Bubbledogs&. Words almost fail me

Posted by Nicky Richmond on October 5, 2012 in ★★★★★, food | 2 Comments

The menu. 13 is my lucky number.

Lovely lovely Twitter. On my way back from a grim trip up North I was skimming through Twitter and noticed that there was a place available at Bubbledogs& Kitchen Table that evening on short notice. Needing a bit of escape, I jumped at it. Whilst I’d known it was much heralded and that it was going to be unusual, I really had no idea what to expect. C was a bit disappointed it wasn’t the hot-dogs at first, because he’s North American and he can’t help it, but after about 5 minutes, he didn’t mention it again.

And for once, I’m not going to say very much, I’m going to let the pictures do the talking. And the pictures? As ever with me, from the sublime to the ridiculous. You either get one or two or the whole shebang.

First off, the scallops. Creamy and now, I’ve had pineapple weed I’m happy.

And I just loved the crispy pigskin and cod roe. Silky smooth. They’d made me a lovely fish skin but I ogled the oversized prawn-cracker lookalikes. They were the business. I pushed aside my pescatarian guilt to eat them

The best toast wasn’t here. This was with tomato jam, as until this evening, I haven’t been eating meat, but I took a bite of C’s and my expression was obviously so pathetically grateful that the lovely James, sensing distress gave me my own chicken-skin one. Chicken skin and mascarpone. It was sublime. I want more of that. I’m not thinking about my own chickens at this point.

Toast. But not as we know it, Jim

Loved this – cauliflower in different ways but combining it with the toasted almonds was genius.

Cauliflower. Every which way.

One of the greatest hits in my view. Salty, fishy, intense.

Mussels. Smoked. Fabulous.

Loved. Cucumber a bit of a weird texture but worked well with the fish.

Bass. With smoked cucumber.

The pasta was incredibly delicate. Just perfect and simple. Much filial envy created with that dish.

Truffle. With some pasta attached

Bloody lovely this was. And sea aster. Who knew?

Lobster. On a bed of sea aster.

I tasted a little of this. The onions were stunning. Beef wasn’t bad too. By this point I am almost a committed carnivore.

Beef. With onions. Smoked, red, white

Lovely, fresh rich and sweet. The fig leaf ice cream perfectly balanced.

Fig. With cream, fig carpaccio and fig leaf ice cream.

The only dish I found a little odd. Not sure about the pear, just tasted a little wrong but I’m not used to fermented as a flavour.

Burrata. On fermented pear

I died.

Pear. With sponge. Words failed at this point

Good end. Simple and not too sweet.

Blackberry. Surrounded by chocolate with a pink mousse. I only ate the one but could have eaten the lot

And the man himself. Mr Knappett. A brilliant and passionate chef. The whole team were fantastic. There’s Jack, who meets and greets and does a bit of everything, including hotel recommendations in Cumbria, The fabulous Sandia, who recommended brilliant and unusual wines, frankly deserving of a separate blog; but which included English sparkling wines; Hungarian Tokaj (dry) and everything in between; all perfectly judged. And the food -an incredible bargain at £68. With our wine choices (and we didn’t hold back) £254. Worth every penny. I’m sorry I didn’t get a picture of the whole team because this really is a team effort. Oh dear. I’ll just have to go back.

In full flow