The Bedford Belly On Tour: Trinity Kitchen

The Bedford Belly On Tour: Trinity Kitchen, Trinity Centre, Albion Street, Leeds, LS1 5AT

It’s been a while since we’ve been up North and even longer since we’ve had a night out away from Baby Belly (that’s a bit of a lie as she had her first overnight stay with Ma & Pa Belly a few weeks back so we could attend a birthday party but still). So it was with great joy on this rather drizzly night that we had bagged ourselves some babysitters in the form of Ma & Pa Belly in Law.

We had arranged to meet Mrs Belly’s brother & his girlfriend in Leeds city centre to go to some street food event, or that’s what we thought it was anyway.

The new Trinity Centre itself is very deceptive. I recall the last time I was here that the entrance was I think a medium sized Burger King sitting between two other stores. BK is now gone and in its place is the entrance to the centre. To be honest I didn’t even think about it until we stepped inside, it was like we’d just stepped in to the TARDIS from Doctor Who. The place is massive! It’s hard to comprehend how they have managed to pack all of this stuff in to what originally appeared to be nothing but a shop front. I was expecting a small arcade of stores but there were loads of shops, a cinema and the Trinity Kitchen all encased in a multi-level building with glittery lights, chrome and glass fittings and a nice shiny finish.

We met up with my Brother in law, his girlfriend and a couple more pals and headed off to Trinity Kitchen.

The first thing that caught my attention was the music drifting past me before we got there then we hit the Trinity Kitchen which quite simply looks stunning. Neon light strips hang from the ceiling, with chrome piping and extractor fans on display mixed in with wooden support beams and metal frames covered in glass. It reminded me very much of the bar from the 80’s movie Total Recall. A live 3 piece band consisting of banjo, tuba & drums played reworked versions of pop songs including Mysterious Girl, Beat it and a blue grass version of Hotel California. While I enjoyed the band they were a bit loud (although I would say that had more to do with the acoustics of the venue rather than the band itself) and it was hard to hear what people at the table were talking about.

The dining area consists of various food stalls, seven of which are permanent while the others consist of mobile units which to my understanding will be changed each month enabling a wider variety of foods and menus. The permanent stands are Chicago Rib Shack, 360 Champagne & Cocktails, Pho, Tortilla, PizzaLuxe and Chip & Fish. All of these have their own unique style.

The mobile units were serving up gourmet hot dogs, Indian food, Stew & flatbreads and Tea & cakes.

We grabbed ourselves a table and debated what each of us was were going to try out. I had a quick wonder round and decided on Baby Back Ribs, Fries, Coleslaw & a beer from The Chicago Rib Shack which came to about £7.50 (not too shabby). Your order is taken and you’re given a pager which will buzz you when your food is ready. There were the usual burgers etc. on offer here too.

I’ve never been a big rib lover, I tend to find UK ribs are pretty meatless but I was impressed with these bad boys. There was plenty of meat on the bone (good quality too) covered in a thick, delicious BBQ sauce. The fries were really crisp and salty and the coleslaw was as you’d expect it to be but it didn’t really fill me up (because I’m quite frankly a fat bastard) so I stalked the stalls looking for my next victim. My eyes narrowed as I pondered my prey… Mexican? Nah. Hot Dog…. Had one earlier…. Pizza, nah, always have pizza… And then I spotted it… Ah, Vietnamese from Pho’s.

I had a quick scan of their menu and decided to go for the Pork & Lemon grass meatball bun’ with vermicelli noodles. WOW! The bun’ was great. Packed with fresh vegetables & herbs. Every mouthful consisted of a different flavour, BANG fresh coriander, BANG fresh mint, BANG Chilli. The heat from the chilli & sauce was never overpowering though and the meatballs had a crispy texture to the outside while the insides were nice & soft, the lemongrass really came through. I really should have had this first as although the portion wasn’t massive it really was just right and would have filled me up far more than the ribs had done.

Mrs Belly went for something from the Mexican stand (sorry I was too engrossed in my own food to nice what it was) and commented on how tasty and filling was. Everyone else had different things and none of them had any complaints.

It is noticeable that there is no beer on tap anywhere not even at the bar. All beer is bottled (I’m not a fan of bottled beer, overpriced and not enough of it).

Hopefully the sheen will stay at Trinity Kitchen as I really want to go back and try some of the other food stands. If you’re out 7 about in Leeds anytime soon then I insist you give it a visit.

But wait….

The night wasn’t over just yet.

