Breakfast at No. 1 Polsloe

Now that I've got your attention with a big fat picture of bacon on pancakes, I'd like to introduce you to your new favourite hangover hangout.

No. 1 Polsloe is, surprisingly, right on the corner of Polsloe Road (opposite Henry's and Beer Box). It used to be known as the Living Room but reopened with a new name and a slightly new image.

I headed inside one bright Saturday morning to see what they offer.

Inside was bustling, with every table full. We managed to grab one as some others were leaving and settled into our seats. The wonderful smell of breakfast and the happy chatter of the customers filled the warm air.

And it's no wonder they were so happy. Just look at these prices!

Now surely somewhere that cheap can't be that good? Surely the portions are tiny? Or the food is bland and stale tasting? Think again!

Strawberry milkshake £2.50

Crumpets with butter £1.50

Croissant with butter £1.50

Breakfast sarnie with added egg £3.50
(Just look at those doorstop slices! And that oozing butter! And the fresh eggs! And the bacon!)

Pancakes with honey and Greek yoghurt (sans banana) £3.00

And of course those naughty bacon pancakes we started with that cost only £3.50. 

Now if that's not the perfect pitstop after a heavy night out, I don't know what is!

You can enjoy your food in a casual atmosphere (although you might be jostling for a table at peak times!) Luckily we caught the tail end of breakfast and watched as the cafe slowly emptied out until we were the last ones left (I can eat a lot. I had the crumpets and the banana pancakes, not pictured). 

If you need more of an excuse to pay them a visit, check out their twitter, here:

https://twitter.com/no1polsloe

Enjoy!

Al-Farid Review

Hello everyone! We thought it was about time we show you some of the amazing places to eat in Exeter. We are so lucky to have lots of little tea shops, independent restaurants, and food markets at our fingertips that it was a challenge to choose the first one to review.

However, I can tell you from experience that nothing solves the misery of deadlines like a meal out with my girlies (or guys if you like)! We chose to go to Al Farid, a gorgeous little Moroccan restaurant on Cathedral Yard, and I cannot rave about it enough. It serves the most amazing traditional Moroccan dishes in rooms which will make you feel like you're eating in a tent in Marrakesh! Apologies for not taking a photo of the décor but it really is something which needs to be seen in person. You have the option of sitting upstairs with tables and chairs, or downstairs with sofas and floor cushions, or even outside on the shisha balcony!

I should definitely point out that the main reason we went was the deal that they were offering; the offer a different deal every weekday making this place totally student friendly! We went on a Thursday so we had 3 mezze (a Moroccan style of tapas) and a glass of house wine for £15. I personally wasn't sure that 3 dishes each would be enough, but by gosh was I wrong. I eat a lot, and I mean A LOT, but I was stuffed afterwards! Also the choice of dishes was huge, ranging from hummus, to lamb kebabs, to stuffed vine leaves.

Between the three of us we had (deep breath!) hummus, falafel, calamari, stuffed vine leaves, spicy meatballs, lamb shish, fig and goats cheese parcels, stuffed peppers and baba ganoush.

Here's a photo of most of the dishes - they wouldn't all fit into one photo, let alone on the table.
(Apologies for the poor quality; my phone failed me in the low lighting!)

I can tell you, you would not be disappointed if you ordered any of these dishes, though my personal favourite was the fig and goats cheese parcels...and the hummus... and the lamb shish...and the..., well you see where this is going.

My special attention went to the calamari; I am a massive calamari fan. Sharing it was one of those 'yes of course you can have some of MY food' moments, and as you can see, it looks pretty goddamn amazing:

All the food was terrific though. You definitely need to have a conversation (or binding contract_ about sharing food before you go, just to get any potential food envy out the way!

Needless to say, all the food went down well:

Conclusion: This is the absolute perfect place to go if you're looking for somewhere a bit different in the evening. There are no burgers or sweet potato fires in sight! I really cannot urge you to go any more. I'm taking my Mother there when she comes to visit so that I can get my hands on some tagine, but this is equally the perfect place to go for a lively evening with friends!

Top tip: The olives are freaking amazing. Just get them!

Winter Warmers: Veggie Soup at the Slow Food Cookery Class

Here at Slow Food on Campus Exeter, we've really been feeling the cold weather lately. It may be March and the evenings may be getting longer but things certainly aren't warming up quite yet.

And in our opinion, there's no better way to warm the soul than a good bowl of fresh, homemade soup. It'll heat you up, inside and out, all the better better to keep you going this winter in our chilly student houses!

So that's exactly what we got up to at our last cookery class...

