Felin Fach Griffin (and Brynich Play Barn!)

The Felin Fach Griffin, just outside Brecon in the beautiful Powys countryside, has become a favourite place to Eat Like Kings, and with overseas visitors to entertain (the Bristol Channel is technically a sea, right?) we headed there for Sunday lunch before seeing our visitors back across the Severn Bridge.

The Felin Fach Griffin has made quite a name for itself on the back of some outstanding local food (much of the produce comes from the kitchen garden). A feature in the latest edition of Olive magazine is the latest in a long line of glowing write-ups from Walesonline to Jay Rayner in The Guardian

Here’s another glowing write-up! 

For Mrs ELK, a Sunday lunch means meat - and meat she got.  Her big pile of classic Welsh Black roast beef was cooked a perfect medium rare.  The waitstaff even asked how she'd like it - a virtue considering (sorry folks) many Brit establishments overcook flesh, in Mrs. ELK's humble-for-an-American opinion.  The beef was accompanied by a plethora of perfectly cooked veg and a massive Yorkshire pud.  All this dowsed in a lovely, if very slightly under-salted, gravy.  But hey, you can add salt!

Perhaps, the most interesting part of Mrs ELK's meal was the starter.  A big hunk of mozzarella di bufalla topped with apple pesto and parma ham.  Sounds weird but the salty ham, sweet apple, tangy pesto and voluptuous, creamy mozarella really balanced each other.  Mrs. ELK's dessert was a dark chocolate brownie with malted milk ice cream.  Very good and due to its chocolate nature, was mostly consumed by ELK Jr.  Oh well, at least she ate loads of broccoli beforehand.

For Mr ELK, it was all about the gnocchi with pied de mouton, wild garlic and sprouting broccoli. This was chosen purely for the pied de mouton.......or to give them their slightly less exotic British name....... Hedgehog mushrooms. Actually 'pied de mouton' translates as 'sheeps feet'. Are hedgehogs are less exotic than sheeps feet?  Either way these are a seriously underrated mushroom, with all the flavour of chanterelles but a firmer texture.  They look a bit weird tho’, which may explain why they haven't yet accrued the culinary cache they deserve. We like our mushrooms at ELK, especially the less common 'terracotta hedgehog'. These pied de moutons were great with the homemade gnocchi and the wild garlic. Where are they getting them from!?

Let us not forget Eat Like Kings Jr. She can sometimes be a handful on our food adventures. She eats like a king, but she has the energy of a million Duracell batteries and, let's face it, if your fellow diners are shelling out for some fine dining on a Sunday afternoon then they might prefer a more serene atmosphere than the one created by your average snot-crusted 2 year old. The secret weapon for toddling diners  in the Brecon area is The Play Barn at Brynich (@playbarn_brecon) a big indoor play area just 5 min down the road from the Felin Fach Griffin on the A470. A strategic half hour there before eating burns off some energy and ensures a hungry Junior ELK who is focused on eating food rather than flinging it at fellow diners and 'entertaining' them with CBeebies songs.

Service and environment were both excellent at the Felin Fach, as they have been on previous visits. The big log fire is a draw, especially with the deep comfy sofas and the stacks of Sunday papers, but at Eat Like Kings it's all (mostly) about the food, and we Ate Like Kings at the Felin Fach Griffin!

Mussel Shoals

Went foraging at a local beach for some mussels  - this is the best time of year for them, perhaps because there's not a lot else around over winter! We did have a look for early crabs and lobster but only found juveniles.

The wild garlic has been out for a while now and seemed like it might go well with the mussels. We picked enough of both to test the theory out and it worked a treat. The wild garlic leaves were roughly chopped and wilted in butter. A glug of white wine was then added and the mussels were steamed until they opened. A splash of single cream was thrown in at the end. Served up with homemade bazlama bread (thanks for that recipe Burcu!).

Anyway, we made a short film of it for posterity. The beach isn't actually called Mussel Shoals, but it should be.....

