113. A Treat At No 9 Church Street With The Help Of The Taxpayer.

  Though I planned to have dinner there, finding the evening fully booked I opted instead to have lunch at No 9 Church Street. Stratford was awash with day visitors and short break stay-cation takers many of whom had let the sun get to their brains and had lost the ability to measure 1 metre. Notably there were the middle-aged couples whose hands were glued together and had not the ability to walk single file for a few seconds while passing someone walking in the opposite direction on a narrow pavement. And as usual there were the problematic Lycra garbed cyclists who do not understand the difference between a pathway and a roadway and with their middle-class sense of entitlement drove furiously at any man or beast in their way. There were also the daytrippers who were obviously from the inner city of one of the West Midlands metropolises not all from the same household who can’t count to 6 or choose not to and then complain that their communities have experienced an unfair degree of visitation by that which shall not be named here. No wonder that the Stratford locals view the tourists as a curse and a blessing in not exactly equal measures.

  And everyone was partying in the broadest sense of the word on the Chancellor of The Exchequer’s bountiful generosity on the taxpayer’s behalf - whoever the taxpayer may be - oh look I’m one of them - the Eat Out To Help Out campaign. So I partied too. And you can’t help but party on 3 courses plus coffee for just £15 at No 9 Church Street.

Well of course the Chancellor hasn’t gone completely doolally so alcohol has to be paid for without the taxpayer’s help but that did not stop me being soothed by a pleasing Hendricks and tonic joyously garnished with minute cubes of cucumber. After a couple of slices of good bread accompanied by both butter or olive oil, I’m a butter man myself, the starter of smoked gammon on a bed of Romesco sauce with a heavy leaf fall of rocket rising high above everything else was delivered to my table and flavours, apart from the rocket, were not strong. Though rocket is an arch-enemy of mine here it worked generally well with the other parts of the dish and not too many leaves were left on the plate when I hung up my knife and fork.

  And on to the main course which arrived in its own good time - a finely grilled pork loin chop with 2 vegs (a satisfactory mashed potato and nicely cooked shreds of hispi cabbage) with a thyme jus. The pork was a lordly-sized piece of meat and very tender and highly commendable but did it need a little more seasoning? - I thought so. And am I being a little ungracious in saying that the dish would have been made more merry with some accompanying apple; pork and apple, why else would pigs live in orchards? But how can one feel unhappy with generously-portioned fine starters and main courses for just £10. Gift horses and mouths come to mind.

  I’m sorry to say that I really did not get the dessert. Vanilla-poached peaches with lots and lots of whipped cream and toasted almonds plating the the top of it. I really could not eat all the cream. And finally, also included in the £15 price, a good cup of coffee and an appealing little nutty petit four.

  Thank you Taxpayer, Chancellor, Chef and the wonderful Front of House restaurant manager, Magdalena, for a meal of great good value at No. 9. The changes there retain the cosiness of the restaurant whilst ensuring a feeling of safety in the face of that which will not be named. A nice comfortable lunch.

112. Back To The Woodsman.

  After several months away Lucy The Labrador and I were back in Stratford. The poor old Shakespeare Hotel seemed a little forlorn with the necessary changes wrought by that wretched virus. But there were plenty of visitors in Stratford in both the daytime and the evening and the town was overflowing with visitors - well it is summer and they can’t go to Spain - and hardly anyone seemed to acknowledge that there was a pandemic on from their general inability to recognise what exactly is meant by social distancing. Most forlorn of all is the closed theatre. There’s a poster outside The Other Place for The Winters Tale which was due to open a few days after the prime minister shut down the country. It’s sad to see but perhaps those right-on producers and managers at the RSC can use the time and sit down and take a good hard look at how they’ve bowdlerised Shakespeare in the last two or three years and descended into the depths of sanctimonious self-indulgence just like the chef who produces a devastatingly expensive Tasting menu using the cheapest and vaguely most unpleasant cuts of meat with the excuse that he/she wishes to introduce the diner to something new and “respecting” the poor dead animal by using the “whole of it” in their dishes (and coincidently maximising their profits).

  And so to some enjoyable food. Dinner at The Woodsman in the rather beautiful Hotel Indigo known to Stratford lags for centuries as The Falcon. 

