Crafty Chooks

Posted on July 15, 2015December 15, 2023 by jennyinbrighton

On Saturday I tried to go to Crafty Chooks for the third time. First time was just after it opened as my friend worked there, but we just had drinks outside on a sunny bank holiday. Secondly, we were hungry and wanted chicken, but it turns out 8pm on a Friday is a busy time and we couldn’t get a table. Finally though. Saturday. We made it. After a long afternoon of chilling in the sunshine and ridiculous amount of Brighton seafront wind, we wanted some nom and as part of my long on going argument with Dan to prove that Hove is just as fun and cool as Kemptown we headed here.

Crafty Chooks does – you guessed it – rotisserie chicken and craft beers. Placed down on Second Avenue in the shell of the Tin Drum (and directly across the road from my friends former flat), I have the advantage that it’s super close to my house. We booked a table this time and got seated in the bar next to a rather noisy table of drinkers (we were offered a table in the restaurant once a table had finished, but by that point we had our drinks and were too lazy to move) in the window so we could rudely stare at every person that walked past/in the door. The restaurant end is cosily decorated with soft lighting and wood panels, the bar end feels more open and conveniently has the word ‘bar’ in big red letters.

The drinks menu features five beers on tap, 10 craft bottles and another 12 ciders and beers. Plus sprits, cocktails and soft drinks (side note: there are only three gins). Not too shabby. One Sol and Old Mout later, we are tucking into one chicken burger (skinny fries substituted for chunky chips) and one steak burger (skinny fries substituted for sweet potato wedges).

The burgers were a good size (aka it just about fit in my mouth without having to cut it up) in a nice round brioche bun. The wedges and chips were big and plentiful, I think I ate an entire sweet potato. Slight crisp to the outside and a soft squishy middle, my wedges were perfect. With sweet potato fries being in abundance on menus across the city, it was nice to see a slight variance on this and the wedges were winning because they were basically mash in a nice shell. My steak burger was nicely cooked, I did ask for it pink in the middle which didn’t happen but there we go. Served with emmental cheese, onion marmalade and dill pickle, the burger was juicy and soft. The addition of chilli sauce and sour cream helped a lot – but honestly chilli sauce and sour cream make everything better.

"How was the chicken burger?" — “How was the chicken burger?”

Terrible burger review aside, Dan was also unconvinced by the giant chips because “they’re too soft in the middle and not crispy enough on the outside. I don’t like big chips”. This coming from the boy that deliberately ordered the thick cut chips instead of the French fries. I snaffled the last one and they are indeed very soft in the middle – but I think that’s a good thing. Just me?

By this time it was 9pm on a Saturday, and like the cool kids we are, we headed home because our afternoon of sunshine was too much for us and we were tired. With the bill coming to around £30 (would have been less except we both substituted our fries) for a burger, chips and drink, I think it’s pretty good value. Not the best burger I’ve ever eaten, but also certainly not the worst. If you’re looking for an afternoon to evening place, I think this is a winner. The outside patio is good in the sunshine, and features heaters for when it gets colder. They also have a fairly extensive sandwich and salad board, along with the option to have half/a whole chicken so I think there is something for everyone.

If you fancy checking them out, you can find out more on their website, Facebook and Twitter.

Don’t forget you can follow me on Twitter for daily ramblings about my life and on Instagram for various blurry photos that are mostly of food and books and Brighton.

The Salt Room

Posted on February 23, 2015May 15, 2015 by jennyinbrighton

I’m going to start by apologising. I actually went to The Salt Room a week ago. Then I was lazy and it was my housemates birthday and I was lazy again. But here we go.

So because said housemate (thanks Jenny Bernarde!) does some of The Salt Room’s marketing, we got invited to the soft launch on Wednesday (ahead of the main opening on the Friday. I felt well fancy) where we got 50% off food which was even more exciting. I’ve been following The Salt Room on Twitter since they announced it, then they released the menu the day before we went so I was very much looking forward to going.