I mentioned beer earlier. Well that’s what we all wanted now. Some beer. Leeds has an incredible amount of bars as you might have guessed but I’m not a big fan of squeezing myself in to some noisy, crowded cattle market. I want to sit down, I want to be able to talk and put my drink on a table that some drunken idiot isn’t going to knock over as he stumbles past all knees & elbows.

One of the guys took us down by the corn exchange to a dimly lit tiny building, a small pub called BrewDog. There was a reasonable crowd but we managed to find ourselves a table. We were all hanging around the bar wondering what to order and I was scanning behind the bar looking at the bottles & pumps for something familiar when the barman approaches.

BM – What would you like?

ME – Not sure, you don’t sell Jeremiah Weed do you?

BM – Not mate, anyway it’s a shit beer!

Got to admit, I was a little taken aback by this quite curt response.

BM – We normally sell beer from our own brewery but this month we have some guest beers.

ME – Great, I still don’t know what you sell though.

BM – Have a look at the menu

He passed me a menu form the bar and stepped back.

Menu? A pub with a drinks menu? Anyway there we all were trying to read this menu typed in 8 point font in a dark bar.

ME – No idea mate, can you just pour me something?

BM – I recommend this.

ME – Fine, I’ll take four.

So he ended up serving us 4 x 2/3 pints (yeah 2/3 pints) of this thick black raspberry stout called (wait for it) Raspberry Beret.

Menu Description: The brew day started pretty badly for our man Jim; it took him over an hour to find the Quantum brewery after the taxi driver took him to the completely wrong end of Stockport. But as soon as he got there he was in the thick of it. With Quantum being a one man brewery Jim was tasked with all the mash work, which he’s described as ‘pleasant’. But luckily all the hard work paid off in this quaffable raspberry stout.  

It was (like its namesake) shite! (I’m not a Prince fan and apologise to all Prince fans out there that do not consider his music to be "shite" I would therefore like you to think of your own parallel to relate it too although it helps if this parallel has something to do with either Raspberry's, Berets or preferably both). I’m a stout fan but this thing was disgusting, I can’t even describe what it tasted like but I tell you this it tasted nothing like a bloody raspberry!

Upstairs was slightly lighter and now we were all sat down we could look at the menu properly. The next beer I chose was pale ale called “Jephers The Big Red Dog”.

Menu Description: After meeting up at the Leeds Beer Festival, the Leeds team and Tom from Hand Drawn Monkey decided to go for something they hadn’t seen before: a red rye saison. Loaded with 15kg of fresh oranges and 10kg of fresh ginger, this beer has an incredible punchy aroma of spiced oranges. Named after the canine-ised version of Hand Drawn Monkey’s mascot, Jephers the Big Red Dog has also been loaded up with additions of Saaz hops and a few handfuls of pink peppercorns, plus extra orange added during conditioning.

Much better although it tasted more like a cold herbal tea. After that I went for a “Pirate Badger Attacks”

Menu description: Aiming their beer squarely at the infamous pirate history of Bristol, these renegades have brewed up an Imperial Brown Coconut IPA. A rare style of beer - as rare as a Pirate Badger some might say - this beer was born from a mad idea and brought to life with the help and expertise of John from Arbor. True to their swabbie roots, the Bristol team took great joy in getting stuck in to the messier parts of the brewing process including breaking up hops and lugging bags and bags of malt.

One of the guys had something called “Dark Matter” which was like drinking a super sour jawbreaker, it was great.

Menu Description: After formulating a massive, eclectic list of suggestions from the staff, including a Spiced Salt Beef Bagel Beer (?), our Shoreditch crew headed to Beavertown to discuss the beer with them. With sour beers having a massive effect on the UK craft beer scene this year, they opted for something that was ‘on-trend’ but also unpredictable: a Berliner Sour Stout. The brew was very different to anything Beavertown had done before and was a real challenge - it ended up taking 3 days to go from the mash to fermenter.

All in all there were some great little inventions in the menu, too many to mention here.

There was some other literature on the table which explained a little more about the Brewery (BrewDog) and about how they hate commercial beer (ah, now the barman’s comment made some sense).

The price on the other hand was a little steep. 2/3 pint on average cost £4.50 while some of the other drinks in the menu cost far more. I think I saw a beer on the main menu costing £25 and another one at £17 (mental), for that sort of money I hope .

I would recommend a visit if you like your beers but beware the power the place has to empty your wallet at an alarming pace, especially if you’re buying rounds!

Most of the beers had quite a high alcohol percentage so it only took a couple to see merriment fall over the group, conversation was lively and audible (which is handy when it comes to having and holding a conversation) and the chuckles came plentiful & heartily.

