16 Jan 2024
James Cameron forgoes new year frugality to embrace the delights of Mediterranean cuisine…
Given how lively Tabure was on a Saturday night in the first week it does not seem that St Albans is fully embracing healthy eating or Drynuary. Good on them, I say. January is depressing enough with its still gloomy weather and no Christmas to look forward to, the last thing you need is to try and be virtuous and deny yourself life’s small pleasures. Not that Tabure is a small pleasure, but it is a great place to visit to chase away the January blues!
The number of blues-chasers present gave a very lively atmosphere to Tabure, though it did make wending your way to the toilet a slightly strenuous prospect. The decor of the restaurant is very swish and modern looking. It is centred around the grill so you can see, and more importantly smell, all the cooking meat. Lighting hit that difficult sweet spot of being atmospheric whilst still being able to see your food.
Despite the full house the service was quick, we were in and out in an hour and a half, but there were some irregularities. My companion and I both started with breads and dips, but hers arrived quite a while before mine. I wasn’t sure of the etiquette of helping myself to her food whilst I waited for my own, so I just went ahead and did it until her Paddington-style hard stares became unavoidable.
It was hard to stop myself as her Fava Truffle Humus was superb. The truffle was present without being overpowering, and the dip has a smooth texture that made it very easy to keep shuffling it in.
I was glad I had left some of my dip powder dry, though, when my Kuymak arrived. This was a hot cheese fondue dip, delightfully gooey on top with a crispy bottom reminiscent of the leftovers from the world’s best cheese toastie.
The pitta bread provided was warm and puffy, and perfectly adequate as a dip delivery system but possibly not up to the level of the bread at Ayos which really excels in this area.
Luckily we had other options. We had wanted to try the White Cabbage Torsi but this was already sold out by the time we ordered. Given how early we were dining it must be surprisingly popular with the afternoon crowd, but this did lead us to the padron peppers.
These were both huge and delicious, with classic roasted pepper sweetness mixed with a vinegar-piquancy, and they became even better when dipped in either humus or melted cheese.
Tabure operates somewhere between tapas and a standard starter-main-dessert structure, with both smaller and larger plates as well as sides and the aforementioned dips and snacks.
The menu states that they will let you know if you either over- or under-order, which is quite a bold claim. I have been known to order what most right-minded individuals would consider far too much food and yet finish it quite happily. In this case, luckily, we were within the allowed parameters with a large dish each plus sides and dips.
I went for the Chargrilled Rhug Chicken Thighs. For those who don’t know, which included me until I just Googled it, Rhug is an estate in Wales where they clearly know how to treat their chickens well because their thighs were fantastic.
They were served with a pomegranate molasses, whose sweet richness was reminiscent of a Mexican mole, moreso as it was sprinkled with toasted sesame seeds. One of the best dishes I have had all year, though at this point the competition isn’t fierce.
My vegan companion went for the Nohut Govee, a chickpea and aubergine stew. The flavours were good but the texture was altogether too watery. It was lacking in structure and was almost soup-like. Annoyingly it would have been a good combination with the fried potatoes which we ordered as a side and would have soaked up the juices and provided a variety of texture, unfortunately after ordering these we were told they could not be made vegan despite being marked as such on the menu.
Instead we went for warm baby potato salad, which had a good whack of citrus flavour, and the spinach stems with roasted sesame which tasted good but was too cold for our tastes.
Again, the sides arrived quite a bit before the dishes they were supposed to be sitting alongside.
We also found it strangely difficult to order more beers, perhaps they are more used to people drinking wine which needs less topping up, or maybe they were just suggesting that we should be abstaining this month.
There was only one vegan dessert and this did not appeal, but luckily it is just round the corner from the Pudding Stop. Without this it came to £112 for two including beer. This included an automatic 12.5% service charge, though it does not state the amount and I had to get my calculator out to work this out. I should clarify this is the calculator on my phone, I no longer go around with a Casio in my pocket.
Our visit to Tabure was not without its niggles, though none of these were large enough to impact on what was a really fun evening, with flashes of brilliance on an interesting and varied menu and generally reasonable prices.
We now just have to go back for lunch sometime to find out what we are missing on the white cabbage.
