Trialling the Thai Cookery School at Thaikhun

A couple of weeks' back I joined a small group of other bloggers and journalists for an evening of Thai cookery with the lovely team at Thaikhun, a restaurant I had the pleasure of sampling at the end of last year when it opened in Bath's Little Southgate Quarter. Having come away from that occasion feeling very impressed with the place, I was keen to make a return visit. However, this time it would be me doing the cooking. Hmmm...

Very competent at my small but perfectly formed repertoire of personal classics - I'm great at Bolognese, risotto and other Italian standards - I'm not so hot on more exotic cuisines. My curries are often disappointing and even Delia's fool-proof Thai curry recipe has turned out to be not to be so fool-proof in my less than capable hands. So it was with a slight sense of trepidation that I rose to the challenge of testing my skills at Thaikhun's newly established cooking school.

Just launched, the school runs at the Bath branch every fourth Sunday (other dates are available at Thaikhun's other locations), inviting Thai food aficionados to create their very own two-course feast. Led by an experienced chef - in our case a very lovely lady who had travelled down from the Manchester branch especially - the two-hour sessions are designed to give you a grounding in the basics of Thai cookery, impart some interesting know-how and give you the opportunity to socialise while you enjoy a starter and main course made by your own fair hands.

For our session, we started out by making vegetable spring rolls - so much easier than I'd expected, though there is a bit of a knack to rolling them like a pro. But with a Gin Cooler to hand, any worries I'd had about my cooking limitations started to fade away and I began to really enjoy the experience. 

It helped that our guide for the evening was very funny, keeping us engaged with her insider knowledge and personable teaching style. In fact, it felt nothing like a 'lesson' but more of an informal invitation into a friend's kitchen - I didn't feel intimidated or insecure about my abilities at any time during the evening.

After whipping up our spring rolls - a mix of vermicelli noodles, finely chopped carrot, mushroom and cabbage, as well as a spices, herbs, ginger and soy sauce - they were whisked off to be deep fried while we got on with the important task of choosing another cocktail from Thaikhun's menu (I highly recommend the coconut mojito.)

Then the moment of truth arrived as our first course was delivered and I'm happy to say mine and my guest's (it was a joint effort) were absolutely delicious and nothing like the greasy, anaemic looking spring rolls that often turn up in your takeaway.

Refreshed and ready to take on our main course, we returned to our cookery stations to be guided through the steps needed to create the perfect Thai Green Curry. Like the spring rolls, this task wasn't anywhere near as scary as I'd anticipated. Turns out some simple tricks of the trade and knowing how to create the perfect, proper curry paste is the key. 

We were introduced to some exotic ingredients such as Galangal and palm sugar, and instructed how to use the coconut milk to get a perfectly creamy consistency for our curries. Taking just a short time to master, we were directed back to our tables to enjoy our left over spring rolls, bowls of steaming rice and our curries - and I'm pleased to report that, for once, my curry was well above passable. 

I left Thaikhun feeling pretty confident about replicating these recipes in my own kitchen and inspired to venture beyond my cooking comfort zone every so often. And with a few exotic cocktails sloshing around in our tummies too, me and my guest went home glowing from an evening very well spent. 

For more information on Thaikhun's cooking school, visit the website here. You can also read my review of the restaurant here.

I enjoyed a complimentary visit to Thaikhun but all words and opinions are my own. 

Friday Night Pizza at Flour & Ash

Like pizzas? Looking for something along the lines of the much celebrated Acapella but live north of the river? Then you'll be pleased to know that there's a newcomer to the Gloucester Road/Stokes Croft restaurant scene in the shape of Flour & Ash which opened at the beginning of the month, and - judging by the reserved tables when we visited - is already proving a hit with the locals. 

Having seen the place take shape over the previous months on my walk to work, I was looking forward to sampling what sounded like an authentic proposition - proper pizzas from an wood-fired oven, but using sourdough rather than traditional pizza dough. So myself and my 10-year-old son and pizza aficionado took ourselves there for an impromptu Friday supper...and immediately realised that it's getting harder and harder to do 'impromptu' these days. Everywhere seems to get booked up, and as the waiter went off to consult his reservations book I had a feeling we were probably going to end up in Pizza Express after all. As it was, it was early enough for us to get a table though you should obviously bear this in mind if you want to visit on a Friday or Saturday, and eat a bit later than 6pm. 

The restaurant is a smart, compact place with that industrial, functional look that's the style du jour. In a space this small, it works, with the main focus being the cavernous pizza oven at the back of the restaurant. There are few things that excite me as much as the sight of a flame-filled oven...I would love to have a go at sliding a pizza into one of those babies very much. It's also a reassuring sight, honouring a tradition that began in the backstreets of Naples back in the 1800s, meaning that if your pizza has been cooked in a wood-fired oven you're getting something as close to the real thing as possible.

Thankfully the pizzas at Flour & Ash didn't disappoint. What really works about this restaurant is a commitment to keeping the menu concise, with just a handful of enticing-sounding starters (wood roast queen scallops with herb butter or crispy ox tongue with salsa verde, for example, though we didn't have starters) and just pizzas for mains and ice cream and sorbet to finish.  You can choose from imaginative toppings on bases covered with tomato sauce or without. The choice of a sourdough base makes for a nice, light base that crisps up a treat in the oven, plus it's a 'pure' dough, a better choice for those with intolerances, and is made from three simple ingredients: locally milled flour, salt and water. I found it hard to choose from the delicious-sounding options which include a good mix of meat and veggie toppings, and which are a bit different to the ubiquitous Margherita or Pepperoni. My fennel salami with roasted peppers was divine - a great mix of flavoursome meat and sweet peppers - while my son devoured his chorizo, pickled chilies and rocket pizza in moments, not even bothering to painstakingly pick off the 'green stuff' as he would normally do. The fact that Flour & Dough's pizzas managed to get something green inside my child is no mean feat, and on that basis alone we'll be coming back...

My son found room for an ice-cream which, as well as sorbets, are handmade on the premises and include standards such as vanilla and chocolate, as well as more exotic choices such as caramel stracciatella (chocolate chip) and buttermilk and passion fruit ripple. My son opted for a scoop of pistachio which I 'helped' him out with and it was out of this world - proper, Italian-style ice cream, bursting with natural flavours. I would have liked a coffee but our waiter told us the restaurant hadn't procured a machine, though one was on the way. 

In terms of prices, Flour & Ash offers a competitive alternative to the high street chains; a Margherita costs £ 6.75, something more exotic is around the £10 mark and the luxurious-sounding aged beef fillet comes in at £15. You can buy good wines by the glass, and there's a kids menu at £4, including a small pizza, scoop of ice cream and glass of squash. If I had one complaint it would be that perhaps the pizzas could be just an teensy bit bigger...I could have accommodated another inch, I reckon, or perhaps I was just exceptionally hungry that day.

Find out all the details on on the Flour & Ash website. And if you fancy checking out Bristol pizza institution Acapella, read my review here.