It’s an exciting time to be a foodie and live in Bristol.
As well as numerous new faces appearing on the restaurant and bar scene in the past 12 months, there’s also been an influx of street food vendors and associated events such as Streat Food Collective and the new Bristol Eats.
To celebrate the arrival of the spring sunshine, we decided to pay a visit to the latest addition to the Bristol eating scene. This was the second time Bristol Eats has been put on, and can be found in the car park at Lakota just off Stokes Croft every Thursday. There is music, a bar and a selection of Bristol’s finest independent food vendors for you to choose from. With so much anticipation built from their mouth-watering Twitter updates throughout the day, we always knew deciding what to eat was going to be tough. Which is why we ate it ALL.
First up, the imitable Meat and Bread – famous across the city for inspiring queues across College Green, due to sandwich creations such as sambal brisket, chipotle pork and roasted pork belly. Tonight’s offering was no less exciting; fried chicken with slaw and BBQ beans. The chicken was fantastic, the best all three of us have had by a very long way. The meat was tender and juicy, the coating was crispy with just the right amount of spice, herbs and tangyness. The BBQ beans were also brilliant; very rich and smoky with plenty of pulled pork.
Of course, the best course of action when loading up on food is to have something tasty to wash it down, so it was with that we moved on to CUPP Tea Bar for a green tea mojito, which was then swiftly followed up with a rum & coconut bubble tea, both delicious and unusual.
With that, we realised we had to split our resources to sample as much as possible. Shonette swerved towards Viet Vite for a crunchy, aromatic and satisfying pulled pork noodle salad, which was then promptly covered in chopped chillies, crushed peanuts and a good squeeze of siracha sauce.
Cat decided to go for a Soul Burger once the initial disappointment at the absence of Kebab Revolution had waned (to return next week, we were assured). Opting for a bread-free ‘Aretha Franklin’, topped with halloumi (Cat also saw fit to add some meat too for an extra £1), they loaded up the plate with a hefty pile of salads including red cabbage slaw, greek salad and dolmades.
Finally, it was time for dessert at Vee Double Moo. Cat went for a mini tub of ice cream topped with banana and very moreish salted caramel sauce. Oh my. We then decided to end our night in style – with some boozy ice cream shots. The first was a dollop of ice cream topped with a shot of tequila and a squeeze of lime (we agreed that it would have been interesting to add some salt too for the proper ‘slammer’ experience). The cherry vodka shot was rich and refreshing too. A worryingly easy way to enjoy strong liquer.
Overall, all of the food was fantastic – made and served by people who really know about and love food. Added bonuses were the generous portions and fairly decent prices. See you there next Thursday for more scoffing!
Cat & Shonette
Saucy Pans 
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