From the outside the building looks slick and upmarket – a long terrace across the front of the Hilton which opens in the summer and is heated in the winter gives views over ~~the main road~~ the seafront with the Palace Pier to the left, the West pier to the right. We walk in to find the standard exposed brick that now features in every pub and restaurant combined with fresh white walls and great lighting (until it gets a bit later when the light drops and we have a few issues reading the menu).

We were seated at our table next to the window (lovely views in the summer I’m sure, night time in February – slightly less so) and started pouring over the drinks menu. A long list of wine, cocktails and a special gin and Tonica menu with no Bombay Sapphire in sight (hurrah!). I settled for the Garden Fizz – beefeater gin, sage, dried citrus, lemon and bitters. These are my favourite things (admittedly sage isn’t usually in my cocktails but gin and lemon are made for each other) so I was very happy. The gin and tonic of the birthday girl came in a balloon glass which, according to our waitress, holds a pint of liquid. I’m currently finding some for my flat.

Now the food:

Starters – one lobster and shellfish cocktail, one salt baked and smoked beetroot with goat curd, cocoa nibs and blood orange. I can only vouch for the beetroot, but it’s safe to say my saying “everything is better smoked” remains true for beetroot. The only thing I would have changed would be to have a slightly smaller piece of beetroot – mine was quite large and after a while you realise you are just eating a whole beetroot. Lovely as it was, perhaps just slightly smaller in the future.

Mains – one steak (ordered well done but arrived beautifully pink in the middle), one shrimp and crab burger and one spiced monkfish (mine).

The monkfish was meaty and soft – my complaint here was that it appeared to be a big medallion of flesh, only to dive in and find the big tailbone running through the middle (and sadly I felt it was too nice a place to pick the bone up and suck the flesh off). That aside, it was lovely. Pickled cauliflower and ginger were wonderful and went well with the subtly spiced monkfish.

Having stolen a piece of crab burger, I want to go back purely to eat more of that. Small shrimps combined with crab meat made for an interesting burger – a mix of textures from the meaty shrimp and the flaky crab work well with the bun and flavoured mayo. The fries that accompanied the burger and the steak were salty and crispy and perfect – and it’s nice to not see sweet potato fries on a menu for once!

As our dishes were whisked away we started lusting over the pudding that had been delivered to the table next to us. Made to share, the Taste of the Pier platter features candy floss, mini 99’s, donuts, marshmallows, chocolate pebbles and honeycomb. Unfortunately our full bellies didn’t allow us to order one but next time I’ll forgo the starter to give it a good go!

Whilst the food was wonderful, there were a few little problems. Whilst they were super quick taking our order, we waited over 15 minutes for our drinks, 25 minutes for our after dinner drinks which never arrived so we asked for the bill, which took another 10 minutes to arrive. The lobster and shellfish cocktail had bits of shell throughout which was tricky to see through the sauce leaving my companion to pick bits out of his mouth (super attractive). I presume these are all teething issues that will be worked out when they’ve been open a bit longer. The 50% off food helped to make me not mind about the waiting, and I would certainly go back again.

I want to go back to try all of the gins. And all of the cocktails. And should probably give the wine list a good go. Then it’s on to the steak, the crab and prawn burger, the fire roasted crab claws, the raw beef, the cured salmon, the turbot, the taste of the pier…

Basically all of the food and drink. In my belly. Preferably with someone else picking up the bill.

You can perv on The Salt Room’s menus on their website www.saltroom-restaurant.co.uk and they’re on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook.

If you enjoy my rambling I’m on Twitter and my blurry pictures are on Instagram.

