The Leicester Food Hop

If you are looking for a easy to way to get a glimpse into some of Leicester’s more interesting independent food venues – the Leicester Food Hop should be right up your proverbial.

The idea is that on one day  – specifically Saturday 13th October – you can buy a ticket and run your own self-guided, self -timed daytime tour around five venues, each of which will serve you up a drink and a tapas-sized dish that will highlight their food.

Salt and pepper squid from The Fish and The Chip

The venues involved are The Fish and The Chip, King Richard III, The Knight and Garter, The Parcel Yard, and The Olive  – the Greek street food café on Belvoir Street. It runs between 12pm and 5pm, so you’ve got up to an hour in each venue if you want. Organisers Cool as Leicester will email you a starting venue and suggested route. Tickets are £30 for five dishes and five drinks (small glass wine or half pint of beer) – for details visit Cool as Leicester

Parcel Yard’s local feast

Now this I like the sound of.  Leicester’s Parcel Yard is showing signs of moving beyond it’s initial offering of great craft beers and not bad pub grub towards something more ambitious. In early October is staging a “seasonal local feast” with appetising food and drink from within 30 miles.

At £25 a head for an aperitif and  three courses with matching drinks and this sounds a proper deal, at least if the chefs are up to it. Things kick off with a Two Birds gin and tonic, distilled in Market Harborough. First course is a salad of partridge, blackberries and Colston Bassett stilton, with a glass of Fynbury cider from Rutland, followed by a Cottingham venison stew with a glass of Steamin’ Billy’s own 1485 ale, and then Hedegrow crumble with a glass of Brewster’s APA, brewed in Grantham by CAMRA favourite Sarah Barton.

The event runs on Friday 3rd and Saturday 4th October. For full details book through the website or call the pub on 0116 261 9301.

Rib Nights at the Parcel Yard

Those of you have been enjoying the Smokehouse pop-up might also be attracted to a special Rib Nights event being held on 3 May at The Parcel Yard. Based on US-style cook-offs between barbecue teams this event will see Miss Piggy’s versus the Barbecue Barons.  Miss Piggy’s (run by Scott and Lyndsey Lane from Hugglescote in the Deep South of, erm, Coalville) are regulars on the US competition circuit and are keen to build a scene here too.  There have already been successful events run in Birmingham.

The format of the evening is simply the teams setting up their grills and diners getting ribs from each competitor, plus sides including fries, slaw and bread plus a Pickleback cocktail (whisky and pickle brine apparently). There’s a DJ and close-up magician on hand to build up the atmosphere too and diners will choose the winner on a blinding tasting basis.

It all sounds fun (but note over 18s only and no veggie options). Tickets are £20 plus a booking fee and can be ordered here.

The Parcel Yard

Earlier this week Leicestershire brewers and pub company Steamin’ Billy opened their seventh pub, this time right in the heart of Leicester. The Parcel Yard had actually been run by them for a good few years as Time, a large cocktail bar right next to the rail station drawing a young crowd. Now though they’ve shifted it into a more mainstream pub approach. It’s a big old barn of a place but the refurb has done a good job of softening the edges and making it that bit more comfortable and more food-oriented, with a range of areas including high bar stools, booths for four or six and a more restauranty area down the far end.

Big venue, named after a building’s previous use, real ales, pub food, loyalty cards  –  the comparisons to Wetherspoon’s mount up, but this is pitched a fair bit higher than that highly successful megachain.  I had a really good club sandwich  – huge pieces of chargrilled chicken breast, nice crispy bacon, and a pile of perfect fat chips.   Not dainty, refined  – well you wouldn’t really expect it of a club sandwich – but good enough to make me think I might risk going for one of the main courses such as coq au vin or confit duck  (around a tenner) on another occasion. Maybe not a big meal out occasion, but certainly an informal something nice before or after the match occasion.

The Parcel Yard

It’s also great to have a good pub right by the station.  The Sheffield Tap at Sheffield station, opened in collaboration with Thornbridge, has been a great success as a destination beer pub.  I could only see three of Steamin’ Billy’s own real ales  behind the bar but you’d hope that range will expand in due course. A nice way to mark your arrival or departure from the city anyway.