In burning sun, the 8th Colmore Food Festival opened today in Victoria Square. As Lucy The Labrador and I walked up to the square, keeping in the shade as much as possible, we heard the sound of a steel drum band. We entered the square at the Town Hall side where two stages were set up - one for cookery demonstrations and the other for other entertainments. After the necessary opening speech by the rather dreary Deputy Leader of Birmingham City Council (politicians so lacking in charisma really shouldn't be seen at such fun public events) the show got underway with a fine cocktail-making demonstration by one of the excellent bar men from Purnell's Bistro but the dog and I had to move away after a few minutes because the scorching sun to which the audience, accommodated appropriately in deckchairs, was getting just a little too hot for the Labrador to bear.
We went in search of food and shade and dealing with the first need we headed for the Asha's stall and bought a helping of some magnificent chilli garlic chicken tikka which was truly delicious. On to the stall belonging to The Old Joint Stock where I selected a fine Mini chicken tikka pie with coconut and coriander served with an excellent mash and red wine gravy. Lucy and I sat in the shade at the end of Waterloo Street sharing the excellent pie - fine pastry indeed - and then we prepared for Round 3. Before we could set off however a man dressed as a large red chicken came along quite unexpectedly and Lucy amused the surrounding crowd by having a sustained loud bark at the strange creature, a performance she was to repeat later when 2 human pigeons strutted along beside us.
Round 3 proved to be disappointing - I bought a Chinese tapas from Chung Ying Central - the deep fried prawn was satisfactory and the prawn dumpling seemed to be generously stuffed with prawns but the Vietnamese spring roll was quite horrible, the contents tasted quite unpleasant and the surrounding pastry could easily have been constructed from old leather.
Finally after another sit in the shade, Lucy and I headed for the Zen Metro Thai Restaurant stall and thoroughly enjoyed the generous helping of Spicy wok chicken which indeed was very spicy. I definitely needed to cool my mouth down so we rounded off our visit to the Colmore Food Festival with a visit to Gingers Bar stall and I had a most refreshing Thyme For A Pimms cocktail.
The Colmore Food Festival, which this year hosted stalls from about 30 Food and drink businesses homed in the Colmore Business District, is now well established as an important feature of the Birmingham food scene - it seems to grow from strength to strength.
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