One of a kind

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One of a kind

Tony Benjamin lures us off the beaten track on an alternative world food tour of Bristol and Bath

For a nation once afraid of garlic and hot peppers, our eating tastes have grown admirably more cosmopolitan. Pub menus boast Thai green curry and rogan josh alongside ham, egg and chips, and both Bristol and Bath offer an increasingly dazzling choice of global eating. Fancy grabbing a Persian or taking out a Peruvian? Eating Out West’s alternative world food tour takes you in search of those one-off ethnic eating experiences.

We’ll start in South America with Real Brazil (Bristol), newly opened and buzzing with ex-pat Brazilians looking for the taste of home. It’s meat and fish fast food, mainly, with espetinho skewers of beef, smoked sausage and chicken hearts and spicy moqueca fish stews. Saturday-night specials include feijoada, the famously satisfying bean and meat stew.

Peruvian Carlos Huaman shares his family’s recipes at Tambo (Bath). It’s primarily a takeaway, where street-food delicacies include empanada pasties and causa – a mashed potato pie with tuna, avocado, chilli and mayo. Hot favourite is the pork and sweet potato chicharron sandwich served with lime-luscious salsa criolla.

Jump across the Pacific and grab a big bowl of brothy chicken pho or ginger-dressed salad strewn with crushed nuts – typical Vietnamese dishes from Huong Que (Bristol), lightly prepared from aromatically fresh ingredients and bolstered by filling bowls of sticky rice.

It’s a similar story when we reach Korea, via Surakhan (Bristol). Starters of kimchi pancake have that famous crunchy vegetable pickle in a sizzling fritter, while bibimbap is a meal in a pot: rice, vegetables and (optional) shredded meat are topped by a fried egg and traditionally jumbled up at the table to make a filling kedgeree.

Time for an African treat? Iroko (Bristol) also serve their Nigerian food from a stall as part of the StrEAT collective, but in their restaurant you’ll get the full choice, with tongue-tingling jollof rice, pounded yam and the pungent stew of edikang ikon ‘soup’. Check out moin moin, a crushed bean patty rich in dried crayfish.

Long buried beneath Iran, you’ll look in vain for Persia on the map, but Persian culture lives on and Shiraz (Bristol) embodies the famous tradition of warm hospitality as well as serving meltingly spicy marinated kebabs resting on aromatic rice with herb-rich salads and sweet-scented frozen rosewater desserts to die for.

Sadly we’re back in Europe already, but there’s still plenty to discover as Taste of Transylvania (Bristol) demonstrates. Start with crackling (shards of roast pork) and move on to sarmale (meat-stuffed cabbage leaves), succulent mici sausages or ciorba, a cabbage broth served in a hollowed-out wholemeal loaf. Save room for papanasi (sweet cheese doughnuts served with jam).

The rugged island culture of Sardinia has its own distinctive cuisine, with echoes of Italy and France. Aio (Bath) serves up a spread featuring pane guttiau flatbread, coarse fregola couscous with seafood (including the uniquely Sardinian bottarga dried caviar) or goat’s cheese, and melting scamorza - cheese and spinach sandwiched between slices of aubergine.

Almost in sight of home, you should still make one more stop for a solid Irish meal at Farrells (Keynsham), where potted brown shrimps, hearty beef broth, Donegal sea fish stew and gargantuan mixed grills come with slabs of creamy colcannon (mashed potato crunched with cabbage). Actually ‘Irish Italian’, the menu also includes fusion dishes like chicken liver parfait infused with Bushmills whiskey.

Iroko