  There was some lovely brioche made finer by the perfect use of salt and with the pleasant accompanying butter. No description of the bread was given which was a pity as it deserved an introduction as did my very fine starter of exquisite treacle cured sea trout served with a pleasingly crabby-flavoured crab mayonnaise and a less exciting avocado purée and a subtley flavoured fennel salad which gave the right amount of texture. Unfortunately my starter arrived seconds after my bread and I had almost finished my sea trout when my aperitif of Chase Pomodoro and pink grapefruit gin and tonic arrived. Pity. The gin went perfectly with the starter but there was too little of the dish left to get the full pleasure of the match. Still, I was feeling comfortable and relaxed and well socially distanced and so I found it really rather difficult to feel aggrieved in any way and the starter was lovely.

  But the best was yet to come. I had a fabulous main course of beautifully cooked Brixham plaice on the bone which was a joy in itself but it came along with a gorgeous beurre noisette which was a form of nectar in which the fish could bask. It was served simply with 6 triumphant mussels, tender and, like the fish, masterfully seasoned and spinach and crispy little capers. A truly great dish. See picture at the head of this piece.

Chase Pomodoro and Pink Grapefruit gin was late to the party.

  After these 2 magnificent dishes the dessert was something of a letdown with some of the ingredients vaguely discordant. I ate it all but it was a little deflating following on from what had come before. For the record I had the peach melba cheesecake with pistachio ice cream which I did not think was a marriage made in heaven.

The Woodsman serves up some fabulous fayre. I wish front of house, who give a polite, friendly and welcoming service, would give short introductions to each course and that the delivery of courses was more satisfactorily spaced but the food is generally memorable for all the right reasons.

111. Return To Craft, 8 Draws Near.

  The steamy hot weather had left the city centre deserted and public transport largely empty. So, not too worrying a journey into the city centre apart in my bemasked state from the risk of momentarily broiling in my own juices.

  I found Craft changed. For a start it now seems to be Craft rather than Craft Dining Rooms. Well that makes sense. The pods outside in an HG Wellsian sort of way seemed to have proliferated and the bar was now located outside. I had booked an outdoor table but was told I had been allocated one indoors which was gloriously air-conditioned and the social distancing space was generous. On this day the air conditioning was as important as the food. Well almost. Well, that is probably true, actually. So I was both happy and relieved to have had my reservation countermanded.

  On line menus and wine lists. Technology comes to the rescue. I was asked if I wanted a card menu and I did as it’s nice to have a souvenir. On the back there’s a nice little map of Great Britain showing the places of origin of some of the restaurant’s wines and ingredients. At this point I realised I had not had my temperature taken (which the restaurant had previously been making a big thing of) though the great heat of the day would have undoubtedly rendered me pyrexial anyway and no-one had offered me or pointed me in the direction of hand sanitiser. 

  The pleasure of a double Cotswolds Gin and tonic and in came the starter. Each course very reasonably offered four choices, I opted for the very tasty and fine-looking salt beef with refined pickles and mustard and accompanied by a small brioche loaf. The brioche was mildly burned though edible but really should not have been sent out of the kitchen in that state.

  The bread was a relatively minor issue when the main course arrived. Pork in many guises. Here Chef had come into his own. There was so much that was right about the dish. With its circular motif it was vaguely psychedelic and had lots of browns and yellows that those of us who lived through the 1970s would be so familiar with. And how wonderful not to just be served pork cheek or pork belly. Here there were both plus a lovely little bit of pork rump. The cheek was among the most tasty I’ve had before and the belly was magnificent with its slim little slice of crackling adhering to it. I enjoyed  the perfectly cooked five spice carrot, the mash of ideal texture and the magnificent piece of gorgeously flavoured pineapple which had been marinated in something ambrosian I think. At the hub was an egg which went well with the rest. Top marks. A repeat visit soon was now assured.

  So often the main course of a meal can be the low point but this was the undoubted star of this meal.

  The dessert was summed up on the menu as Rice pudding with Hay ice cream. Mercifully the flavour of hay was barely noticeable and the rice pudding was perfectly textured. The milk tuiles gave a subtle flavour to it all. Light and apt, just my sort of pudding.

