Match of the week
Chargrilled endive, hazelnut crumble and Bayonne ham with white Bairrada
I’m having a bit of thing about Portuguese wine at the moment - it’s so great with food and such brilliantly good value. Especially on restaurant wine lists where it’s invariably underpriced in comparison to better known wine producing countries and regions
So I zoomed in on the Filipa Pato Enscaios Branco Bairrada 2012* when I spotted it on the Grainstore list the other day hoping it would go with the very different flavours and textures of the dishes we’d ordered.
It did but I think this was the best match: a warm salad of chargrilled endive, hazelnut crumble, prune vinegar (didn’t pick that up) and Bayonne ham with a nicely judged combination of sweetness, bitterness, nuttiness and umami which played beautifully with the lushness and richness (but dryness) of the wine, a blend of Arinto and Bical.
It was also good with my more raw-tasting starter of sprouting beans and seeds, miso aubergine and crispy chicken skin which I guess had a fair amount of umami too.
(The menu matches the endive dish with one of the house cocktails - a green tomato Margarita which I must say sounds unlikely. Maybe the numbers have slipped out of sync. Then again maybe not. I need to go back to find out - at least that's my excuse.)
*Happily it's available at Oddbins at £11.75
For my review of Grainstore click here though I did encounter a couple of less successful dishes this time.
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