Q
uestions, questions. Ask your other half/best friend/ mum “Where shall we eat?” and you’re in for a good half hour of increasingly irritable debate and futile TripAdvisoring. And just when you’ve settled that argument, and have your feet under the table at your chosen establishment, the menus arrive. Another dilemma! Especially if you find yourself in one of Exeter’s finest places to eat and drink. Which gave us an idea. Who better to choose our dinner than the people cooking it?
PINK MOON
Head chef Josh Tilt suggests “red pork bao buns” to kick off your feast at the quirky, Queen Street hotspot. “Soft bao buns, tender soy pork and fresh stir fry vegetables – deep, rich flavours, balanced with freshness and acidity.” Josh recommends you then wrap your chops around the “Korean spiced mussels – plump Fowey mussels, Korean spices and sourdough. This dish is delicious, our director James’s absolute favourite. The sauce has such a deep and intense flavour. Then use our beautiful sourdough from Emma’s Bakery on the Quay to soak it up.” Dessert, he reckons, should be “the gingerbread and butterscotch pudding – perfect for the blustery winter nights. The spices from the sponge go perfectly with the smooth flavour from the butterscotch sauce, topped with cream – absolutely perfect to finish a meal off!” www.pinkmooncafe.co.uk
THE PIG AT COMBE
“Devonshire partridge breast, orchard pear in damson wine and rainbow chard,” is head chef Daniel Gavriilidis’s starter choice for you, hungry reader. “The majority of our game birds come either direct from the Combe estate, which we are based on, or from reputable Devon game dealers. Game birds are free range and lean and can be an exciting addition to a meal, as well as continuing a tradition to make sure that it’s sustainable for generations to come. The pears are cooked in a damson wine using damsons from our orchard. Rainbow chard we grow in the kitchen garden throughout most of the year.” Next? More sustainable protein and homegrown veggies from The Pig’s own soil. “Linecaught pollock fillet, roasted heirloom squash and brown chicken sauce. Pollock is a lean fish that rates highly on the sustainability index. We get our fish delivered six days a week and so the quality is as high as possible. “The greens we use for the fish dishes can change throughout the season so in autumn/winter we might use curly kale or hispi cabbage, but it can be easily substituted with perpetual spinach or cavolo nero. “We grow a huge variety of squashes in the kitchen garden over the summer – when autumn/ winter comes and the squashes have cured in storage we start bringing them out. Squashes are really good at heightening the inherent sweetness of fish without being overbearing.
30 I EXETER LIVING I www.mediaclash.co.uk
Bao buns at Pink Moon
The Pig At Combe’s pollock with heirloom squash
“Who better to choose our dinner than the people cooking it?”