Plant based fine dining with Milgi at Street Food Circus
I was fortunate enough to get an invite to the preview of the Milgi pop-up restaurant at the launch of this year’s Street Food Circus at Sophia Gardens.
Now I’m a pretty committed carnivore but I’d never managed to get to the Street Food Circus in its previous incarnations so I was curious to pay it a visit.
I was also quite interested to see the Milgi sky yurt. A 3 course communal feast set under canvas with natural decor, organic wines and a modern vegetarian and RAW menu that uses the finest seasonal organic produce? Intriguing! Their ambition is to introduce a new audience to plant based eating.
Well the menu sounded quite ambitious and so I was eager to give it a try.
Starters
Raw sunflower & sundried tomato galette with chickpea & basil houmous, micro basil, toasted pumpkin seed, heirloom tomato, radish sprouted aduki beans.
For me this was the stand out dish. I absolutely loved both the flavour and texture of the galette. A revelation.
Main
Za’tar Tempeh with lemon & saffron brown rice, garden peas, gem lettuce, mint, and harissa cashew sauce.
I’m very familiar with Za’tar, we use it a lot at home. Tempeh, however, was new to me. In general terms it’s the Indonesia equivalent of Tofu, but instead of curding Soy milk it is made by fermenting cooked soya beans with a mold. This makes it firm and chewy as opposed to the soft, smooth, spongy consistency of Tofu.
Overall I liked this dish, the sauce complimented the Tempeh very well and the rest of the ingredients made it very fresh. My only comment would be that the rice was a bit lacking and needed something to lift it. I didn’t really get the lemon or saffron and felt it could have done with a lot more of both.
Dessert
Raw blackcurrant cheesecake with almond & date crust and summer fruit salad
Raw blackcurrant cheesecake with almond & date crust and summer fruit salad
Whilst the crust wasn’t really to my taste, MrsA loved it. The raw blackcurrant filling however, was something else indeed. I would not have believed that a non-dairy fruit filling could have been so thick, and dare I say it, creamy. Also it certainly packed a serious flavour punch!
I was very impressed by the food served at the Milgi Pop Up, especially as for a large part of the evening the food was prepared in darkness with the kitchen staff just wearing head torches. Hopefully they remembered to bring the kitchen lights for day 2.
Street Food Circus is open every Thurs/Fri/Sat/Sun until the 25th September, for more details and opening times check out www.streetfoodcircus.co.uk. You’ll also find more information on all the other participants.
The Milgi pop up runs Fri/Sat/Sun. More details on Milgi can be found here – http://milgicardiff.com/
