Bristol Guild Cafe - Coffee number 2!

Over coffee at my favourite place in Bristol (BTP - Park Street) I checked and sent emails and texted various members of the family about Christmas presents to pass the time while I waited for the clock to tick round to the time for my meeting with coach extraordinaire Matt Edwards at another coffee place just over the road.

The place for the second good coffee of the day was The Guild on Park street - full of lovely arty gift ideas and pretty thing I like but can't afford!

The cafe here has recently been refurbished is is now much lighter and more open and the counter is easier to find! Coffees/Tea/Chocolate and cake seem to be the only offerings here but they are well flavoured and place is comfortable if a little spartan.

On the day I was there it seemed the ne of the staff was new which made for a slower, but not painfully so, service.

Great place for coffee which is reasonable priced, as long as you can keep your wallet in your pocket in the rest of the shop - otherwise you may need a second mortgage!

Me Caffeinated

I love coffee - there I've said it!

Recently I've taken to drinking my coffe without milk too. So I thought I'd just down my ideas/experiences of my local coffee haunts and also those I visit when travelling for work or pleasure.

Here's the first:

BOSTON TEA PARTY - Park Street
Great tasting coffe and fabulous cakes. They also have a good range of meals and other beverages too. The staff are friendly and sometimes quirky. This is part of a small local chain of which this is the best branch.

They have a good sized outdoor area with large umbrellas which is dog-friendly too. Also a large if somewhat crowded upstairs room and sit-up buffet style benching around the ground floor where the coffees are made and served. A recent update of the decor has made this place even more desirable and includes the addition of power points for  laptop users.

The basement toilets did not benefit from the refurbishment which is sad as they are the only thing that I can fault at this outlet.

Try the medium roast and a Portugese custard tart!

New Beginnings

When I started writing this blog it was meant to be a cathartic exercise, letting off steam when I got annoyed at hubby for being a fussy eater. However, as if to annoy me more he’s actually far less fussy now – or seems so after we had some of the family visiting and kept getting told ‘we don’t eat that’ by them!

So, I’ll begin again but this time I will use the blog to record life in general! I sort of got into the habit when recording our charity run/walk in my ‘Long road to Tynemouth’ blog a few weeks ago.

Stop the presses! Fussy ate pizza!

Tonight - really he did! The man that does not like cheese or tomatoes or onion.

Well the pizza he had didn't have onion or cheese on it just tomato sauce, peppers and chicken tikka. Odd combination for a pizza but that's what the Cafe seems to specialize in - interesting toppings with jokey names. Mine was a spinach, salmon and cream cheese calzone - Posh Nosh it was named.

Yesterday's brekky was also good;

Wholemeal muffins (homemade)
Poached eggs
Smoked Salmon
Hollandaise sauce (homemade too) - lots of egg but very tasty!

Not saving the bacon....

Fussy worked from home today - waiting for the delivery of an external hard drive to protect our data and photographs. What he didn't tell me was he had also ordered a Mac book! Well it's his money.

So he was supposed to have a bacon sarnie for lunch (we had crepes for brekky - he had made he batter last night). It seems he had a bacon sarnie for dinner too rather than the pasta I'd got for him. Leaving none for me for my dinner - damn!

Instead I had stuffed peppers...stuffed with about 3cms of chorizo, 3 large mushrooms and a helping of goats cheese, bung in oven for 30 mins. Lovely!

Of Shepherds and Toads

So Fussy got his Shepherds Pie last night with roast carrots and parsnips and broccoli. There was enough to make two so one is frozen for later in the month. Fussy even had to help cook it whilst I took a call from my lead marker on the exam panel he peeled and boiled the spuds. He took notes too on how to complete the whole process.

Todays breakfast was our warmer weather version (ironic considering that last night was really cold and we woke to frost this am).Tonight we had another of his favourites - toad in the hole. As I still have lots of carrots and parsnips I roasted them again and included some cabbage too.

After dinner Fussy made batter for crepes for Pancake day breakfast tomorrow. I've not got a lot of time spare so I just handed him the Carrier cookbook at the page entitled basic French crepes. I'll cook them and will mess up the first one or two, as always but the rest will be fine, usually.

Dinner for Fussy will be (horrible) packet pasta before he heads out to a concert - I'll not be home until after he's gone, sadly.

Elephantitis....!

Before Christmas Fussy Eater and I bought some vouchers from LivingSocial and Groupon for various meals and events and we used our voucher for the Elephant Public House on Thursday.

Good food, nice wine, lovely place. 7-8 out of 10 I'd say

Fussy shared a charcuterie platter with me for starters and even ate a sun dried tomato! Main course was good old bangers and (dijon mustard) mash for me. The mustard was rather concentrated in one place and I had to mix it in a little better and the extra gravy provided in a gravy boat had clearly been waiting a few mins to be served and was a little 'skinny'. Still pleasant enough with really tasty sausages.

FE had a spatchcocked poussin which I was surprised about as he doesn't usually like chicken that might have bones in it. This was served with a buttered cabbage and a rather nondescript dip/sauce that neither of us could figure out. Tasty non the less.

So perhaps not at good as when under the previous owners (who have since run the Star and Dove and also moved on again). When it can to dessert we were disappointed to find that many had sold out already but the brownies with raspberry sauce and ice cream was rather a pleasant change for the creme brulee or crumble king!

Last night was curry night as both of us were too tired to cook - he has Chicken Makhoni and is recognised at the takeaway and greeted warmly (The Curry Centre, West Street) and went to CTM this time although often has a mixed kebab.

Tonight Fussy cooked chicken fajitas for me as I worked all day. Tomorrow he's requested a winter favourite of Shepherd pie but with a sweet potato topping, think I'll also add some roast parsnips and carrots and some savoy cabbage.