Food fringe

This year you can take part in special celebrations of Cornish food and drink happening throughout Cornwall over the festival period

Thai night market

Chantek restaurant, Sunday 27 September

Chantek Chefs will take the best of Cornish produce and cook them on the spot in front of your eyes in typical street market recipes. Chantek’s ground floor will be converted into a demonstration stage with tables around to watch the action.

Have you been to Thailand and miss the buzz of the night markets? or ever wondered why Thai families prefer to eat out every night? Thai night markets are a draw for locals and visitors alike with crowds drawn by smoking grills, steaming woks, frying of fritters, and tantalising desserts for the sweet of tooth. The moon rises, bats fly over head and children run around while parents gossip and snack.

Such civilised chaos is the inspiration for head chef Chai Yots Chantek Night market night. He used to help his family run a stall in the famous weekend market in Bangkok, so he has been steeped in these traditions and will bring out a few family recipies.

For starters, taste and smell fresh herbs such as galangal, lime leaf and lemon grass, see these go straight into an aromatic Tom Ka soup to be enjoyed on the spot.

Main courses start with a market style stir fry, choose your meat or vegetables, to be flash fried with fresh green peppercorns, birds eye chilli, garlic and Thai spices. Fresh and delicious.

Followed by Lab Kai – a ground chicken salad from the Lao border, seasoned with mint, lemon juice, chilli, onion, fresh long beans and cucumber; and in contrast, crispy sweet and sour rice noodles – deep fried rice noodles with a sweet and sour sauce with spices, palm sugar and pineapple. Last, but not least, no night market would be complete without corn fritters – found at the end of long, hungry queues! Sweetcorn patties with Thai red curry paste, flash fried and served with a sweet chilli dip.

For mains courses we start with 3 spice crispy chicken, where 3 types of pepper are combined into one dish, long red pepper, small fiery birds eye pepper and fresh green peppercorns. For those marketers needing a curry fix, we are cooking up red pork curry with pumpkin – using prime Cornish pork, this is an authentic street market favourite from central Thailand. To accompany these mains there is a classic noodle stir fry, bursting with fresh ingredients of coriander, spring onion, garlic, shredded egg, oyster sauce and seasoned with white pepper.

If you still have room, for dessert, head chef Chai Yot brings his mothers home style cooking to sample. Try sticky rice, cut into squares, topped with sweet coconut flakes and traditional style tapioca dumplings with coconut sugar.

To finish the feast, do what Thais do, and eat some fresh fruit and chat a bit more.

£19.99

From 7pm on Sunday 27 September. Booking essential.

Call 01872 225071 or visit www.chantek.co.uk for bookings and more info.

A purrrrfect combination

The One Eyed Cat and the Cornwall Food and Drink Festival

Truro’s only Bar and Brasserie, The One Eyed Cat will be giving visitors to this year’s Cornwall Food and Drink Festival the chance to taste the freshest seasonal seafood, enjoy some stunning cocktails and try something slightly controversial.

One Eyed Cat head chef Dave Trewin and his team will be on the Plaza at lunchtime on Friday, September 25th, to give a cooking demonstration where they will create a range of mouth watering recipes for visitors to sample using the freshest catch of the day from their renowned St Ives fish supplier Matthew Stevens & Son.

In addition to the seafood recipes, Dave will also be cooking a selection of Veal, which the One Eyed Cat will be starting to introduce on its menu in the coming months, after Dave went to visit Jon and Vicky Brown who run Bocaddon Farm, which specialises in rearing welfare-friendly Veal. Dave will be cooking with Veal as he is keen to show how beautifully tasty the meat is.

“Over the years veal has acquired a bad reputation so we decided to use the Cornwall Food and Drink Festival to show what a beautiful meat it is, when produced by people like Jon and Vicky who are extremely passionate about rearing high quality veal,” said Dave.

“We always strive to work with the very best suppliers – such as Matthew Stevens & Son, and are looking forward to bringing some fantastic flavours, tastes and textures to visitors at this year’s Food and Drink Festival,” added Dave.

After the cooking demonstrations on Friday, September 25th between 5.30pm and 7pm will be a cocktail master class, taking place at the One Eyed Cat (on Kenwyn Street) itself. A leading mixologist (or cocktail expert) from Reserve Brands will be behind the bar at the Cat demonstrating the art of cocktail making, creating a range of fantastic drinks for visitors to try. As part of the master class, there will also be running a special 2 for the price of 1 cocktail promotion on the evening for anyone bringing the One Eyed Cat advert contained with the Cornwall Food and Drink Festival Guide to the event.

“The Truro Food and Drink Festival is a very important event for us and we are delighted to be a part of it once again and are really looking forward to bringing the very best tastes from the sea and land in Cornwall to visitors to the festival, not to mention spicing things up and getting the festival off to a swinging start with the cocktail Master Class,” said Brett Holmes, director of the One Eyed Cat.

Bustophers barbeque

Bustophers bar bistro, Lemon Street, Truro, will be holding a “Native Breed Barbeque” during the Festival weekend. They will source interesting rare breeds from local farmers and suppliers, with menu ideas such as suckling pig, steak ciabatta and roast lamb, with an emphasis on top quality produce from the region. Why not try the interesting range of wines specially matched to the dishes.

Bustophers is a wine bar and restaurant that offers classic, stylish and great value dining, set in wonderful surroundings. For further details contact Bustophers on 01872 279029 or visit www.bustophersbarandbistro.com