Castle Farm, Midford: 'Feels like somewhere that wants to feed and nourish you whilst the Armageddon blows over'
Curry on a farm, anyone?
Hello Saucers and happy Thursday. Before we get into this review of Castle Farm from Seldon, I must remind you that in six short days, the cost of a paid subscription to The Bristol Sauce will be going up from £3.50 a month/£30 a year to £4.50 a month/£45 a year.
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Thank you so much for reading. Meg X
“Hot dog, jumping frog / Albuquerque”
Interestingly, Albuquerque is notable for being the hot air ballooning capital of the world. In your face, Bristol (I don’t mean that, you know I love you).
It was the second time I missed the forgettably elegant signage to Castle Farm on the left that I saw the warning sign of frogs crossing. Which led to me to wonder — what sort of volume of frogs are were dealing with? Is it merely rural due diligence to an unusually high number of our amphibian friends amongst the populace, is it a yearly exodus or perhaps a grim portent of a great frog crossing tragedy of yesteryear when whole colonies perished on the highway?
Rumour has it when the moon is low you can still make out a symphony of anguished chirps and croaks dancing upon the Somerset wind.
As we blunderbussed into the bucolic beauty of the Midford Valley, Tom Parker Bowles’ gusty exhortation was ringing in my ears: “Curry? At a farm? It’s barnstorming”. He loved it, obviously. And I was indeed, at a farm.
The entrance was mid-noughties speakeasy bar-level discreet, and only the politely busy car park and insistent messages from our lunch friends suggested what lay beyond the chic, blue barn door.
It brought to mind a little Riverford’s Field Kitchen, but when our very friendly and painfully young waiters brought over some menus it became clear the food offering is a little less evangelical than the Totnes organic juggernaut. Incidentally, I recently spent some time at the Bull in Totnes and was genuinely knocked sideways by their passionate approach to sourcing, sustainability and organic produce but, idiotically, I hadn’t known it was an outpost of the multi-millionaire Riverford ownership. I suppose morals are a little less impressive when you remove any financial peril. Banging spot nonetheless.
However, here in Midford we are lunching on ‘curry Friday’ which seems to be some manner of cultural movement in these here parts. This means that the fun rolls all day— so we were able to order a roti with curry sauce (£4) for lunch and a sweet version for afters if we wanted to double trouble.
The single was fine. It came with what was a essentially a chip shop curry sauce that, whilst being one of my absolute favourites of the low art, trash sleaze sauces, was aggressively salty and two dimensional in all the wrong places. A flatbread came with goat’s cheese, honey and nuts (£7) and, although being as pale as a night out with Thomas Straker, was pretty tasty — if pallid and a little garden centre-y. Also the orgy of micro-herbs sets off my spidey senses quite strongly, suggesting energy and money perhaps not being put in the best of places.
It should be noted that the alcohol free (I know, what have I become/we used to be proper country etc etc) Brew Below pale ale (£5.50) was excellent. Crisp and quenching like ice on a bonnet. Whilst to be applauded, good shopping will only get you halfway there without a bit of help.
Spiced parsnip fritters with lemon and aioli (£8) were serviceable in that way that something deep fried served with something runnier than the deep fried thing is enjoyable. Spicing was negligible and the seasoning made me fear the long shadow of Covid again.
The ‘salad’ option was roasted winter roots, feta and pearl barley (£7). Nothing here to scare the high-fibre horses but the barley tasted a little stale or overly vinegared and the whole shebang was fridge cold, relying on the scant feta for a lot of the heavy lifting.
No such issues with the milk bun with grilled lamb sausage, feta, mint and harissa (£14). There was (and I do not say this lightly) a lot of feta involved. The milk bun was decent but the sausage lacked the merguezy hit I craved. The harissa was either muted or forgotten and I think torn mint leaves might get a little less stuck in the teeth than the whole ones. It had potential but was too polite. A hot mess that was fridge cold and didn’t want to play.
The owners who decide what goes on the plates are I think of a mixture of Scandi/ Indian background so the menu embraces these two rich cuisines, meaning you can get a dhal and an open Swedish skagen sandwich sharing the same table. I suspect the curry nights may indeed be fantastic, and I have heard the Sunday roasts are worth negating frog crossings for.
No such travels with our desserts. There is a tea shop overlooking the harbour in Brixham that has a display model cream tea in the window that has been immune to the march of change for as long as I have memory. It features chipped scones, mauve aged jam, both dead flies and interchangeable fruit scones and a sort of yellowing, thick-skinned cream that had been piped many a year ago.
It wasn’t quite like that, but I think it was on this day that I took on a new understanding of what’s meant by food being called ‘fridgey’ . Both puddings came with the same over whipped, taut Chantilly cream that looked almost geological in its granite-like firmness.
Chocolate torte (£6) was vast, dense and agricultural. If I was to give it a Sherlock eye then it may have been made a couple of moons ago and not with top-shelf chocolate. A generous serve nonetheless.
Cinnamon bun cake (£6) was a lot better with a decent spicey hit but came with even more of the same problematic cream and had a compote thrown into the middle which made the dark blood red leach unpleasingly out of the cream. It brought to mind that toffs’ nickname for rice pudding and jam; ‘nosebleed pudding’. It was also strewn with a micro-herb (amaranth perchance) which of course brought nothing to this farmhouse table, so I wondered if its cost may have been better redistributed to bumping up the quality of that chocolate.
At such a point in human history where total global annihilation now seems to be racing towards us, it would be quite the balm to find oneself nestled in the cocoon of Castle Farm waiting for the tyrants, ghouls and fools to decide who gets to drop the bomb first. Over-whipped cream or otherwise, it feels like somewhere that wants to feed and nourish you whilst the Armageddon blows over.
All words by Seldon Curry, photos by Meg Houghton-Gilmour
Castle Farm, Midford Rd, Bath BA2 7PU
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