278. Gambas, Bristol.

 

  Bristol feels like a smug city. Perhaps it has every right to be. The city centre is full of hipsters and students and very few people who look like working people. There are hundreds of electric scooters shooting inanely all over the place - on pavements, on the roads, frequently very fast and nerve-wrackingly dangerous to an old bloke and an old Labrador. The scooters are driven almost entirely by young men in the 20 to 25 age group who are just the group who can most easily walk anywhere and are least in need of some form of subsidised electric transportation. The dog did come close to being mowed down by a dowdy middle-aged hipstress who, entitled and privileged, barely noticed the distress she caused to an ancient and well beloved canine.

 Still, Bristol is an attractive city despite its residents, and from time to time the dog and I enjoy a visit there and we do sympathise with its justified smugness at least as regards its scattering of good places to eat. Michelin lists 17 restaurants in its Guide (including two one-starred and two Bibs Gourmands - Birmingham has only 15 listed restaurants though five are starred). I felt a great urge to revisit the excellent container-housed Spanish restaurant at Wapping Wharf, Gambas, Michelin-listed but not so far on the list of restaurants recommended by The Good Food Guide (the error is on the part of The Good Food Guide in this case). True, The Michelin Guide is rather over-enthusiastic about the view from the site where Gambas is located, “Set in a lovely first floor location in the bustling Wapping Wharf, Gambas comes with a terrace on two sides and lovely river views”. 

  This takes poetic license too far though I accept that beauty does indeed lie in the eye of the beholder. Use of the word “lovely” to describe the row of container-housed dining establishments is inappropriate, though what represents good taste in the field of architecture is always open to debate and the view does indeed give a river view though again the use of the word “lovely” is highly contestable - the observer looks across at a vast building, presumably constructed in the 1930s, which recalls the monstrous architectural style of Nazi Germany and in the foreground everything is a little too ramshackle to contribute any degree of loveliness. Still, those who run Gambas can hardly be blamed for misdescriptions by Michelin inspectors.

  The restaurant was certainly “bustling”, comfortably intimate rather than overcrowded. The welcome is pleasing and enthusiastic and a jug of water is soon delivered to the table along with the exciting menus. The service is delightfully solicitous and the diner can not help but feel comfortable and relaxed in this busy little dining space. There is a good choice of dishes - small dishes in the main to be served as tapas - and any problem with understanding the Spanish names used on the menu are soon dealt with charmingly.

  I started off with a local Psychopomp gin and tonic and ordered Gambas pil pil along with hake served with sweet little peppers and, inevitably, Patatas bravas. The three large prawns prepared with garlic and chilli were delicious, the enticing look of them was more than matched by the flavour of the dish, the crustaceans being perfectly cooked. The sauce had to be mopped up by the bread that had been delivered to the table. The hake again was cooked perfectly with a fine crispy skin and melting white flesh. The sweet peppers were a joy and the remains of the bread were once more put to good use to ensure none of the joyous sauce was wasted.

  Then to the dessert. This was the most exquisite crema Catalana I have ever had. Presented aflame and embraced in the gentle flavour of orange, such pleasures should not be available as earthly ones only as the rewards of an entry to Paradise. But fortunately for this sinner, this crema Catalana was indeed an earthly pleasure and memory will not let it fade.

  The meal was accompanied by a fairly priced and enjoyable house white and a fine and filling meal had been consumed with much attendant happiness. No future trip to Bristol will be worth making without a trip to Gambas. 

  One little post-prandial pleasure was a visit to a nearby independent book shop. It had a good selection of books on the subject of food though the turn-off was the profusion of -ism books embracing every fashionable left-wing and grandly high-moralled trend known to post-2000 England. But the title of the food section raised a smile - not ‘Food’ as one would find in any normal bookshop in any normal English City but ‘Sustenance’, as pretentiously hipster as one might expect to find only in Bristol (and Oxford I expect). But, as I say, it raised a smile. And if a bookshop ever opens in Stirchley, I shall not hesitate to recommend that the owner places a ‘Sustenance’ label at the top of his Food section.