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Saturday, November 10, 2012
25
food & drink eating out M
ELLA Walker spends an afternoon in the Arts Picturehouse café-bar.
e, use Cambridg Arts Pictureho ew’s Street, 38-39 St Andr 2 3AR. Cambridge, CB 20, 57 Tel: 08719 02 s.co.uk/ ouse www.pictureh urehouse_ ict cinema/Arts_P ge Cambrid
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AMP shoes, frizzing hair and fraying tempers – shopping with your boyfriend, in the rain, is never a good plan. Especially when you’re starving and can’t find any decent ankle boots to buy in the whole of Cambridge.
So, instead of disappointing sandwiches at the nearest coffee shop chain, my boyfriend Sam and I decided to hole up (and dry out) at the Arts Picturehouse cafébar for the afternoon. In desperate need of a sugar hit after trudging round the shops for hours (and hours . . .), we ordered cokes and sat in a nook by the window, smugly looking down on the drizzly street below. Drenched in ruby reds and splashes of gold, the raised cafébar, dotted with comfy leather chairs, is a perfect date venue (it’s quirky, affordable and you couldn’t be much closer to a cinema screen) and has a lovely secretive feel to it. This is partly down to it being cosily hidden up and away from the bustle of The Regal, and, if you’re a member (which guarantees 10 per cent off all food and drink), it almost feels like your very own private club. The chatty atmosphere buzzes with whatever films are starting or emptying and the food is all made from scratch, using locally sourced produce whenever possible. We considered going for the Picturehouse platter (a glut of warm garlic bread, cheddar cheese, gherkins, red onion marmalade, apple sauce, marinated tomatoes and onions, and more) to start but fears of being too full to dip into the cake cabinet afterwards convinced us to stick to the burger menu. Non-meat eaters can have quorn instead and there are lots of quirky salads to choose from too, but I went for the red pepper and barbecue sauce burger while Sam opted for one topped with red onion marmalade and slivers of halloumi cheese. They both came nestled between slabs of toasted ciabatta
PICTURE PERFECT: The menu in the plush surroundings features 100 per cent lean beef burgers and sweet potato fries
taste test
, s: From noon Opening hour ek, until just we seven days a the last film of after the start ss: Yes Disabled acce two including for Cost: A meal under £30. t drinks was jus Food: **** Service: *** ** Ambience: ** : ***** ey Value for mon
A night at the movies, a day in the café-bar and served with a side of chips so huge it almost spilled off the plate. That’s not a complaint by the way. The chips – sweet potato fries to be exact – were half the reason we’d planned to eat here. Richer than your average classic cut chip, they were swoon-worthy: salty and crisp on the outside, soft and smooth in the middle. My burger was incredible. A refreshing red pepper and tomato salad cut through the sweet and sticky barbecue sauce, stuffed against a homemade, 100 per cent lean beef patty and a dollop of spicy mustard remoulade. After the first bite, our shoulders sagged happily, words like “delicious” got bandied about and our plan to split our burgers down the middle and have half-and-half each got abandoned – they were too good to share. The cake stand was still calling to me once we’d finished but the
burger portions were so epic I couldn’t quite justify nipping straight back up to the counter . . . well, not for a minute or two . Luckily, it’s easy to just linger/digest at the Picturehouse. You can leaf through the day’s papers, read up on the latest film releases or come over all literary, penning that novel you always meant to write. You could even make a day of it and spend all afternoon sipping coffee and eating cake, then all evening drinking wine, nibbling popcorn and watching a film wedged in one of the cinema’s retro red velvet seats. The sugary wafts of popcorn eventually wore me down though and I couldn’t help but order the Picturehouse special: a chocolate, custard coconut slice, washed down with stolen sips from Sam’s filter coffee. It was tough to drag ourselves away . . .
Wine Match with Mark Anstead Every week the founder of Cambridgeshire Wine School seeks out the best wines to accompany Living’s recipes. For some reason I’m suddenly very keen on sweet potatoes. I gather there are various health benefits over ordinary potatoes, but the reason I love them is that when you roast them their flesh turns beautifully caramelised. So I’m delighted to see a roasted sweet potato recipe this week (opposite), but my wine choice is
not influenced by the actual potato – it doesn’t contribute strong enough flavours. The thing about Jewish dishes is they often contain salty and pickled flavours not natural matches for wine. So in that case choose soft Sauvignon Blancs (eg Bordeaux whites) or lighter Chardonnays. Or go for wine that comes from a country near Israel like Lebanon, which is currently firmly on the radar among wine critics. It also shares many of the same
culinary influences as Israel. Majestic and Noel Young Wines both stock Lebanese wines, but none under £10 (Lebanon is a country in difficulty and rising up the price point is the only way to guarantee reliable quality). Majestic have Chateau Musar 2004 white (£16.99), which I'd be tempted to try with the roasted sweet potato. They also have a cheaper red wine from Musar (the Hochar, £10.49) a rustic blend of Cabernet Sauvignon, Cinsault and Carignan, which would match the stuffed aubergine with lamb. G Christmas Gifts! A range of Wine Tasting gift experiences available at www.Cambridge shireWineSchool.com.