Kimchi isn’t very common in the cities of Yorkshire.

Not surprising, as there isn’t a large Korean population in these parts, but still no reason why their national dish shouldn’t get an airing.

I’ve made kimchi once.

So far.

It seems to be one of those things with infinite variations, where no two batches are the same.

Kimchi is, at its heart, a pickled vegetable preserve. Vegetables, typically things like Chinese cabbage, are brined in a heady mix of chilli, sugar and salt, with a little preserved seafood added to kick-start the most important characteristic of the dish.

Fermentation.

Yes, that’s right, kimchi is basically a jar full of cabbage leaves that have gone a bit funky, with lots and lots of chilli and sugar to hide that very fact.

DO NOT LET THIS PUT YOU OFF.

Think of it like sauerkraut instead.

More this way…

What do they serve, then?

Clue’s in the name. Ribs…beef or pork, in various different incarnations, with various different sauces, all Southern US style along with other things like chicken wings, rib meat burgers and a token salad bar.

Who is it aimed at?

Rib Shakk is quite relaxed. It’s great for families, and isn’t at all formal. Rib eating can never be formal. It’s a messy business.

The model is similar to that other famous high street barbecued chicken place you may have been to. Our waiter asked if we’d been before, and then explained that we should have a look at the menu, then order at the till, “just like in….” and he tailed off there. “Nando’s?”, I suggested. “Yes, but we’re not meant to say that…”

The method of ordering is about the only similarity between the two, thank the Lord.

Rib Shakk is a part of the Anthony’s empire, and it shares the bottom floor of the Corn Exchange with the Piazza restaurant, a champagne bar and an upmarket patisserie. It looks like the odd cousin on paper, but the way the space has been arranged is clever, with Rib Shakk cleverly shielded at the side of the Piazza, slightly away from the other, posher restaurants, without feeling like the odd one out.

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We went out for dinner the other evening.

The food was brilliant, all fusion noodles and tempura and big Thai curries.  Proper South East Asian food that could maybe have had a slightly bigger chilli kick, but I am a Bradfordian, after all. We like our chillis.

The restaurant is in one of those converted warehouse-type places with high ceilings and iron beams and leather seats.  My mum would undoubtedly have called it ‘trendy’.

Everything was first-rate, from the food to the service, except there was one thing, literally in the background, that started to jump out and clobber both of us.

The music, which was terrible.

Track after track of dated pop and power ballads, all slightly too loud.  It was as if they’d just stuck Now That’s What I Call the Eighties on and left it to run through the whole horrifying lot.

The problem was the fit.  The music didn’t match the food or the restaurant.  There was a definite mismatch between the way the restaurant projected itself on the plate and the way it did so over the soundsytem.

Bang up to date fusion food vs. cheesy eighties music?  It didn’t work out.

More….

Years ago, I used to live in a little flat on the side of a big house.  It had a long set of stone stairs leading up to the front door, and the top of the stairs caught the sun for a good few hours a day, even in winter.  One of the first things I did when I moved in was to buy the biggest terracotta pot I could find and plant it with as many different herbs as I could cram in.

The pot soon expanded into two pots, then three, then four, and by the summer, I had a fairly complete herb garden growing in a variety of containers up the length of the steps.  My landlady, the owner of the house, would sometimes knock on my door asking if she could have a sprig of this or that, and the pots did so well that there was plenty to go round.

I never grew anything purely ornamental…everything had a culinary purpose, and whilst it did all look very attractive in full bloom, and smelt wonderful, aesthetics were not the primary reason for those pots.

They were for the kitchen.

This tendency to grow things for the kitchen has followed me around the various places I’ve lived over the years, until I find myself looking out at a small front garden with an eight foot bay tree, a hedge of rosemary next to a bed of marjoram, sage, and oregano, with some thyme plants dotted around and a quite lacklustre pot of chives on the side.  The parsley is gone for the winter, but it’ll be planted again as an annual in the Spring, and there might be some tarragon to sneak in somewhere or other this year.

More this way….