  The indoor restaurant has halved its size since I last visited Craft rather as our prime minister would like us all to do. It was a little disorientating but made the restaurant more intimate as the restaurant had been far too big and hard to keep warm in winter. So where had the rest of it gone?

  I asked about the publicity I had read recently for Chef Andrew Sheridan’s new restaurant, 8, and wondered where it was going to be situated. The answer was in front of my nose. It was going to be in the missing half of Craft and would open on 8 October. The menu will be an 8 course tasting menu and will be themed around the number 8. Each dish pays ”homage to the number and Sheridan’s culinary journey” with the concept summing up his whole career in eight courses”. This sounds all a little too self-referential and self-absorbed but I’m ready to give it a go although getting a reservation might be difficult as the 16 cover venue will at first be limited to eight covers because of the need for adequate social distancing. Sheridan does produce the most delicious dishes so 8, I’m sure, is going to be rather special.

Addendum - Thanks to the Chancellor of The Exchequor for my very decently sized Eat Out to Help Out discount. It really is a very sunny day.

110. A Hot Dog At CSons.

  There’s a lot of fuss about Digbeth Dining Club’s street food experience but I remain to be convinced. I’ve had some reasonably enjoyable stuff, one or two near-gems but also one or two stinkers. I recall with a shiver down my back a particularly unpleasant but expensive hot dog with a skin around it that was impenetrable particularly when attacked with the useless plastic knife supplied by the vendor and on another occasion an unspeakably hyperchillified sauce which destroyed every taste bud in my mouth for several days, which had been poured on what professed to be a superior hot dog but which clearly was not.

  The theme here therefore is street food specialising in the hot dog. I have always loved hot dogs. They need only to be very simple - edible sausage with sweet chopped fried onions on a pleasant white bread roll sometimes, but not necessarily, with an appealing condiment. I don’t need a two foot long jumbo sausage served on an even longer unpleasantly doughy bread roll; a normal sized sausage is all that is needed.

  There are many stories about the origins of the hot dog. The sausage used in the hot dog, so Wikipedia tells me, was popular in 19th century Germany and was so named because the meat in some of the sausages at the time was so bad that it was thought to have been just that - dog (I cover up Lucy The Labrador’s ears as I read this through).And apparently it sometimes was. The pork sausage - the Frankfurter - so named, as we all know, because Frankfurt was its birthplace, goes back to as long ago as the 13th century when the Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian II distributed them to the locals whenever he held street processions (our politicians may get a useful tip here on how to conjure up some extra votes when they hold political meetings). It is claimed that Frankfurters were being eaten in America in the 1880s but a German immigrant, one Herr Anton Feuchtwanger sold them in St Louis in the early 20th century lending white gloves to the purchasers so that they could hold them without burning their fingers. This was not a profit-making business because the sausage eaters failed to return the gloves to Herr Feuchtwanger and so Frau Feuchtwanger suggested that he serve the sausage wrapped in some milk bread which clearly was non-returnable. Hence was born the hot dog. There are several other claims to being the originator of the Hot Dog in America but it is not the question I really want answered.

  I should like to know when the sausage sandwich became a reality in our green and pleasant land on this side of the Atlantic which gives rise to a gastronomic conundrum - which came first the sausage sandwich or the hot dog? 

  I can always remember the existence of the hot dog from my earliest days whereas the burger was something new in my childhood appearing in the form of the Birdseye beef burger at some time in the  1960s. Obviously I was behind the times because Lyon’s Corner Houses had obtained a license to use the US Wimpy brand in its cafés in 1954 with the first Wimpy Bar being opened in Lyon’s Corner House in Coventry Street in London that same year as a separate fast food section. The success of the innovation was rapid and Wimpy restaurants were being opened before long which served beefburgers only. So after Wimpy came Birds Eye. I have not yet tracked down the date when the first Wimpy Bar in Birmingham first opened and how soon after 1954 the city became home to what was for some years the place to eat a burger. 

