bacchus

hoxton cool/not cool. hoxton's definitely not cool when you're trying to park your car. the islington and hackney parking planners must have had a field day, drawing arbitrary lines in deciding which bits they would trap unsuspecting car owners in paying exorbitant metered rates while as a joke including just across the street, or in some cases on the same street itself, bits where it was free to park. i'm convinced they must have applied principles gleaned from the study of the venus fly trap plant.

having finally found a free parking spot in a council estate almost half a mile from the restaurant and tottered over in my very nice heels only to find that there was an abundance of free parking spaces right in front of bacchus itself, i finally slunk in to grovel my apologies to the understandably miffed LS who had been nursing his pastis cocktail while enduring my tardiness for the greater part of half an hour. the shame. but all was soon forgotten when we ordered two tasting menus and the fun began when they brought out a martini glass with an extremely green pea puree topped with a sliver of dried enoki mushrooms.

nuno mendes, the chef at bacchus, had previously worked at el bulli, and this was reflected in the espuma in the form of a dashi foam which came with our first course, a red snapper tartare, edamame and fake shark's fin. foam is interesting - it disappears almost instantaneously leaving only an aftertaste as the bubbles pop away on your tongue. we both loved the second course which was pork jowl, black radish, a large prawn and leek puree, though admittedly only after our initial scepticism as we poked away at the pansy petals which topped the dish and and demanded assurance of safety from the waiter.

next up was another martini glass, filled with an egg which had been cooked at some ridiculously low temperature which our waiter explained to us ensured that the egg cooked evenly. the egg came with hon shimeji, which gave me the opportunity to tell LS gleefully that hon shimeji contains trace amounts of arsenic. the egg also came with a glass of Riesling which the chef insisted we have to counteract the protein richness. would this breach my no-alcohol-until-i-arbitrarily-decide-so-unless-it's-in-food rule? i quickly decided it wasn't a breach - it was after all a very small but extremely delicious glass of Riesling and the chef was right - we needed it.

i realised with (mock) horror that we were only half way through the meal. our fourth dish was warm cod, black paella paint, tomato hearts, potatoes and a swipe of pea puree. it was an interpretation of fish and mushy peas not to forget. while it was slightly disconcerting to have the fish covered in a black squid-ink coloured goop, it was delicious and smelt divine and i was sorry to have to eat the rather pretty presentation of it all. this was followed by lamb shoulder, kappa, goat's cheese and a hazelnut powder. it was a tad rich but the meat was tender, though the dish as a whole lacked a bit of bite or texture as everything seemed to merge into softness, but it might have been simply that the fact we were now extremely full had resulted in decreasing marginal utility. finally, desert in the form of a black olive financier, roasted pear ice cream and milk poached pine nuts which gave me yet another chance of torturing LS with more useless trivia as i gave him a potted rendition of the history of financiers.

it was altogether a lovely, relaxed, well paced and very affordable meal for what it was and also an interesting experience of molecular gastronomy which will tide me to the day i can finally justify the cost of dining at el bulli or the fat duck, or the next time i go to bacchus. and as long as i'm parking right outside the bacchus the next time i come, i think hoxton's cool afterall.