresh white meat – very tasty – whilst the avocado took the form of a sort of avocado and coriander soup.  Slight Mexican influences shone through – backed up by the accompaniment of a small plate of chicharrónes, a kind of Mexican pork scratching, that was slightly unnecessary.

GG followed her starter with slow-cooked short rib of beef, served with beetroot.  She definitely won in the main course stakes – this was simply amazeballs.  The beef was soft, tender, juicy, flavoursome – all of things anyone could want from such a meal, and perfectly offset by the beetroot.

But even if she did win, I came an incredibly close second.  I had slow-cooked neck and rack of Welsh lamb, served with braised radishes and a crushed pea and sheep's cheese accoutrement.  This was fantastic.  Top rate – fresh, springtime flavours perfectly complimenting one another.  I have a soft spot for rack of lamb especially, something this dish only served to remind me of.

GG finished up with honey ice cream and honeycomb.  I didn’t actually try this, but she seemed very content.

Whilst I went for the cheese. One negative comment here: it would have been nice to know what I was eating, but sadly this information was not volunteered.  (By the way, in case you're wondering - sure, those portions look small, but there's more than enough cheese there for one person.  Seriously.)

And then, with coffee, some delightful little petit fours arrived.

I'd also like to say a little thing about the staff.  They were wonderful.  Seriously wonderful.  Lovely people, that made us feel at home and never once stuffy or condescending – which is sadly all too rare.  There was a slight mix-up with the bill and the manager tried to take service off – it's the only time I have ever had to argue to have it put back on – he was absolutely adamant that we should not pay for service following an error, mistakes "shouldn’t happen at our level".  Needless to say, I won that argument – but it just goes to show, I think, the evident dedication to making your dining experience flawless.

All in all this was a fantastic meal.  Brilliantly executed dishes, great service, a really lovely spot. 

 - GrubsterBoy -

Bonnie Gull Seafood Cafe

The Bonnie Gull Seafood Shack, situated in Fitzrovia, has been a staple for may seafood loving-Londoners for the last couple of years, since converting its Hackney pop-up into a full-blown restaurant in 2012.  In that time it's built itself a thoroughly decent – and well deserved - reputation for top-notch seafood, whether of the kind that swims, scurries or just hangs about on the seafloor.  So when it was announced that it would be opening a second branch – The Bonnie Gull Seafood Cafe I was quick to book a table.

 

The idea of the place is to transport you to the coast – perhaps Cornwall, or Devon, or some other spot on the South Coast.  For me, it took me straight back to family day trips to Cooden Beach in East Sussex, where we used to spend so many days of summer, but I imagine that all patrons will get some whiff of the sea, some twinge of nostalgia for sunny days on the beach and fish suppers wrapped in newspaper. 

 

The real star of the show, however, is the food.  Which is precisely what you'd want – and expect.

 

We started with a round of oysters.  The Bonnie Gull offers a great selection to choose from.  When we visited there were five varieties to choose from, although it's all dependent on supplies and freshness – the one thing you will be absolutely convinced of is the freshness of the food.  In fact, this might be a good time to mention that, although I'm going to show you what we ate, the chances of you seeing all (or, indeed, any) of these dishes should you visit is pretty low.  There are some staples that seem to be on the menu regularly, but the menu is absolutely dictated by what's freshly available.  So it will change - often daily, it seems.  This, in my opinion, is a very good thing.

 

We had the whole oyster range – not to be outdone – including Carlingford Rocks (GrubsterGirl's favourite) and Portland Pearls (my mollusc of choice).  And fantastic they were.

 

One of the main attractions, for me, to The Bonnie Gull is the selection of shellfish.  I absolutely adore food that comes in a shell – especially wriggling, crustacean types – crab, lobster, prawns, brown shrimp, crawfish, langoustine – you name it, if it crawls and swims, I'm probably going to love it.  The Bonnie Gull serves all of these in spades. 

We then moved on to more substantial starters. 

Crab on beef-dripping toast, with avocado. I love crab meat (seriously love it, it's quite possibly my favourite food) so had to try this - even if my main was a little crabby (as you'll see in a bit...).  Absolutely fantastic – a beautiful ratio of brown and white meat which was complimented terrifically by the avocado. 