  But I wander. It is the Hot Dog and not the burger that is of concern here. The sausage is an object dating back into ancient Middle Eastern history or so Wikipedia informs us. In England the word itself dates back to the 15th century though Shakespeare sadly does not mention King Henry V guzzling on a sausage sandwich before riding off to fight the battle of Agincourt nor does Richard III cry out, “A sausage! A sausage! My kingdom for a sausage!” as he fights the Battle of Bosworth on his way to ending up under a Leicester car park. One can only guess that the sausage sandwich itself probably came into existence shortly after the invention by John Montagu, 4th Earl of Sandwich, of the sandwich proper (either slices of salt beef between two slices of toasted bread or slices of roast beef between slices of bread) which meant that he could continue gambling without having to pause to eat a formal meal. The sandwich was invented sometime between 1718 (the year of Montagu’s birth and so probably not before 1738) and 1765 when the Frenchman Pierre-Jean Grosley visited London for a year or so and mentioned in an account of his visit the sandwich that was all the rage there. 

John Montagu 4th Earl of Sandwich.

  Once the sausage sandwich became established, whenever that was, Englishmen continued to eat it with, I’m sure, great pleasure though when they added tomato sauce - ketchup - or brown sauce as condiments to reduce the effects of the fat in the sausage I can not say. But when did the US variant of the sausage sandwich - the Hot Dog - find its special niche on this side of the Atlantic? I suspect we may again be able to pin down a reasonably likely date of 11 June 1938 when during a visit to The United States, King George VI and Queen Elizabeth were entertained to a lunch at Top Cottage in Hyde Park in New York where Eleanor Roosevelt, the wife of President Frankish Roosevelt, regaled their guests with a menu of ‘American dishes’ including Hot Dogs. It is alleged that Queen Elizabeth, unfamiliar either with a sausage in a bread roll or perhaps just unfamiliar with a sausage per se, was rather taken aback and tried to eat the dog with a knife and fork which any civilised person would have done of course but the King consumed the treat and this was reported back on newsreels to the public back home and doubtless this was the birth of the era which saw the English eating hot dogs which is why I as a child of the 1950s was perfectly familiar with the Hot Dog as an edible concept at a very early stage of my life.

The British monarchy’s first encounter with a Hot Dog, 1938.

  Which brings us back, finally, to Ludlow. In previous blogs (see Blogs 33 and 82) I have mentioned CSons on the Green at Dinham weir which has not had a happy year having to shut for a short time early in the year with the severe flooding that affected Shropshire, Herefordshire and Worcestershire and then having to close again because of the COVID-19 pandemic. But CSons, like so many other food establishments, has held on and fought back and is now selling food as takeaways to large numbers of people on the Green who eat it while enjoying the lovely location and the now gently flowing river, including the C Dog, CSons own version of the Hot Dog that so perplexed Queen Elizabeth over 80 years ago.

  As Hot Dogs go, the C Dog was spectacularly good even if I did drop bits of it down my clothes as I had my own private hot dog party shared only with Lucy The Labrador. I dislike intensely the unhappy flavour and texture of the classic boiled frankfurter but am a devoted fan of the great English sausage so for me the delicious Gloucester Old Spot sausage used in the very fine C Dog coupled by the glorious sweet buttered onions and a perfectly judged mustard and wondrous beetroot ketchup  on a lovely brioche was a joy to behold and consume.

  So good was it that dog and man returned the next day to consume another but unfortunately became sidetracked and instead chose another type of sausage - Beef kofta - longhorn beef served with CSons’ hummus and pickles on a wrap (for which one had to pay an extra £1.50 which seemed somewhat excessive) and a pile of dull mixed leaves. The inside of the kofta was very dry and cloying in the mouth, the leaves largely went uneaten and the whole was a mess with the sloppy hummus doing its best to moisten the kofta and counter the shockingly hot chilli sauce which had been employed inside the wrap to ensure that the whole was inedible. If only I’d had another C Dog instead.

  Despite the unfortunate kofta experience CSons in its beautiful location is a wonderful spot to visit for a snack at present and it will be interesting to see how it fares when it’s small main dining area and terrace are able to be reopened.

Dinham Weir

CSons on The Green.

109. Forelles.

  If the Lurgy had not escaped from Wuhan and ripped its way through the world, the dog and I would certainly have visited Ludlow and stayed at the lovely Fishmore Hall sometime in the spring of this year. It was not to be.

  Therefore this was only the first time this year that I have been able to dine at the hotel’s Michelin plated restaurant, Forelles. The time away from work has not been wasted by Chef Joe Gould. On my first evening I dined from the à la carte menu and was delighted with the dishes which came my way.