H.en – a review

Posted on January 26, 2015December 15, 2023 by jennyinbrighton

Thanks to working with Laura Evans, I find out about new restaurants because she gets invited to openings and to review them (check out Places I Eat). When she mentioned H.en – a nicer Nandos – I gave it a google. Never, I repeat NEVER, google ‘hen Brighton’. All that comes up are photos and articles showcasing the worst of Brighton (take note potential hen parties: you are not welcome here. We [I] hate you). But I persevered and found their menu online and forced the boy to join me for dinner there on Friday evening. We arrived about 8.30pm and we rounded customer numbers up to 10. I was expecting it to be busier, but this always happens when we go out before pay day. The restaurant is decorated as most new restaurants in Brighton are – unfinished walls and tables, a less is more kinda thing.

So we took a table in the corner and one of the staff bought over their menus. The options are a quarter or half a chicken with two sides, or (as we went for) a chicken burger (plus a veggie burger option). We both went for sweet potato fries with our burgers (the other options: corn on the cob, salad or halloumi) because we, like the majority of Brighton, are pretty obsessed with sweet potato fries.

The burgers arrived and we were very excited. Sauces were delivered in three little bottles – the Herbie, the Miles and the Duke. Sadly, the teeny tiny nozzles get a bit blocked, and my childish impatience led to one of the most embarrassing things I’ve ever done. As I squeezed the bottle to try to get some sauce out, the lid popped off and sauce hit my plate with such force that it rebounded over the table, my fries, my face, my hair and my clothes. Obviously as this point I yelled quite loudly and Dan laughed at me. A lot. Luckily we had sat at the table nearest the toilet so I ran out and hid in the toilet to wipe my face and hair clean and slunk back in to eat my dinner.

The photo of my plate is after I had cleaned up the table. Face not shown.

Sauce was literally everywhere. But anyway. The food. The burger was huge. It was basically half a fried chicken in a bun. A big pot of fries to go with it. I really enjoyed my meal (post sauce explosion) but I had two issues (other than the sauce bath). Firstly, bits of the chicken burger were quite dry which I can only assume is because parts of it were so thick (but I had lots of sauce in my plate so I managed with that easily enough) and secondly the fries were more like stumps. The fries themselves were probably some of the best sweet potato fries I’ve eaten in Brighton, but the average length of each chip was about 1cm.

But moving on to the good bits. The fried chicken was nice and crispy and not soggy and greasy. The sauces were delicious (what was left of them anyway). The Herbie was light and citrusy, the Miles had a nice tomato warmth to it and the Duke had a nice chili kick that I LOVE in a sauce. All worked brilliantly with the burger, and I imagine a grilled chicken portion would be delicious dunked in all three of these. The bottles were an issue, and as we left we heard another table suggesting they put them in pots instead so you can actually get them onto your plate. H.en say on their website that they are the first “local and happy (high welfare) chicken shop”. I wasn’t able to work out from the taste whether my chicken was free-range but there was certainly a lot of meat. And it made me happy so I’d like to think the chicken was happy as well.

I am definitely planning on going back to H.en. But next time, I’m going to unscrew the lids from the sauce bottles.

To save yourself the horrors of drunk women stumbling around Brighton, you can check out H.en’s website here: www.henrestaurant.com/ and they are on Twitter here.

If you like my ramblings then I too am on Twitter and for more food and gin photos, check out my Instagram

Makara, Hove – review

Posted on December 17, 2014May 15, 2015 by jennyinbrighton

I don’t want to start this post with a lie so I’m going to be open and say it: I’ve had a few glasses of wine. I also forgot that I am now a ‘blogger’ so I have one photo of my food, and it’s not the food-porn Instgrammed photo you’re all hoping for. But more of that later.

So today was our work dinner. After trying and failing to get into Curry Leaf Cafe, we settled on Makara on Church Road, Hove. I walk past this place twice a day to get to and from work and every day I think “oh, that looks nice”. And that is about as far as it went.