Plancha Bass with Gremolata

You know that spring is really on the way out when the wild sea bass start showing up on the fishmongers ice. A trip to Coakley's at Swansea market revealed the good news – local wild bass, loads of ‘em. One of those for us thank you, tho’ the first of the year's lobster was tempting (or was that a Canadian import?)

The bass was gutted, scaled and scored. Stuffed with lemon slices and rubbed with salt and pepper.

Gremolata
Handful of parsley
2 cloves of garlic
Zest of one lemon
Zest of half a lime
Half tsp dried chilli flakes
Tbsp honey vinegar
1/3rd cup extra virgin olive oil

We chopped up everything that could be chopped. Chucked everything in a bowl except the olive oil. Then blended with a hand blender, slowly adding the olive oil.



We wiped down the plancha with some vegetable oil, heated it to nuclear, chucked on the bass and turned down to subatomic. Covered with foil and left for 15 mins. Flipped and did another 15 mins.

Drizzled on the gremolata and served with paprika roasted potatoes and a glass of frosty Languedoc. Awesome.

The Shed Bistro, Porthgain, Pembrokeshire

A golden day in SW Wales. Golden sun, the first golden daffodils poking through hedgerows and golden batter on the fish and chips in Porthgain.

It was the first sunny day in ages. We were all finally healthy after a Winter of bugs so we headed west to Pembrokeshire. The first lambs of spring frolicked under blue skies full of cotton wool clouds - the odd bird of prey hovering. It was lovely. The 'why we moved to Wales' kind of lovely.

We emerged in Porthgain, a little hole in the coastline that was once a tiny port dispatching road stone across the world. That's all gone and now it is home to the absolutely fabulous Porthgain Shellfish and a pub as well as our destination, The Shed. That's it though, it's a tiny place, very pretty. Here's a pic from wikipedia to prove it - right.



There is a range of great seafood on the menu at The Shed, prepared in various ways....but we were there for the fish and chips. You might question whether it is sensible to be driving 140 miles round trip for fish and chips when there is a least one chippy in every village in the United Kingdom. But this is Eat Like Kings and we knew from previous experience that these aren't the usual fish and chips. We'd been to The Shed back in May 2011 and thought it would be worth a repeat trip because in addition to the usual cod, The Shed fries up ling (the authors choice!) haddock, John Dory, scampi and scallops. All come with hand-cut Pembrokeshire potatoes. The ling we had on the last trip was awesome - three big chunks of white flaky, crisp golden fish goodness. Alas, there was no ling this time so we opted for an order of cod and another of haddock. Though not quite up to the standard set by the ling last year, we weren't disappointed. Both fish were perfectly cooked and seasoned, the batter light and crispy, rather than the usual doughy grease served up by most chippies (my co-blogger may disagree with my assertion that most fish from Your Local chippy is inferior). The chips were definitely good, again better than the standard, but I would have like them a tiny bit crisper. However, I do realise that this preference may have its origins in my homeland, where I was weened on McDonald's French fries - a species that bears no resemblance to British chips. Or potatoes.



The service was friendly and timely. Both elements are very appreciated when dining with a two year old. The surprise standout of the meal was the walnut tart with Penderyn Welsh whisky + raisin sauce. It was definitely homemade (honestly, shouldn't all desserts be homemade?) and was a moist slice of caramelised, golden sweet- salty cake punctuated with toasted walnuts. The plate was completed with a dollop of homemade whipped cream and topped with a physalis - a welcome change from the usual perfunctory mint sprig.



All washed down with Wales' finest tap water - it was a schoolnight.

We Ate Like Kings at The Shed and would recommend it to anyone. Will be putting an order in to the boys at Porthgain Shellfish as soon as the daffodils give way to tulips.

Welcome to Eat Like Kings

A blog founded on the love of food.

We hope you find our adventures useful and/or entertaining.

We will be eating in restaurants, cooking and growing at home and foraging and fishing everywhere.

Based in mostly in glorious South West Wales, UK.