Beneath the Skin

We begin our Foreplay with an Undressed Tart (all euphemisms are to be placed squarely at the door of The Pop-Up and not the author), comprising sun-dried tomatoes with goat cheese, caramelised allium (you have to guess the specific variant from the genus. Hint: it’s onion; well-cooked, inchoate, sweetish but dusky onion), seasonal greens, bell peppers and tomato-infused sour balsamic. The tart comes Graham cracker-style, nestled among a forest of greens, and spread over with gooey goat cheese. The play of textures and flavours is likely to make you go “ma-ma” (or “ba-ba” in an idyllic world of gender equality).

Caveat to the reader: when crowded, The Pop-Up takes a while to pop its dishes out, so be prepared for the wait; the food justifies it but this cannot be your mid-day in-between work manna.

Our mains are the bacon, cheese and mushroom Doh’nut burger, topped with crisped shards of bacon and the Grilled Tenderloin Tournados with roast potatoes, green beans, cherry tomatoes, with a sesame wasabi cream. The tournados come first, slick cuts of beef enmeshed in a poignant kasundi sauce, laid back on a bed of roasted potatoes. Our knife, fork and gullet arm themselves, rapidly putting away portions of meat and meal, without a burp to spare. The Doh’nut burger staggers in last, stuffed with a fricassee of mushy-rooms, cheese and slippery bacon.

But time and space did stop, leaving us without room for dessert.

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