Table Talk
A Month of Food By Amanda Menahem
The Food Lab team
W
ell… I thought last month had been
sausages. These turned out to be the best
premises and seem to have a cult following. I am
full-on food wise, but oh no. In May
item – more like pork kofte than a sausage.
assuming they were having a duff night. Cough.
there was the Brighton Festival and
I gobbled these appreciatively as the rest of
the fantastic Brighton and Hove Food Festival,
the food was frankly rather dire. The pork was
providing a dizzying array of innovative dining
extremely gristly to the point that it was almost
experiences. And of course there’s the free
inedible. The salad that accompanied the
Hove Lawns event (my excuse to gorge on
kebab and feta was comprised of flavourless
pulled pork), curated and organised by a
tomatoes, diced white onion (who puts raw
local team of passionate food fanatics, led by
white onion in a salad ffs?) that I had to pick
officially appointed ‘outstanding Brightonian’ Nick Mosely. More about all that later. First up, my inaugural experience of the bohemian Spiegeltent. Residing in Steine
out. The potato was greasy and not crisp.
Further afield I enjoyed a fantastic lunch at Le Magazin in Lewes. What a little gem this is. Good quality well executed Mediterranean style dishes that you really want to eat. I enjoyed a sharing plate of charcuterie, a mozzarella, avocado and tomato salad with excellent homemade pesto followed by a beautifully cooked slow roast pork belly. The fat had
If you’re going to do street food you have to
been rendered away (as it should be) leaving
do it well. Papa Pitta are looking for permanent
just meltingly soft meat and crispy crackling.
Gardens, what a magical place this turns into at this time of year. I can’t believe it’s taken me so long to discover this wondrous pop-up mini hippy festival. Me being me, I was more excited about trying out the street food than any of the shows on offer, in particular the pop-up Cypriot café Papa Pitta. I’d read a local food blogger wax lyrical about it. I do crave a bit of street food and the odd dirty burger here and there, and as I was with my skinflint ex-boyfriend, I knew the price point would please him immensely. It did. We ordered the pork souvlaki for which they are well known, a feta salad, and fried potatoes. We were given some complimentary Cypriot
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Bollywood fun at the Curry Leaf Cafe charity banquet