Dinner at Oddfellows

Last week we had our first restaurant social at an old Slow Food favourite, Oddfellows.

They pride themselves on crafting delicious meals from fresh, local ingredients and have recently started brewing their own beer too! Whilst none of us got round to trying any that night, we did conduct a rather thorough investigation of their menu; here's how we got on...

By 7:30pm, we were all sat down and ready to go! Our table was right next to the kitchen (this photo in fact was practically taken from inside the kitchen) so we could see everything that was going on. 

Sometimes open kitchens can detract from a night out; the clashing of pans and personalities can be a bit too noisy and make the evening feel stressful rather than fun. There is none of this at Oddfellows and so the open kitchen experience is quite an enjoyable one.

Most of us plumped for wine; there's a nice wide selection for those of you who know a thing or two about wine (not me...). There's even a Brut from Devon for those really looking to keep things local!

But now onto the food...

The Starters:

Top to bottom: 

Rabbit and smoked bacon bon bons, English mustard mayo and mustard cress (£6)

Pigeon breast, roasted beetroot, artichoke and red chard salad, honey & cider dressing (£5.50)

Celeriac soup, roasted garlic oil and crusty bread (£4.75)

As soon as the starters arrived, cutlery was seized in anticipation and those of us who hadn't ordered looked on in jealousy as the lucky ones tucked in.

Luckily though, it was soon our turn. The starters were polished off at an impressive speed (with many exclaims of delight in between) and soon we were getting ready for the next course...

The Mains:

From top to bottom:

Roasted cod with pommel puree, roasted tomatoes and mustard butter sauce (£15.50)

Fig, shallot and goat's cheese, rosemary polenta and Madeira dressing (£13)

Pan roasted duck breast, confit leg croquette, peach taste satin, sautéed kale and peach jus (£16)

Oven roasted venison loin, celeriac fondant, mini wild mushroom pie, heritage carrots and damson jus (£16.50)

The mains were even more delicious than the starters. There was a lot of excitement surrounding the mini wild mushroom pie that came with the venison but apart from that, the table pretty much fell silent apart from the sound of blissed-out munching.

I had the cod; the first mouthful was heavenly. It tasted like real comfort food with the roasted fish, the wonderful potato puree and the sauce adding that extra kick. However I do feel that the dish would have benefited from a little less potato and some extra vegetables in its place. There was a lot of potato to get through (don't worry, I did the job) and the flavours became a bit monotonic after a while, especially as there wasn't much sauce to go with the potato. I'd like to see a little more variety on my plate next time but I think this was just down to the dish in question as the meat dishes were much more creative.

My little niggles aside, it should probably be emphasised that as soon as the mains were over, absolutely everyone at the table who hadn't ordered a dessert then proceeded to do so.

The hero of the day was the white chocolate and vanilla panna cotta with elderflower poached raspberries and shortbread (£5.50):

Pretty much everybody had this (until the kitchen ran out! So sad!) and scraped their jars clean.

The flavours were brilliant and half of the texture was absolutely dreamy. I say half because the one I had hadn't settled too well - the top half was very luxurious and creamy whereas the bottom half was a bit gelatinous and almost grainy. Just a small thing though as I was more than satisfied by the smooth bit up top.

The other pudding chosen by our diners was the sticky toffee and ginger pudding with fudge sauce and vanilla ice-cream.

Again, Oddfellows really knows how to do comfort food - it was absolutely delicious!

In all, I think it's safe to say that Slow Food will be returning to Oddfellows. We had a brilliant night and made lots of new friends. The service was great and although we were a large table with plenty of demands throughout the night, everything was prompt and friendly.

Hope to see you next time!

Herbie's Veggie Restaurant

This post originally appeared on La Lingua, one of our committee members' blogs. If you have any food-related posts you'd like to see on our blog, get in touch!

Just a quick one today to share a rather well-known little place around these parts.

Herbies is a vegetarian restaurant which draws in veggies and meaties by the crowd! They have a huge range of vegetarian and vegan dishes and each and every one is quite frankly absolutely delicious! For some reason I've only been twice in the four years I've been an Exeter student but seeing as I have another four years to go, I'm hoping I'll be able to make it a little more often!

Especially with my foodie partner in crime, Charlotte. She's the new Slow Food on Campus society president at the uni and we will be working together for the next academic year again, hooray! She's an absolute babe. Now, all the food you see here was sadly not consumed by just Charlotte and myself as we were out with the rest of the outgoing Slow Food committee (we'll miss you guys!) Happily, everyone was up for sharing, especially as the portions were absolutely huge.

I know that a lot of people might be put off by the sound of a vegetarian restaurant. Lots of people believe that a meal needs meat to be a proper meal. Sometimes when I cook for myself at home, I can understand that - I don't feel full up and I just don't get that feeling of satisfaction (or is that just because I'm greedy?!) We really did not have that problem at Herbies.

If you go, make sure you order the daily salad as your side dish. Don't worry, there are no bowls of sad looking lettuce leaves drizzled in a suspicious looking dressing, it's always much more exciting than that:

I had the carrot and cashew nut loaf with the salads on the side ^ It was so scrummy and such an easy way to get my 5-a-day in! As you may have guessed, food is a bit of an obsession of mine, so much so that I'm actually going to be conducting research on how to get children to eat less junk food and more vegetables (and actually enjoy eating them!) However I think Herbies may have done the job for me. It's not all strictly healthy though...

Now whilst the food was damn good (think deeply rich tomato sauces, fresh vegetables, lightly salted homemade chips and a salsa verde that had us all exclaiming in delight and begging the chef for the recipe) I would go one step further and say that if you've already had dinner, it's worth going there for the dessert alone. Each and every single one was exquisite. I know. I tried them all. It might not look like much from the outside, the decor may be pared down and simple, they may not serve meat. But if you are in Exeter, you will regret not paying Herbies a visit.