Wednesday 23 May 2018

21. Birmingham Joins The Ivy League.


  The Ivy Temple Row opened recently in Birmingham. A review of mine on the dislikeable but sometimes useful website, Tripadvisor, is depicted below and summarises the impression of a lunchtime experience there. I did not find it to be a terribly enjoyable experience but it was not intolerable though the volume of din to be heard in the place did indeed push the boundaries of my tolerance.
  The food was satisfactory but nothing more and painfully overpriced. If The Ivy had not arrived in Birmingham then those who enjoy good food would be none the worse off but it's a glitzy addition to the range of places where the gullible who prefer style to substance may like to be seen though Birmingham has no real celebrities of note so spotting such people in the place is an unlikely event. I suppose that if Birmingham gets Channel 4 to serve as its new base then the sort of people who work for that television station might feel at home in the place.
  The original, hoary centenarian Ivy in Covent Garden is most notable as a place to be admired in, its Birmingham offspring is more a place to be deafened in.
  My lunchtime companion and I have no plans to return. The review below expands on the subject a little more:-







Saturday 12 May 2018

20. Lunch At Pieminister.

Beggar Boy with a piece of pie by Giacomo Peroti

 I do like a good pie. Somehow it seems very English.

  So what could be better than a restaurant that specialises in serving pies? Let's head for Pieminister in Waterloo Street to find out. Fleetingly I think of Sweeney Todd and Bellowhead's song 'Black beetle pies' but such unpleasant fancies soon flee away as I arrive at the restaurant which specialises in minimalist decor and seems to attract far more male customers than females.
  Not much in the way of starters, somehow olives don't seem appropriate. And so straight to the main course - a chicken and ham pie on a bed of mash with accompanying mushy peas. I might have liked simple chips with my pie and peas, not modern chips with the skin on, but classic beautifully cooked chips, soft on the inside and crunchy on the outside, but such was not available. But let's be honest, how can you better classic pie and mash? And the pie was fine. The classic chicken and tarragon combination with just the right amount of tarragon so that the powerful herb enhanced the flavour without killing it straight dead. The mash too was fine - proper mash not some near-liquid purée with all the body squeezed out of it - and the peas were admirable, perfectly minted, I wondered if there was a hint of vinegar which would have been spot on.

Pie, mash and mushy peas

  I had a vanilla milkshake with the meal which served as an accompanying drink and a pudding. The milkshake was inadequate in size and overpriced but I guess Pieminister has to make its profit somewhere or the other.
  The service was excellent and all in all the experience quite pleasurable and if it survives I will be happy to lunch at Pieminister again.
  Pieminister had begun as a business for 12 years prior to its opening in Birmingham and had been started in Bristol with other branches in Exeter, Nottingham, and Leeds. It's pleasing to have a chain of restaurants that specialise in food with a distinctly British character rather than yet another tedious burger joint but the restaurant could have looked more British. And going out to eat should have a little bit of excitement to it but there is really no thrill to going to Pieminister. Perhaps things could be made to be a little less routine by having special pies of the day to add an air of immediacy to the menu. 
  Nevertheless, a visit to Pieminister is a perfectly satisfactory experience. You could say, "The pies have it, the pies have it".

Children eating a pie by Murillo 

Thursday 10 May 2018

19. Folium Opens, Wilderness Wanders, Edmund's Closes And Turner On The Move.

  Dining out in Birmingham has been very interesting in the last few months. 

  Folium opened in Caroline Street. I've had two excellent lunches there so far. Ben Tesh is producing some wonderful food and the place is bright and modern and comfortable.
  What a pleasure indeed was the salt marsh lamb. A fine start to Folium in its Jewellery Quarter home.




  A little further into the Jewellery Quarter a surprise temporary home for The Wilderness. With work on its new Bennett's Hill home delayed, Alex Claridge is cooking in the previous location, down an alley in Warstone Lane, of Two Cats and, more historically, The Toque D'Or. The all-black decor follows the rule that less is more and Claridge's whimsies are no worse showcased in this perhaps slightly claustrophobic environment than anywhere else. Claridge' food is magnificent and full of humour. His Big Mac appetiser does to steak tartare what it has always been asking for. His lamb (charcoal, cucumber) is perfect and his 'Quail, Tamarind' (NAFB - the waitress will tell you what it stands for - not only is Claridge a gastronomic genius but also one of Britain's great comedians) gives us one of the most memorable 'curries' ever served up in Birmingham. Notably, all tables were taken at a mid-week lunchtime.

  Perhaps The Jewellery Quarter is the new Ludlow.






  Having mentioned the Toque D'Or there comes the sad news that Didier Philpott's later restaurant, Edmund's in Brinkley Place, closed suddenly and is to be reopened as Maribel where the Head Chef will be, of all people, Richard Turner, who closed his own Turner's At 69 shockingly suddenly in January this year. I liked Edmund's though it's fate always seemed sealed by how few people were lunching there whenever I went. Philpott's cooking gave us perfectly fine and accurate French cuisine better than that served at the persistently 2 Michelin star Champignon Sauvage in Cheltenham and I shall miss it.
  Turner of course went through revisions of his menus at Turner's eventually ditching his multi-course tasting menus for a return to the pleasures of a la carte. Now an article in the Birmingham Post tells us that Turner will be presenting an 11 course tasting menu at a cost of £85 in Maribel but that there will also be a three-course a la carte menu which in my view is a relief.



  Finally The Post tells us that Aktar Islam, his days at Lasan numbered, is planning 2 new restaurants in the coming months - the Opheem in Summer Row which will feature 'progressive Indian cuisine' and  also in Summer Row will be the Mi Amore Ristorante Pizzaria to open in May. Oh good, another Italian-style restaurant - as Claridge would say, "NAFP", the last initial standing for 'pizza'.