Fresh Bakery, Fairfax Street: 'How many hours of work must’ve been sunk into such fleeting pleasure' - restaurant review
Dim sum done right, by Jason Jay Pridham
Dearest Saucers, today I bring you something that people in Bristol are often asking after - excellent dim sum. There are whole Reddit threads dedicated to the cause. Fortunately, the wondrous Jason Jay Pridham has uncovered the delights of Fresh Bakery in this poetic homage to homeliness and happiness so that we may all be satiated.
Before you get stuck in - I want to remind you that The Bristol Sauce writers and paying readers will be assembling for a festive drink at a central Bristol location from 7pm on Wednesday, December 18. The location will be sent to paying Saucers this week - so if you’d like to come, please upgrade your subscription now.
Excuse the Storm Darragh pun but I do think you’ll be blown away by some of the writing we’ve got coming up today and in the next few weeks. So if you can, please consider supporting our publication.
A sign in orange neon blinks and fizzes above the doorway. A host of headless ducks standing sentry behind glass beckon prospective diners in from the cold. Bone white crockery gleams on plastic covered tables, ready to be of service.
Next to the kitchen’s entrance, almost pride of place, a humming drinks fridge is full to the brim with cans of Pepsi and iced black tea. A space not so much curated as engineered with utility at its core. Speed. Hot, billowing, and steam-powered. Drinking in my surroundings has to wait as I address a pair of fogged up glasses. Winter has arrived.
Tea, it is arguable, plays a fairly key role even in contemporary British culture. Obviously, there are strong and significant historical underpinnings in regards to our colonialist past, with tea acting at once as export good and greater symbol of our relationship with ‘The East’.
But in a very modern sense, I think of tea as being a unifier. A drink that supplements moments of silence and conversation alike. Whether it be a mug of PG Tips, my family and I sat in wrapt attention, eyes fixed on the latest episode of Corrie. Or multiple small cups of pu’er - long-fermented, earthy and complex, stimulating an intense discourse on gut health with friends who lean considerably more new-age, less seven o’clock soap.
The tea that we are served upon arrival at Fresh Bakery on Fairfax Street is of the jasmine variety. Fragrant, welcoming and deeply nostalgic, the tendrils of this aromatic vine framing the entrance to my family home in New Zealand. The first sip brings immediate warmth to the body and a warding off of this dramatic wintery descent, outward and inward, a tonic respite from the cold and the stomach’s desperate plea for comfort is answered.
Fresh Bakery is a Hong Kong-style, dim sum or yum cha restaurant. In England we tend to use these two terms interchangeably to describe a meal, typically lunch, served as small plates alongside tea. Yum cha translated means precisely that: “to drink tea”, while dim sum makes reference to the bite-sized portions of food. There is a wonderfully knowing look that comes over our group as we go back for that second sip. Eyes narrowed, peaking slyly above the rim of our respective vessels, as monks we share approving mmm’s in chorus.
As is the custom, we are provided with a literal checklist for a menu, propelled into a decision making frenzy as if sitting my SATs some 20 years late. I have to say that it feels slightly wrong to be here at this hour, the token westerners, sitting down for lunch at eight o’clock in the evening. Apparently, even after years of being a regular punter at this kind of establishment, I am slow on the uptake.
Seemingly in tandem with us ordering, the food arrives in a timely, rhythmic succession; our table quickly populated by an assemblage of bamboo steamers. The lids come off and it’s the second time this evening that I’m rendered blind (a healthy argument for a shift to contact lenses).
The spectacle of this kind of meal is something to behold. We eagerly anticipate those barely mouthfuls, bursts of excitement gone almost as quickly as they appear in front of us. First, we try the ghostly pale and pearlescent har gow (£6.5), a prawn dumpling with skin so translucent as to give the faintest suggestion of its contents. The light crunch of water chestnut acts as a wonderful foil to the otherwise unctuous prawn and pork fat filling.
I insist on ordering chicken feet with black bean sauce (£6.5). It’s true that many people abhor the lingual gymnastics required for chicken feet but I believe that it is well worth it for the payoff. Gelatinous and saucy, this is as much a textural experience as one of many flavours; deepened boldly with fermented black soy beans.
The plump siu mai however (£6.3), an increasingly ubiquitous, open-faced pork and prawn dumpling, satisfies easily with its requisite bounce. Gone in one, I think of how many hours of work must’ve been sunk into such a fleeting pleasure.
Our waitress recommends us to order the fried salted meat dumpling (£5.9), and by golly am I glad that we did. The outside of this dumpling crackles under your tongue, not too dissimilar texturally to a prawn cracker, immediately giving way to a satisfying chew and a slightly sweet pork filling. I ask for the Cantonese name (ham sui gok) which sparks an impromptu lesson in pronunciation (I fail dismally, though am rewarded with a genuine laugh at my attempt).
Lo bak go (£5.5) or ‘turnip cake’ as it is often seen on English menus is another standout. A soft and homogenous cake made from steamed white radish and glutinous rice flour, studded generously with shrimp and quickly pan fried for that easily yielding outer layer of crisp.
With stacks of bamboo steamers teetering ever more precarious on the corner of our table, our stomachs growl for more. Impulsively I will always order tripe when eating at a Chinese restaurant thus I dare venture into more perilous territory considering my somewhat less adventurous cohort. The steamed tripe in ginger and spring onion (£6.5) is served simply, ginger in abundance. It immediately divides the table with me ending up having most of it to myself. Oops.
Luckily for me, we finish on shredded pork choy sum congee (£6.5) a subtly flavoured but incredibly comforting savoury rice porridge and cheung fun with prawns (£6.5), a silky and singular noodle, manifesting as one as opposed to the many.
The waitress is in her coat, bag over shoulder, and by all appearances about to clock off for the day as she approaches us with the card machine. Time to leave. It would be fair to say that for me, this type of food and the restaurant that it is served in have come to stand as unifiers unto themselves. Beyond the cup of cha and a chinwag, I am lulled into a level of comfort in these moments I find it hard to equate with any other. Maybe it’s the too white walls. Maybe it is indeed the company. Maybe it’s the skeleton crew of three, pumping out gold for £6.50 a plate that does it. I don’t know. But as we plunge back out into a wintery void I have already started plotting my return.
All words and photos by Jason Jay Pridham
Fresh Bakery, 2-4 Fairfax Street, BS1 3DB
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Sky Kong Kong, Gallimaufry: 'A manifesto on a plate' - restaurant review
Jason’s second review for The Bristol Sauce proves he is no one-trick pony, but a many-masterpiece horse. For those rushing to book a table after reading this, we’ll save you the trouble. It’s walk-ins only. But - Sky Kong Kong is in residence until the end of December, so you have two months to make it down there, and you’ll be glad you did so.
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