  Let’s get the bread out of the way. Last year a very oniony bread and dull grilled sourdough were served - edible but the flavour of the onion in the first bread was excessive and stayed with you for the next one or two dishes and the grilled bread just seemed very unspecial. The new normal is a considerable improvement. The onion bread is less overwhelming, the sourdough is soft and tasty and there is a third charcoal lemon bread which is very good and tastes rather fine with the newly added seaweed butter (probably I wouldn’t have that butter with any of the other breads) as well as the familiar marmite butter and ordinary butter which both work well.

  And then a frivolous little amuse bouche of potato foam with horseradish and tiny cubes of apple. So light you wouldn’t know you’d had it but definitely amusing.

  My starter was excellent. A gorgeously golden raviolo filled with the wild flavour of rabbit meat, little shreds of napa cabbage, a swirl of BBQ aubergine in an arc on the side of the dish (at first I thought it was the dish’s pattern) and a little moat of delicious minestrone sauce poured around it all. Top marks for flavour. Thoughts come flooding in - is this a new era of Italian? and has Joe Gould now arrived in the big league. Perhaps the main course would tell. 

  Without hesitation, on to the main of very nicely cooked and handsome-looking salmon and a real star which was partnering it - a wondrously-flavoured mussel agnolotti given texture by sitting on a bed of strips of pickled mooli and the plate made to entertain with blobs of courgette purée as well as more of the same shaped like the thermometer that might measure one’s temperature at this COVID time with a band of buttermilk running down it and blobs of paprika gel giving a hint of the heat that COVID might give you! Another great dish. This is proving to be a great meal.

  The pre-dessert - unchanged from last time I visited but very good and doing its job perfectly. A celery mousse with a lemon jelly and a some crunch from a bit of walnut perched on top.

  Not for the first time I couldn’t resist the joy of Gould’s Baked Alaska for dessert. Arctic roll surrounded in white chocolate with the sponge at the base in the form of a lovely green and tasty pistachio and the soft meringue looking for all the world like an edible hedgehog. Alongside, and perfectly matched, a lovely slice of peach beautifully garnished.

This was good stuff. I was glad to be back in Ludlow.

106. A Michelin Inspector Calls 1980 To 2020.

Following on from Blog 105, below are shown all the Michelin Guide Great Britain and Ireland-listed restaurants in Birmingham from the start of the 1980s until the most recent 2020 edition.

(key - * 1 Michelin star, ** 2 stars, *** 3 stars; B - Bib Gourmand; P - Michelin plate).

The 1980s

Rajdoot 1980, 1981, 1982, 1983, 1984, 1985, 1986, 1987, 1988, 1989, 1990.
Lorenzo 1980, 1981, 1982, 1983, 1984, 1985, 1986, 1987, 1988, 1989, 1990
La Capanna 1980, 1981, 1982, 1983, 1984, 1985.
Pinocchio‘s 1980, 1981, 1982, 1983, 1984, 1985, 1986, 1987
La Gondola (Sutton Coldfield) 1980, 1981, 1982, 1983, 1984, 1985, 1986
La Caverna (Sheldon) 1980. 1981, 1982
Giovanni’s (Kings Heath) 1980, 1981, 1982, 1983, 1984, 1985,
La Copper Kettle (Bearwood) 1980
Manor House (West Bromwich) 1980, 1981
Sloans 1985, 1986, 1987, 1988, 1989, 1990
Jonathan’s 1982, 1983, 1984, 1985. 1986, 1987, 1988, 1989, 1990
Dynasty 1985, 1986, 1987, 1988, 1989, 1990
La Bon Viveur (Sutton Coldfield) 1983, 1984, 1985, 1986, 1987
Franzl’s (Smethwick) 1982, 1983, 1984, 1985, 1986, 1987, 1988, 1989, 1990
Plough and Harrow 1987, 1988, 1989, 1990
Henry Wong (Harborne) 1987, 1988, 1989, 1990
Maharajah 1987, 1988, 1989, 1990
Days of the Raj 1989, 1990
Henry’s 1989, 1990
Lombard Room (Kings Norton) 1989,1990