Paprika-battered queenies. If you don’t know what a 'queenie' is, it's basically like a baby scallop – although fully grown – that are best known for coming from the waters around the Isle of Man.  (Writing this post I have discovered that there's an annual queenie festival in the Isle of Man at the end of June each year – there's a date for future diaries.)  This was another hit of a dish – great fun, tasted fantastic and seemed to go on forever and ever, without leaving you feeling stuffed – just what one wants in a starter.

Meanwhile, I tucked in to cockles cooked in cider and pancetta.  This was actual an accidental order – I was so busy chatting to my dining companions that I misread cockles for clams, so was slightly taken aback when these arrived.  Still, the two are not so terribly different (someone, somewhere, will probably want to kill me for saying that) and besides what I got was lipsmackingly fabulous that I can't – and shan't – complain. 

In fact, they disappeared remarkably quickly...

One of my companions also had the hot smoked salmon with horseradish cream and beetroot.  Sadly I didn't try this (there's only so much one can eat) but I heard that it was a 100% hit.  And doesn't it just look it?  I can well imagine that if you visit with someone who doesn't like seafood that much - and there are people who genuinely don't - this could be a good place to start at.

Also, potted brown shrimp on sourdough toast.  An absolutely staple, but beautifully done and served warm - which, as I have written before - really brings all the flavour out. 

Moving on to the mains then...

I have to confess that I was a bit of a bad food blogger when it came to the mains.  You see, the main I had was a bit hands on, and was also my favourite thing, so I have to admit that I was a little bit distracted.  OK, I was a lot distracted.  I snapped a few of my friends' mains – including this delicious lobster roll...

A proper, hearty, filling serving of the king of crustaceans, in a lovely, charred brioche bun and decorated with nasturtium flower leaves (which are clearly becoming all the rage).

There was also this fantastic crockpot of Devon seafood – mixed fish and shells (haddock, cod, clams and mussels I remember, other things I sadly forget) cooked in a rich bouillabaisse Provençal sauce – was simply stunning.

But the standout attraction, the piece de resistance, was the crab.

OMFG that crab.

Described on the menu in playful terms as 'smash your own crab', along it came, ready to play with (please note: I went for the 'lightly pre-smashed' option, which I strongly recommend for anyone not eager to (a) cover themselves in crab gunk; and (b) take out their companion's eye with faster-than-light flying shell shards).  The head meat had also been helpfully picked and flame-grilled, allowing for easy eating, as well as avoiding the toxic crab gills.  Although many people dodge the brown meat, smear a little on toast with some mayonnaise and a healthy helping of white meat, all drizzled with lemon squeeze, and enjoy for a slice of pure heaven. 

It even came with a little hammer to aid the smashing process.

Big claws, filled with juicy white meat - this was a cock (male) crab, so had the larger nippers that lead to more of the good stuff.

So time for pudding. 

Where to go from here, eh?  After sophisticated starters and beautifully hands-on mains (at least in my case) what could a Grubster honestly need now?

Well, the answer's simple.  You remember how I said the whole thing was seaside focussed?  Well, think about what you'd have at the seaside.  Think about summer days on the beach.

MR WHIPPY.

I have written elsewhere about the joys of Mr Whippy – that much derided, soft serve ice cream.  Here it was as if they'd taken the concept and revolutionised it.  It was Mr Whippy, Captain, but not as we know it – soft, cold, sweet but also rich and creamy – all of the best bits of the iconic ice cream with all of its worst bits made good.  In fact, with the addition of popping candy and freeze-dried raspberries – not just made good but made awesome.

Finally, just s small hat tip for the coffee - and, in particular, the tiny wee milk bottles it comes with.  Very cute, well played.

It's also worth taking a moment, if I may, just to remark upon the wonderfully helpful and friendly staff, who sorted us out with a big table as a special request and who knew the menu inside-out and back-to-front.  Cheers, guys.

I think you can already guess what I'd say as my closing remarks.  I loved this place – it's truly fantastic, and well worth the visit.  Price-wise it's not the cheapest place in town – but then it's not bank-breakingly expensive, and to be honest you're eating seafood in London – if you want it cheap, go somewhere you don’t have to transport that notoriously difficult (and costly) to transport foodstuff.  And, you know what?  It is absolutely worth it.  Top marks, definitely.

 - GrubsterBoy -