Meat in a Bap, Bedford Street, Belfast

Let me just start this post by saying that this isn't the most vegetarian friendly review I have ever written! Meat in a Bap does exactly what it says on the tin or in this case on its very cute car. It basically stuffs lots of delicious meat into baps. The boyfriend is of the firm belief that most foods are upped a notch when stuck between two slices of bread so as you can imagine I had no trouble getting him into this particular restaurant.

Meat in a Bap can be found a short walk from Belfast City Hall on Bedford Street. It isn't too hard to find especially with windows like this. It made me giggle anyway!

The interior is very casual with long wooden communal tables and stools. On each are three large bottles of sauce to douse your food with if you want. Be warned though the Scotch Bonnet Hot Sauce is hot HOT. I know it says it but we still had to try it to be sure!

There are four choices: The Pork, The Chicken, The Beef and The Vegetable and each comes with a side and sauce of your choice. When we visited in early January they also had their Christmas Venison special which made our decision much harder! After much deliberation we went for the Christmas special and The Beef. 

The Christmas special was leg of venison, braised in a sweet Guinness gravy and served with farm house cabbage and champ croquettes. The venison was tender and the bap was soft enough to soak up all the juices. The croquettes were massive but worked really well as a side for this bap.

The Beef was slow braised brisket cooked in a house rub and garnished with slow roasted tomatoes. Himself decided to go with the smokey BBQ as his sauce of choice and house slaw as his side. The slaw was my favourite kind as it was made of celeriac and cabbage which I think always gives coleslaw a nice bite. The brisket wasn't as tender as you would find in places such as Bison or Pitt Bros but it was still good and it made for a mighty and meaty sandwich. 

Seeing as we were still in full blown 'eat what you like Christmas mode', we also ordered a side of Mac & Triple Cheese and Sweet Potato Fries. The Mac & Triple Cheese was fab as the sauce was just the right consistency i.e. thick and gooey! The sweet potato fries were pretty damn good as well though I really don't think you can go too wrong with sweet potato fries. 

All this cost us just under 20 pounds and that also included two drinks. Meat in a Bap is wonderful value for money and it properly filled us up for a day of wandering around Belfast. It is fast food of the best kind! I don't know the restaurant scene that well in Belfast but I can only assume that a place like Meat in a Bap is very welcome addition to the area.

Meat in a Bap, 10 Bedford Street - Belfast, Co. Antrim - BT2 7FB

Tel: 0044 (0)28 9031 4905

Find them on their website here, on Facebook here and Twitter here. 

Coppi, Belfast

One of the pluses of living in Meath is that we aren’t too far from Belfast. A quick hour and a half up the motorway gets us easily into Belfast City which we visit a few times a year. Our most recent trip up was to visit the Game of Thrones exhibition in the Titanic Quarter. I am a fan of the show but perhaps not to the same extent as the boyfriend but I happily went along with the promise of some shopping and a meal out! So after we had shopped ourselves out and seen enough costumes and prop swords for the day, we headed along to Coppi in St. Anne’s Square for an evening meal. 

Titanic Quarter

St. Anne’s Square is a newish development which includes the Ramada Encore Hotel and a number of other restaurants which look out on to the square. I stayed in the Ramada when the square was just being built so it was lovely to see the finished area. It is a pretty, bustling square and is only about 10 minutes walk from Victoria Square Shopping Centre and from the Odyssey Arena. Coppi is an Italian-inspired restaurant and is named after the Italian cyclist Angelo Fausto Coppi who was the dominant international cyclist in the years before and after the Second World War. His successes earned him the title Il Campionissimo, or champion of champions!  

The menu is a mix of cichetti, small plates, pizzette and pastas. We started off with cichetti which are small snacks typically served in traditional bars throughout Venice. This was a really nice way to get to try a few different dishes and sample a bit more of the menu. We got three cichetti - Feta fritters & truffled honey; Smoked chicken, endive, Gorgonzola & walnut and Spiced pork & fennel sausage.

 

All three were wonderful though the pork sausage was a little spicy for me. I adored the feta fritters which were light and melt in the mouth and I could have eaten many more of them. 

 

For the mains I choose the Portavogie Prawns which was made with squid ink linguini, sundried tomato, basil, shallot & lemon. Unfortunately they had no prawns left but they replaced them with crab meat which worked just as well. I always think black pasta never looks great as there is something about black pasta which isn’t aesthetically pleasing but this was one of the best pasta dishes I have had in a while. It was light and summery and I could taste the crab throughout the dish. All the pasta used in the dishes is made fresh inhouse too.

The boyfriend went for the daily special which was Tagliatelle with beef in a marsala and mushroom sauce. There wasn’t a drop left once he was done with it, though I found the sauce slightly heavy myself. We were both very happy with the dishes we had chosen and there wasn't a lot of sharing going on during the meal!

 

  

Then it was onto dessert. After the high standards of our mains dessert was a bit of a disappointment. The boyfriend went for Tiramisu which was perfectly adequate but didn’t quite live up to Italian standards. 

I went for the Passionfruit Crème Brulee which sounded fantastic but in reality was far too rich and the sugar on top was slightly over caramelised and verged on the side of burnt. 

 

Disappointing desserts aside next time I am up in Belfast I will definitely be visiting Coppi again. I could spend a happy hour or two there chatting with friends, drinking wine and nibbling on cichetti! The meal cost us £45.50 and that was for three cichetti, two mains, two desserts and a glass of wine. 



Web: www.coppi.co.uk
Find them on Facebook here and on Twitter here.