Step 1: The Ingredients.

We buy ours from The Real Food Store in Exeter (click for link).  This means all our ingredients are fresh and local - and covered in mud! The first task was to roll our sleeves up and get stuck in at the sinks.

Step 2: The Demonstration

Charli from Slow Food on Campus took us through a demonstration of her Mum's parsnip and ginger soup. The theme of the evening was chop the ends off and slice the vegetables up - nice and simple!

Step 3: Get stuck in!

After a short demonstration, everybody was ready to get started. It was only 6:30pm but stomachs were already beginning to rumble...

The cookery classes are quite relaxed and informal; everybody hangs out and has a bit of a chat whilst they work. It's nice to come with friends or it's a really good way to meet new (food-obsessed) people on campus.

Our second soup of the evening was a cauliflower and apple recipe brought along by the society's president, Bethan. 

After a similar, quick demonstration, we were ready to go again and before long it was time to put the knives away and get cooking!

The ingredients went in the pot and the heat was turned up. There was nothing left to do but wait.

Now, what's a good soup without anything to dip into it?

The second part of the class revolved around a brilliant way to turn old, stale bread into a delicious treat.

First, we crushed our garlic into some butter...

And then we mashed it up!

And where's the best place to put garlic butter?

Right

in the middle

of a delicious baguette.

And conveniently, everything was ready at just about the same time (thanks to the handy chef on site who blitzed our soups for us once the veg had cooked - thank you!)

We were really, really, really hungry by this point.

Luckily, the cooking classes also come with a taster session tacked on the end.

Which essentially means "one giant rugby scrum free-for-all to see who can eat the most".

I'm ashamed to admit that I positioned myself right at the end of the table so that I could make a quick getaway back to the kitchen for more soup!

But it really was so delicious - both soups were real winners with everybody there and when we voted at the end, the parsnip soup only won by a couple of extra votes!

Despite our efforts, there were plenty of leftovers. I learnt my most important lesson that evening; always take a tupperware to the cookery classes.

Nevertheless, after much mess, I managed to pour a portion into my water bottle.

A great success!

If you want to recreate the class' winner at home, here's the recipe:

Parsnip and Ginger Soup
Feeds 6-8

• 2 carrots
• 2 sticks of celery
• 2 medium onions
• 800g parsnip
• A thumb-sized piece of fresh root ginger (we find it's best to add a little more than this!)
• 2 cloves of garlic
• Olive oil
• Veggie or chicken stock (we used veggie)
• Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
• 4 sprigs of fresh coriander

1. Peel (where necessary) and roughly chop the carrots, onions, parsnip, ginger, celery and garlic
2. Heat 2 tablespoons of olive oil over a medium heat in a large pan
3. Put the chopped veg in the pan and stir with a wooden spoon for 10 minutes - the carrots should have softened a little and the onion should be turning golden 
4. Make the stock up with 1.8 litres of boiling water and pour it in
5. Bring to the boil
6. Stir and let it simmer for 10 minutes with the pot lid askew
7. Season with salt and pepper to taste
8. Garnish with fresh coriander

Ta da! A wonderfully simple and insanely delicious recipe for these chilly winter evenings! Enjoy!

P.s don't forget to buy local where you can!

A Very Slow Christmas

Merry Christmas to all from the Slow Food Society at the University of Exeter!

In case you haven't already had enough of turkey and sprouts, here's a special post about our Christmas meal this term and some of our committee's favourite Christmas traditions! So grab a cup of tea or coffee or mulled wine (definitely that one) and snuggle up warm...

The Slow Food on Campus society has been going to the Rusty Bike for the annual Christmas meal for a couple of years.

And for good reason too; the pub is famous amongst locals and visitors alike for its exceptional selection of locally sourced dishes and ales (with a rather exciting wine and spirits list too, if you're that way inclined!)

A peek at their website reveals the following:

"Our aim is to minimize the distance from producer to plate. We opened our own pig farm as part of that vision, but break-ins and poachers shooting five of the herd put a stop to that. Not giving up however, we source all of our meat direct from the farms around Exeter:  rare breed Pork from Haldon Hill, Ruby Beef from Dartmoor and lamb from Langford.
We have forged strong ties with local land owners and game keepers where we shoot our own venison, pheasant, rabbit and pigeon for the pot, and we use only line-caught fish. Bicton College supply us with fantastic rose veal and a small amount of hops for our brewery. You will often find us foraging in the hedges for wild garlic, dandelions and berries, and we bloody love it.