When it got suggested in the office I did as we all do, instantly googled it and read the menu every ten minutes throughout the day trying to decide what sounded best. After a cheeky glass of wine at Blind Busker, we trekked the 10 feet across the road and entered the restaurant. The first thing that hits you is a wall of heat. Then the smell. Oh my that smell. The smell of meat and spice and everything nice. We got seated at our table at the back and ordered some wine (white) and water for the table. The water arrived in the fashionable Kilner bottles that are super trendy and everywhere yet I still want desperately for my flat. Along with the water came some hummus and hot, greasy flatbread that was beautiful on an empty stomach and a glass of wine (I realise greasy sounds like a negative review but I actually mean this in the best way, it was delicious!)

We decided that the best idea for seven people would be to get two of the cold mezze to share plus hot starters. We (I) specifically requested the vine leaves to be included in the cold mezze (6 of the cold starters) but apart from that we left it to them. We got a selection of artichoke (which sadly got nommed before it got passed down to my end of the table), vine leaves, hummus, cacik (yogurt and cucumber), kisir (bulgur with onion and tomato) and more. The vine leaves were minty and fresh as hoped, and the bread went beautifully with the various forms of hummus/yogurt dip. Looking back now as I write this, I should have asked exactly what we were eating. Alas, it is too late. For hot starters we had falafel balls (crispy on the outside and yummy in the middle and served with more hummus), grilled halloumi (which is basically the food of the gods and so can never be wrong or bad with its squeaky goodness) and prawns with garlic and chili (which had a very good spicy kick to them, which when paired with one of the yogurt dressings was a delight).

Our waitress was really nice and attentive despite it being rammed with Christmas parties and couples and groups of friends, our water was always topped up and she was quick at delivering and clearing all of our plates.

About a minute after our starters were cleared, the mains arrived. Never in my life has a main appeared so quickly. As one plate was removed another was placed in front of me. And another basket of bread arrived. This is me at my happiest. After a lot of discussion I settled on Iskander (grilled minced lamb with yogurt and tomato sauce on pita bread cubes with rice and salad) only to be told that they no longer serve that. Instead of throwing a strop I went for my second choice of Ali Nazik (sautéed lamb with smoky aubergine purée with yogurt and garlic, with rice and salad on the side).

The salad was cold and fresh and was a welcome change after the richer sauces, the rice was nice and dry and worked brilliantly at soaking up my auberginey-yogurty sauce (which was also lovely and smokey and was a good combination of spicy and creamy). My one disappointment was my lamb. Whilst it was flavoured beautifully with various spices, I seemed to get the fattiest bits of lamb. It was helpfully already cut up into small pieces, but the lamb itself was quite tough and chewy. Which was a shame as it tasted great, but gnawing on bits of fat isn’t my thing.

No one else seemed disappointed with their meal. Indeed someone else had the same dish as me and had no complaints so I am hoping that I just sadly got the short straw with the bits I was served. I was surrounded by lamb kofte, tavuk sis (chicken breast with pepper and garlic – one complaint here. Again beautifully flavoured but was a bit dry. A spoonful of my sauce helped) and lamb chop-esque meals.

Complaints aside, I managed to scoff my whole meal so I can’t have hated it that much. And here comes the one photo that I took.

Whilst I wasn’t 100% happy with my main meal, I enjoyed every other second of my meal and would happily go back again to try out the rest of their menu. The only reason I made a fairly quick decision about my main meal was because I had stared at the menu for most of the day. Particularly with the starters, I believe my remark was “I will happily eat every item on this menu. In fact, if you can bring me one of everything that will be great”. This is my first experience of eating Turkish food in a restaurant and it certainly won’t be my last.

I realise this is a fairly shoddy review, but I’m learning. Next time I will hold off filling my mouth just long enough to take a photo. And I will pay attention to what I am eating.

You can read Makara’s menu here and you can follow them on Twitter here.

For more of my daily witterings you can follow me on Twitter and for some slightly better photos of food and gin, I am also on Instagram.

Jenny in Brighton

I'm Jenny and I live in Brighton

food

Crafty Chooks

The Salt Room

H.en – a review

Makara, Hove – review