The Full Moon

Home

The Full Moon

• I’m more used to The Full Moon’s late-night mode – live bands in The Attic, DJs in the bar, amiable crushes of people everywhere – so it was a pleasant surprise to check out the food in the early evening and find a completely different atmosphere, albeit one with an equally tasteful soundtrack. Friends had extolled the reasonably priced food for its quality ingredients (local, seasonal, organic etc), so when I needed to meet some folk for an early-evening bite it seemed an ideal rendezvous. Arriving just after 6pm, there was a nice café-bar buzz going on, with tables full all around and a mix of coffee-chatting, after-work pinting and meal-eating under way. We found a good table and did that usual pub thing of exchanging an order for a wooden spoon, but from that point on the feel was of a very good bistro. A friendly and efficient Spanish barman immediately set up the table with full cutlery and napkins before promptly delivering the starters – a plate of olives, hummus and bread and a pile of mini spring rolls with sweet chilli sauce. That bit was fairly predictable (although the hummus had a pleasantly smoky taste and a welcome bit of crunch) but, nicely, he also realised one of our party had ordered cheesy chips as a main course (I know – don’t ask!) so quickly returned with a proper place setting even for that humble order.

The rest of us, being civilised, were having ‘proper’ main courses from the specials board. The previously complicated regular menu has recently been stripped back to pub grub basics but that blackboard is always worth a look, it seems. In due course there arrived haloumi and roast vegetable wrap with chips and salad, gammon egg ’n’ chips and slow-roast pork belly with mash and a little jug of mustard gravy. All nicely presented and evincing the happy noises you might associate with cheesy chips, to judge by our companion. The wrap was mine and jolly fine, too – cut into usefully sized bits with a lightly dressed salad and crisp chips. The gammon was a smooth, moist and generous plateful, but we all agreed the pork belly was the Top Tip, a serious chunk of meat with a slab of crisp crackling. Conversation flowed like beer, everybody was well-fed and happy and the food bill came to £32, including cheesy chips. How good is that? (Tony Benjamin)

THE FULL MOON STOKES CROFT, BRISTOL, BS1 3PR, TEL: 0117 924 5007, WEB: WWW.MYSPACE.COM/ATTICLIVESESSIONS