8th March 2007
It's pronounced Pin Cho
I've only just moved back to Brighton, so my memories of the place loom large in all my new experiences. I can't walk past the skanky concrete cave at the land end of the West Pier without remembering the daytime rave my housemates and I found on our first walk into town. I can't go past Portslade on the train without thinking of the summer job I had, making door and window handles in a grimy shed and hitching to work to avoid the bus fare.
And I can't go out for a smart dinner in the centre of town without thinking of the Dumb Waiter, the little caf that used to represent my big culinary treat when I was on the dole a big veggie breakfast, laden with carbs, washed down with a decadently frothy coffee.
It's still there, with its nose rings and its rollups, but Brighton's dining has definitely changed over the years. This is what I thought as I stood in the bar at Pinxto People, drinking a glass of champagne, and waiting for a well-dressed maitre'd to tell me my table was ready.
For Pinxto People (Pinxto are bar snacks, those fantastic stacks of one-bite deliciousness that accompany any self-respecting Catalonian drink) is quite glam, thanks very much. Little black dresses, strange and expensive drapery, waiters that explain things to you, food on rectangular plates, the whole deal.
I'll spare you the full waiter show, but the gist was this there's lots of little dishes, we'll bring you a whole bunch of them, anything you don't like we'll take away. My idea of heaven is to sit down and just have people bring me stuff to eat, so I love it, but you can also order like a regular person if you want to.
There were a lot of dishes about twelve in all and we were sharing, so I'll stick to the ones we fought over. The rare fillet steak with straw mushrooms was properly rare, incredibly tender, and deeply savoury. Acorn-fed Iberico ham was sweet, fatty and dangerously addictive. The pimentos padron (small, chargrilled green peppers with rock salt) weren't quite so popular with everyone, but I rather like the unabashed green flavour of them. Monkfish and a great fish and chips dish kept the non-carnivores very happy too.
Dinner for five, with three bottles of champagne, water, and two extra glasses of wine was just under 50 a head. Not bad at all.
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