The night drew to a close far too quickly and as we made our way through the hustle and bustle of the young, old and transvestite street dwellers (burly blokes in mini skirts & cat suits ahoy, well... we were passing through the gay corner of the city) Mrs Belly and I both agreed that the evening had been great from start to finish. And as we were driven away (in a car not by an angry mob) I couldn't help but notice some poor skinny lad honking his guts up in an alleyway... "Ahhh" I thought, "Thank Jebus that isn't me" as I promptly emptied my guts in to the foot well of the passenger seat*.



*I would like to note that I this is a lie, I did not throw up in the foot well of the car we were travelling in but thought it would be a funnier end to the whole review rather than "I went home and everything was fine".

 

Sleeping With The Fishes

The Codfather, 14 Bunyan Road, Kempstons, Beds, MK42 8HP

 

I’m not quite sure what is it about chip shops and puns. Why chip shops? Why do they require a joke name? I know “the Fish and Chip Shop” is pretty boring but why not “Brain’s Fish & Chips”?

Does the name really matter that much?

I would wager that more chippy’s are named using puns than any other fast food sector.

The Cod Father, The Chip Inn, The Frying Squad, Rock N’ Sole

What's next?

Cod This Be Magic? Skid Roe? A Salt & Battery? A Fish Full Of Dollars? Oh Cod Call The Police?

When have you ever seen an Italian place with a pun name?

Pizza Piss, Its Cannelloni in Here, Pasta Its Sell by Date

Or a Chinese?

Wok on Tommy, Phat Fuk, Wong Order

Or a Kebab house?

Heart Donner, Donner Eat that, Sheesh I’m Hungry, AbraKebabra*

*Actually that last one is a real place I saw in Ireland once

Or an Indian?

Curry Up, Tikka Tape Parade, Bhaji Your Way In, Phall-Lick

It’s few and far between that’s for sure.

Name aside it was lunch time and while driving through the fresh, colour filled streets of Kempston I thought “yum, I have soup in the cupboard” followed by the though “Soup? Are you a big knob? Why the hell are you going to eat liquid veg? Look, look over there, that’s a chip shop… go there. Look, it’s called the Codfather so it must be good especially with such a witty bloody name like that… go eat the chips you lardy bugger you know you want to”.

While I mulled over the wise words of by subconscious I found by body had already pulled in to a parking space and had dragged me across the rain soaked road toward the chippy, “Oh, it’s decided then” I thought, and as I pondered as to why the bloke in front of me had a leopard skin tattoo covering his bald head instead of hair I heard my own voice involuntarily speaking the mystical words “battered sausage and chips wrapped please”.

I drove back to the workshop and plated up, slapped a bit more salt and vinegar on and tucked in.

Talking of salt & vinegar. What is it about some chip shop staff and their reluctance to actually put any on your chips. They ask you if you want it, you reply positively and then they hold up the bottle over the chips tip it and then quick as a flash whip it back upright allowing about 2 drops to fall on to the chips.

Then there are those that comply willingly but seem to be fighting against some sort of Harry Potter type magic barrier surrounding your food “Expelviniamas”, they could pour the entire bottle over it and it would simply bounce off and dissipate in the bag.

What can I say about the chips? They look good enough but there was an odd taste about them, it was almost as if I was eating a raw potato. Not that the texture wasn’t fine it was just this lingering flavour. Perhaps it was the fat they were using but I’ve never had anything like it before. I don’t think this is the norm for The Codfather since I’ve eaten from here in the past and never noticed this before, it might be that they have changed supplier of something and this is the result. Either way I wasn’t keen.

The sausage in batter could quite frankly have done with a bit more batter, it was pretty thinly spread. The sausage itself looked appealing, it wasn’t some toxic pink that I’ve seen at other chippy’s and was more of a dark brown, thick mince. The problem was that it just didn’t taste good. It didn’t taste off or anything like that but it was just “meh”. This was my first experience of a battered sausage here, in the past I’d normally had Cod which was the main reason Mrs Belly and myself stopped coming here on a regular basis. The Cod always seemed too wet, covered in soggy batter that would limply cling on to the fish.

My other issue here was the portion size. Normally regular chips pile up on a small tray but here the tray was barely full at all. I’m not expecting mountains of chips but a regular portion anywhere else would be double the size. In reality though it was a blessing in disguise since I didn’t enjoy them anyway.

I think the meal cost me £2.50 or it would have been £2.60 with a drink included which isn’t too bad for a lunch time but still too much for a small portion of bad food in my opinion.

There are other options at The Codfather, fried chicken, kebabs, burgers etc. I’ve not tried these so they may fair better but I have no real inclination to return and test the waters again.

Fingers crossed I won’t find a horse’s head in my bed tomorrow morning.