Not so much Buenos Aires as Venice. At least that’s what you’d think when you first see the building in Brindley Place in which Aktar Islam’s much awaited and much hyped, newly opened Argentine restaurant, Pulperia, is located.
I had a reservation to give it a try and so I duly turned up a few minutes before the appointed hour only to be told that due to problems food was not being served for lunch at present. The restaurant manager had tried to get hold of me but the message seemed not to have arrived. Well it all looked very nice but I shall have to wait for another day to give the food a try. The entrance itself is very swish and classy-looking. What a great location.
But there I was. I’d braved the public transport wincing every time someone on the train or tram gave a cough and I had meticulously tried to avoid touching anything where infected hands may have been first but my Coronavirus-threatened journey seemed to have been all in vain,
.Then I remembered that just across the square was that very decent restaurant Maribel formerly Edmund’s and then Edmunds Bistro de Luxe (see Blogs 59 and 81). It wasn’t busy and I was given a table. The decor style looks as chic as it did on my visit there last year but the choice of carpet colour was plainly disastrous as it shows up the multiple marks of a wet and muddy winter and leaves the poor carpet screaming, “Clean me!”. The lunchtime menu represents very good value and gives a remarkably good amount of choice.
It’s easy to take the bread for granted but I loved the little sweetish beer and malt loaf with yeast butter. It went down very nicely with my Hendricks and Schweppes tonic. There’s nothing wrong with Schweppes’ products even though Fever Tree has risen to trendy popularity for the present.
To the starter. I chose ‘pork, langoustine, ginger’. A pleasing dish was served - well-cooked pork belly (I know I never miss the opportunity to complain about being served yet another dish of pork belly but this was tasty and nicely coloured and completely lacking the anaemic pallor that is bestowed on anything that’s been lying around in a water bath for an hour or two) with some tasty little langoustines and an excellent bisque with some apt slices of leek.The spices placed it all in south east Asia which is never a bad place for food to hail from.
The main course was an amiable piece of halibut tasting just as it should on a bed of puy lentils which are usually pretty horrible things but here worked very well, little tasty florets of grilled cauliflower and a champagne sauce. A fine little dish.
Finally to the dessert of a crispy wafer-thin pastry with balls of apple, apple ice cream, little dots of a parsnip-flavoured cream (very good) and underneath it all Calvados-soaked golden raisins adding to the pleasure of the dish.
It is 6 months or so since the young Head Chef, Harvey Perttola, took over the reins of Maribal from the hoary, now-retired Richard Turner and he has established a good solid menu of pleasing well-cooked food. Maribel is not the best-situated quality restaurant in the city centre area. It’s a distance from the main hub of the city though now that the tram travels up to Centenary Square it is more easily arrived at by public transport. There’s a lot of competition in the immediate area with a number of chain restaurants and the pending opening of Pulperia places another quality restaurant within a few yards of it. Also on the way back to the tram stop there’s the lure of Craft Dining Room.
Everywhere you look there’s growing competition for quality restaurants in Birmingham and we may be on the point of seeing people stop going out to dine as the Coronavirus epidemic starts to bite. Spring is just starting. I wonder which restaurants will be around when autumn is drawing to a close here in Birmingham and the West Midlands. The Michelin Star 2021 revelation ceremony will take place on 19 October 2020 at the Camden Roundhouse (in London naturally) (there will also be a separate Bib Gourmand ceremony for the first time at a venue yet to be announced) and one wonders which of the 2020 winners will still be in business if the virus outbreak really takes grip. We must wait and see.
On the way to the tram stop from my lunch at Maribel I did indeed pass Craft Dining Room and took the opportunity to photograph its dining pods. Interesting I think.
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