228. Weston Super Mare - A Plague Of Peashoots On All Your Houses.

   Mid-March, and there seems to be a remarkable glut of pea shoots in the West Country. Lucy the Labrador and I are back in Weston super Mare, Birmingham’s ancient working class holiday resort, the weather variable, the dog-friendly hotel comfortable though the staff are mostly absent due to a mass COVID-19 infection and the town itself mostly deserted (perhaps its residents, like the hotel staff, are all self-isolating). Everywhere I go food is garnished with bunches of pea shoots. Even my pleasing scrambled egg hotel breakfast. Where have all these pea shoots come from? Is this a new pandemic - a plague of pea shoots? Fortunately, when it comes to garnish, I’m a fan of pea shoots. But you can have a bit too much of a good thing.

  I was particularly looking forward to returning to WSM to dine again at the Ginger Pig Kitchen (see Blog 186) which seems the most promising place to dine on western style, even British, food in the town at present - cuisine ménagère being infinitely more well represented there than cuisine bourgeoise. My first visit took place on tapas night, a weekly menu extending its contents beyond the borders of Spain to embrace other parts of the Mediterranean and their cuisines. The dishes are reasonably priced and generously portioned. Given the restaurant’s special emphasis on pork dishes I felt I really should have at least two dishes which used the flesh of that noble animal - I chose sticky pork belly bites with barbecue sauce and pork corn and sautéed chorizo in a red wine and honey sauce. The pork belly bites, though tasty, were not really to my liking as the belly was much more fat than lean (I suppose I am a Jack Sprat) but the chorizo dish was lovely, the sauce being particularly delicious and well matched with the sausage. I also had patatas bravas with tomato and red pepper sauce and very enjoyable garlic aioli, the potatoes being nicely cooked but not spicy enough for me. I also had the fabulous focaccia, freshly made on the premises, its soft crust perfectly salty and the robust flavour of rosemary running joyously through the beautiful large pieces of it. Oh, my focaccia was garnished with pea shoots. I finished with affogato, dessert and coffee rolled into one. So, a mixed bag but a couple of superb items among them.

  A return to the Ginger Pig kitchen to dine from the usual menu followed the next day. After an enjoyable cocktail, the base of which was Dead Man’s Fingers spiced rum, served in a skull glass jar, an equally enjoyable starter in the form of chicken liver parfait - very pleasant in fact - with delighful brioche and a pleasingly unctuous caramelised onion chutney. Rustic, I suppose and a garnish of, yes, peashoots had managed to elbow its way in on the dish, but this is a restaurant that doesn’t openly present itself as having pretensions though the chefs clearly have ambitions to bring good food to Weston.

  The main course was nicely pan-fried and meaty hake in a chowder of mussels and cubes of other fish and samphire and a garnish of, er, peashoots. This was very good with the only problem being the cubes of salmon in the chowder which were too powerfully flavoured in comparison with the hake itself. This would have been a real gem, served as it was with a good-sized chunk of the above mentioned focaccia to mop up the sauce, without the salmon and it reminds us that excellent fish cookery can bring such pleasure to the diner.

  I could not fight back the need to finish the meal with affogato, little pieces of macerated strawberry adding a little colour and enjoyable flavour.

  The third day’s dinner had problems. I started with cauliflower bhajis served with a sweet chilli chutney and heavily draped in peashoots. The bhajis had a nicely crispy coat and tasty interior though the presence of cauliflower was difficult to pin down but the exterior was very dark and the bhajis tasted burnt. I thought that a sweet flavour would help to some extent and searched for the sweet chilli sauce which had disappeared under the pile of peashoots and indeed, when I finally discovered it’s hiding place, the sweet heat it gave out did improve matters.

  The main course, alas, also had its problems. This was pork and cider pie with mashed potato, mushy peas, crispy kale, a pig in blanket, a stick of crackling and gravy. Unfortunately the pie pastry was too thick and consequently stodgy; the pork inside the pie was chunky and reasonably edible but not generously flavoured. The mash was stodgy and needed seasoning and butter and sadly the deep fried crispy kale which might have been fun had been rendered soft and soggy by having the gravy poured over it. The pig in blanket was very tasty but the crackling was far too hard and stronger teeth than mine were needed for it. The dish was oddly presented as a stack in which the peas were spread over the top of the pie which sat on the mash, the crackling protruding vertically from the pile like a chimney. At least no peashoots were involved.

  The dessert ended the meal positively - I thoroughly enjoyed a pleasingly favoured crème caramel, served with a delightful pig-shaped shortbread and three little spots of coulis.

  The restaurant has lovely staff and a small but pleasing wine list. It’s a cosy and comfortable and somewhat quirky place to sit in and dine in for a couple of hours and is clearly popular with locals and returning visitors to the resort. It clearly suits its target audience which in these present difficult times is probably something a lot of restaurants would wish to succeed in doing. I hope though that when I next visit Weston there will be rather fewer peashoots finding their way on to the plates there.