Put all this together with a talented and dedicated team of chefs and friendly hospitable staff out front and its pretty close to our idea of the perfect pub."

And ours too!

The committee got there half an hour early to have a quick meeting.

For us bloggers, that turned into a bottle of wine too.

Pretty soon the rest of the eager diners began to arrive and before long, we had a full table of very excited foodies.

The Christmas menu was really hard to choose from:

To Start

Potato, onion & garlic soup 

Smoked Salmon, dill & pickled cucumber

Beef, beetroot & carrot terrine 

Home cured charcuterie plate

Salt cod, soft egg & aioli

To Follow

Roast Devon Turkey with all the trimmings

Braised ruby red beef, mash, onion gravy & roasted carrots

Slow roasted pork, green lentils, smoked sausage & thyme

Grilled hake, tomato, fennel & white anchovy

Field mushroom, parmesan & parsley risotto

To Finish

Christmas pudding & brandy sauce

Devon cheeseboard

Dark chocolate mousse, orange syrup & vanilla cream

Bread & butter pudding & custard

Sticky toffee pudding 

Cheese Board

2 Courses @ £20 per person 

3 Courses @ £25 per person 

So much so that, having chosen a few weeks earlier, none of us could quite remember which delicious option we had gone for!

We started with a quick speech from society President Bethan welcoming everyone to the Christmas meal before pulling our crackers and letting the festivity flow!

And it wasn't long at all before our delicious starters arrived!

Smoked salmon always makes an appearance at Christmas in my house. What do you have for your Christmas starter?

The charcuterie plate looked equally as delicious!

For some of our diners, it was the first time trying out a traditional British Christmas dinner!

Needless to say though, we were all equally excited.

Now some people save their traditional roast for Christmas day itself.

In my family, we stop having Sunday roasts for at least six weeks before Christmas so that lunch on the 25th is extra special.

I went for the mushroom risotto, a delicious, thick, creamy and rich dish. Considering that I'd already had smoked salmon and a huge hunk of freshly baked bread for my starter, I'm a little embarrassed that I managed to finish the whole thing; it was huge!!

The traditional turkey with all the trimmings was just as impressive, if not more so.

A good introduction to the traditional Christmas dinner for our international members.

Juliana (above), our treasurer tells us about her Christmas traditions:

Merry Christmas everyone!

Christmas morning my whole family wakes up really early to have breakfast, normally poached eggs with smoked salmon on brioche toast. 

After breakfast we then practice our annual Christmas dance where all four of my sister's make up a dance and song before we can open our presents. 

After that we all have large amounts of Christmas confectionery (normally shortbread, which one of us will get as a stocking filler present) and then we have a Christmas lunch, with all the trimmings,we alternate between goose and Turkey usually  all handmade by my dad. 

After lunch we then snack on mince pies, Christmas puddings and the rest of the chocolates.

For Ros (above) our PR assistant from the Netherlands, the meal at the Rusty Bike marked her first ever traditional roast Christmas dinner:

In our house, Christmas starts on Christmas eve. 

We usually have an intimate dinner, just my parents, the cat and me and watch Love Actually together, which is a family tradition and a BIG DEAL. First of all, we count all the times the characters say ‘actually’. We got to 24 this year, a new record! Then we have the same old discussion about how Love Actually is one of the best films ever made and is gravely underestimated, because it is undisputedly the best film in its genre and that the Dutch remake (Alles is Liefde, meaning Everything is Love/Love is Everywhere, as in Love is Actually all around, get it?) is absolute shit compared to this Richard Curtis jewel. We bombard each other with LA trivia and talk about whether ‘romantic comedy’ does the film justice, because yes, it has romance and humour and a happy end, but not everyone lives happily ever after, do they? What about Mark, who’ll never get Juliet? What about Sarah? What about Karen, who stayed with Harry, but knows life will always be a little bit worse? We end the discussion with lamenting on the fact that they cut the storyline of Karen’s horrid son Bernard and his headmistress. Like I said: Love Actually is a big deal in our house . 

The last hour before we go to bed, we spend dancing around the room listening to bands from the ‘60s - ‘80s. Oh and we always, always, always listen to Bing Crosby & David Bowie singing The Little Drummer Boy / Peace On Earth: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DiXjbI3kRus


On Christmas day, the whole family goes to grandma’s (I’m about to leave, actually) where we go for a walk through the nearby forest, watch videos of ourselves and our parents when we/they were young (grandma’s filmed everything, she always has a camera in her hand) and have a massive Christmas meal. And I mean massive. Last year, there were 17(!) courses!
Pictures of the massive meal will follow 


Have a love(actual)ly Christmas everyone!

