Common Market,
16-20 Dunbar Street,
Belfast,
BT1 2LH,
commonmarketbelfast.com
LUNCH on the sea border last time, dinner in the common market this time.
No, Eating Out hasn't started trolling our not so merry band of Brexiteers who are choking on the protocol. It's just a coincidence, but it turns out a happy one, which has been the ways things have gone lately.
Since restaurants have reopened, visits for reviews have been undertaken with the notion that if things aren't so great then it would better for everyone concerned to say nothing and move on. But, one irrevocably split hollandaise aside, things have gone very well.
Last time, the Olderfleet, right next to Larne harbour, provided flawless chowder, full-on lobster and crumble to run away with.
This time, it felt like there was more jeopardy about the expedition.
Common Market is, more than anything else, a space. It's the former Arnott's fruit and veg warehouse, cleared out and given a lick of paint, but it still feels awfully like a fruit and veg warehouse.
Rows of simple wooden tables and bench seats, with some intimate barrels for two about the place as well, provide the seating and although there's a roof over your head there's a distinct feeling of the outdoors.
Many will find that no bad thing with the pandemic still very much a reality, while there's the added assurance of the collection of contact details at the door.
Around the edges is the reason everyone is here - and it's busy on a Friday, with a loud, buzzy atmosphere bouncing round the cavernous interior.
Everyone seems to be having a good time, and when we start trying the street food options brought together under that roof way up there, it's clear why.
A bar offers a few wines, a lot of beers and even more cocktails, while six different stalls beg to be tried. The jeopardy came from the feeling that with so much choice, from such varied sources, they can't all be good. Well, they can.
One of the six, Baps by Freight, didn't get a run out, but only because it's a known quantity that has made it on to this page before, and whose burgers can stand next to anyone's. That standard was maintained on a trip around the market.
Hey Chick is all about fried chicken, though all off-the-bone in the form of burgers and on a stick, ready to be dragged through a stonking maple syrup dressing spiked with chilli. The chicken is moist and the crunch of the coating echoes around the place.
Next door is Al Pastor, whose eponymous pork shoulder tacos on a blue corn tortilla with a charred oblong on pineapple and the bright crunch of salsa come together into a warming, smoky, sweet, freshly wrapped present to yourself.
Ball & Roll's balls are fritters and rolls are spring rolls, both served with sparklingly fresh salads. The best is ruby beetroot with walnuts and apple in an orange dressing, a zappy side to the duck fritters - crisp balls of rich meat and puy lentils.
If Ball & Roll, with its salads and its lentils, is trying to convince you you're being virtuous, the next stop, Oui Poutine, doesn't even pretend.
Serving the French Canadian delicacy of chips slathered in cheese curds and gravy, a handwritten sign proclaims it's "not just cheese and gravy chips".
There's no need to protest so much. Cheese and gravy chips are not "just" cheese and gravy chips. Done well they're glorious. And these are done well.
The chips go, right before your eyes, from a bag of spuds through a slicer then into the pan. The only way you're getting fresher is to shift this thing into a field and have people queuing along the drills.
Desert comes from Moon Gelato, the Moira-based ice cream maker who could inspire epic poems about just about every flavour they churn out, from the pure milky simplicity of their Fior de Latte to the lavender peculiarity of their Purple Moon, flavoured with ube yams.
But the best is the pistachio, the colour of fresh cut grass and the flavour of the best ice cream you will have anywhere. Piled into a croissant, rolled in their raspberry, pistachio and coconut 'Moon Dust', or, in the case of the Fior de Latte, doused in espresso as a bracing affogato, you cannot go wrong. And that's something every spot in Common Market has in common.
THE BILL
Hey Chick chick sticks £5
Hey Chick buffalo fried chicken burger £9
Ball & Roll fritters £8
Oui Poutine traditional poutine £7
Al Pastor tacos £8.50
Moon Gelato neo croissant 99 £5.50
Moon Gelato moon rocks £5.50
Hop House £5.50
Diet Coke £2.20
Total £56.20
