Chain gang
Andrew Kay finds plenty to eat and plenty to get excited about at Ask
As a serious foodie I am supposed to not like certain things, fast food perhaps at the top of the list and somewhere further down: restaurant chains. There is little doubt that as a champion of independence and independents I tend to favour local businesses, but in the current climate, where everyone has to fight for their share of a very careful market, I guess that everyone, from little to large, has to up their game.
Honesty being the best policy, I will come clean. My first visit to Ask was some years ago and I was not impressed. My pasta with a cream and spinach sauce had so little spinach in it that I asked why they had bothered. It was disappointing so I did not go back except once for a pre-wedding party where food seemed to be low down on the list of why we were there and drink very high.
Last week I found myself going back, the place has had a massive overhaul and looked pretty appealing so along with the lovely Ms P we headed in for a spot of lunch. Spot? Well, yes I certainly should have been a little more restrained, but the menu was just too tempting, so much more inspiring than on my previous visits, that I felt I had to give it a good thrashing.
“The menu was just too tempting, so much more inspiring than on my previous visits, that I felt I had to give it a good thrashing”
The interiors were vibrant with more than a touch of that Alessi look about them, and there was plenty of space too with large, widely placed tables. We started with some hot herby bread, olives and deep green olive oil, all very good indeed. And despite it being lunch time and a school day we had a glass of Verdicchio each, well if it’s good enough for Joan Collins…
Ms P started with gnocchi arrabbiata. She’s a devil when it comes to chilli and loved the heady sauce spiked with bell chillies. I chose baby squid and I am pleased to say that they really were baby squid and not giant slices of inner tube. They were piping hot too and the crisp coating was very thin. I happily dunked away in decent garlic mayo until every bit had disappeared.
My expectations of main courses were pizza and pasta, so the presence of some specials that were not pasta or dough based was a pleasant surprise. Ms P, wary of forthcoming nuptials decided to have the chef’s salad. It arrived piled high and initially, we thought, topped with lashings of good mozzarella, avocado, artichoke hearts, prosciutto and Grana Padano cheese. But we were wrong. It was not just topped with them but they ran through the very heart of the salad so that the last mouthful was as tasty as the first. I’m not sure as a diet driven choice it would score highly but on quality and quantity it certainly hit the mark.
My choice was sinfully less restrained, but really, when offered slow cooked belly pork, could you refuse? Well, I couldn’t, and very glad I am too. The pork belly porchetta was a good sized slab of falling apart, succulent, rosemary scented meat.
The fat had been rendered away during cooking but I suspect quite a lot had been given a home in the sliced Charlotte potatoes that lay beneath in a slick of gloopy, savoury niceness. It was certainly generous, definitely filling and above all it tasted blooming marvellous. I know that belly pork has replaced the lamb shank in the list of ubiquitous dishes these days, but this one was certainly worthwhile. I also loved that it came with a side order of perfectly cooked sprouting broccoli. Now I know that the Italian concept of al dente is meant to be the very ‘in’ thing, but I’m not a fan. Al dente for me is far too often code for hot but not cooked. I’m pleased to say that this was perfectly cooked and well deserving of its billing as ‘tender stemmed’ too.
There you have it, two courses for lunch and that is where we should have stopped, had we been sensible. But of course sensible has been erased from the hard disc of my brain so we moved on to pud. Ms P, feeling virtuous from her salad chose a creamy cheesecake on a cookie base, sprinkled with crunchy honeycomb chocolate pieces and proceeded to make very light work of it. I felt too full for anything of solid construction and went my usual route in such circumstances and chose ice cream. The espresso with chocolate coffee beans was great and a perfect match for the hazelnut which was really excellent. And to finish a piping hot espresso to set me up for the afternoon ahead.
With our starters at £4.95 and £5.05, our mains at £10.15 and £12.95 and puds at £5.15 and £3.95, it was reasonably priced and there were set menu options to be taken advantage of too.
So did I like it? You may well Ask – yes that capital A is intentional. I thoroughly enjoyed it and would certainly return.
Ask, 58 Ship Street, Brighton, East Sussex, BN1 1AF
01273 710030
www.askitalian.co.uk