For me (blog editor Lucy - above) the Rusty Bike was definitely not my first Christmas dinner!

Christmas follows a rather predictable pattern in our house.

The first thing to happen is that my Dad will never get my mum's Christmas present in time and will leave it down to my sister and I. Considering we got home on the 21st this year, that meant seriously stressful shopping on the 22nd! We're going to do it online (and probably in July) next year.

Next, Mum goes absolutely crazy and starts panic-buying. She'll text us asking if we want Uggs or other unnecessary things that we can't really afford. You can guarantee that anything you briefly mention in the run-up to Christmas will magically appear under the tree on Christmas morning. I didn't ask for anything this year so I'm hoping there will be a little less excess this time.

We all go to church on Christmas Eve with my oldest friend and her family. It's the same service every year in this beautiful old church in the town of Sandwich. Even though I'm 22 and my little sister is 20, we all take part in the children's christingle procession - it would break tradition not to! Oh, and my friend Madeleine and I never fail to burst into giggles at the line "appeared a shining throng" in the carol 'While Shepherds Watched Their Flocks' so maybe we are kind of like children after all. After, we go back to their house and have dinner together.

On Christmas morning we wake up and take our stockings into our parents' room to open them. We then usually have pancakes for breakfast and sometimes go for a walk. The alcohol starts flowing pretty early and we're glugging prosecco by the bottle by midday whilst we nibble on smoked salmon "nibbly bits" (smoked salmon wrapped around smoked salmon pate). We open some presents whilst Mum and Dad work away in the kitchen and then open more after our dinner - a full on affair with turkey, potatoes, sprouts, broccoli, carrot and parsnip mash, Yorkshire puddings, bread sauce, cranberry sauce, stuffing, red cabbage and cauliflower cheese. I'd like to say it was all made by hand but a fair bit of it comes from packets - I still think it's the best roast dinner ever though. And as a vegetarian, I have veggie sausages instead of turkey!

Afterwards we finish opening presents, stick a film on and munch chocolates and other goodies whilst descending into a boozy haze. We always go for an evening walk to look at all of the other Christmas lights but Mum has broken her toe so we might have to pass this year!

It's quite quiet on Christmas day in our house - just the four of us and the dog - but we have a couple of Christmas parties with our extended families in the days after!

Charlotte (blog writer), starts her Christmas Day traditions with presents as soon as the sun rises.
She says 'I just can't help myself, I run into my brother's room as soon as I'm sure I can't get to sleep again!
Then we head downstairs to open our stockings and all the presents under the tree, followed by our traditional breakfast - poached eggs, smoked salmon, ham and bread...with bucks fizz of course.
We all have a nap before my family of four are joined by a couple of close friends to enjoy a cracking 3 course meal. (As I write this, I am between main course and dessert! A break is much needed!)
We never have turkey (GASP!) This year we had a mix of chicken, pork and beef... I'm greatly looking forward to our dessert of creme brulee, my mother's special. Merry Christmas everyone!'

Bethan (above, left) our President and Charli our PR and Social Sec tell us about their Christmas routines:

Bethan: Christmas morning I always wake up very early and open my stocking presents in bed. I then play with them/ go back to sleep till its deemed a suitable time, then my sisters and I all go into my mums room and show her what we have got and she opens her stocking too. We then have a large breakfast of eggs ham and salmon and don't really stop eating after that. My grandparents come over mid morning and we do Christmas tree presents before our Christmas lunch- always very traditional with Turkey, vegetables, bread sauce, pigs in blankets etc. We end the day all collapsed in front of the tv watching doctor who and Downton abbey and feeling extremely full and sleepy.

Charli: We always have our stockings at the end of our beds on Christmas Eve and expect our parents to be able to sneak in and fill them (even now!) My sister wakes everyone up at silly o'clock in the morning and we all go downstairs, Christmas CD on, to open pressies. My mum and my aunt alternate Christmases at each other's houses, but both of them are fantastic cooks so we always have the most amazing food. And always on the table are sausage meat stuffing balls, from a secret family recipe. And of course Christmas pudding which my Grandma makes months in advance from another secret recipe. And fruit salad with a secret ingredient. We are all about traditional foodie secrets!

Slow Food can confirm that Charli was indeed woken up at silly o'clock - she was posting photos to our Facebook page from 6am.

Like all good Christmas meals, ours ended with a good old traditional Christmas pudding.

We've still got ours to set alight later tonight. What have you been doing today? Share your Christmas traditions in the comments below!