Henry Wong restaurant, Harborne

The 1990s

Sir Edward Elgar’s (Swallow Hotel) 1991, 1992, 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000
Sloans 1991, 1992, 1993, 1994, 1995.
Days of the Raj 1991, 1992, 1993, 1994.
Maharajah 1991, 1992, 1993, 1994, 1995. 1996, 1997, 1998.
Henry’s 1991, 1992, 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000
Henry Wong (Harborne) 1991, 1992, 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996.
Dynasty 1991, 1992, 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 1997, 1998.
Lorenzo 1991, 1992.
Franzl’s 1991, 1992, 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 1997, 1998.
Lombard Room (Kings Norton) 1991, 1992, 1993. -, -, -, 1997, 1998, 1999
Purple Rooms (Hall Green) 1993, 1994.
Number 282 (Hyatt Regency Hotel) 1995, 1996, 1997, 1998.
Leftbank 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000
Shimla Pinks 1998, 1999, 2000
Gilmore 1999, 2000
Oceanic 1999
Metro Bar and Grill B2000
Le Petit Blanc B2000

Shimla Pinks, Broad Street.

The Oughties

Sir Edward Elgar’s (Swallow Hotel) 2001, 2002.
Number 282 (Hyatt Regency Hotel 2001.
Bank 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010
Gilmore 2001.
Metro Bar and Grill 2001, B2002, B2003, B2004, B2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010.
Henry’s 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005
Leftbank 2001.
Le Petit Blanc 2001, B2002, B2003, 2004, 2005, 2006.
La Toque D’Or 2002, B2003, B2004, B2005, B2006.
Zinc Bar and Grill 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008.
Mizan (Hall Green) 2001, 2002.
Simpson’s *2005, *2006, *2007, *2008, *2009, *2010
Jessica’s 2004, *2005, *2006.
Paris 2005, 2006.
Shimla Pinks 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010.
Cafe Lazeez 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006.
Buonissimo (Harborne) 2003, 2004, 2005.
Liaison (Hall Green) 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010.
Opus 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010
Lasan 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010
Fino 2006.
Pascal’s B2008, B2009, B2010.
Purnell’s 2008, *2009, *2010
Brasserie Blanc 2008.
Lazeez Signature 2008.
Asha’s 2009, 2010
Edmund’s 2009, 2010
Turners (Harborne) *2009, *2010
Loves 2010

Le Petit Blanc, Oozells Square

The 2010s

Simpsons *2011, *2012, *2013, *2014, *2015, *2016, *2017, *2018, *2019, *2020
Purnell’s *2011, *2012, *2013, *2014, *2015, * 2016, *2017, *2018, *2019, *2020
Opus 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014 Opus at Cornwall Street 2015, 2016, 2017, P2018, P2019, P2020
Asha’s 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, P2018, P2019, P2020
Edmunds 2011, 2012.
Asquiths 2011.
Turners (Harborne) *2011, *2012, *2013, *2014, *2015, *2016, *2017, Turners at 69 P2018
Loves 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015.
Lasan 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, P2018,
Bank 2011, 2012.
Carters of Moseley (Moseley) 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, *2016, *2017, *2017, *2018, *2019, *2020
Bistro (Hotel Du Vin) 2012, 2013.
Brasserie (Malmaison Hotel) 2012.
The Asquith 2013, Purnell’s Bistro 2014, 2015, 2016
Saffron 2013, 2014.
adam’s  *2014, *2015, *2016, Adam’s *2017, *2018, *2019, *2020
Fumo 2014, 2015, 2016.
Waters on the Square 2015, 2016.
Two Cats Kitchen 2017.
Andy Waters (National Exhibition Centre) 2017
The Wilderness P2018, P2019, P2020.
Folium P2019, P2020
Harborne Kitchen (Harborne) P2019, P2020
Opheem P2019, *2020
Legna P2020
The Oyster Club by Adam Stokes P2020

Two Cats Kitchen, Warstone Lane

Trends come and go. The 1970s were dominated by an obsession with Italian restaurants with a single south-Asian restaurant (Rajdoot) being recognised as the decade drew on. This pattern continued in the early 80s only perhaps more so. French style restaurants had their place but only the Rajdoot was allowed to fly the flag for south Asian cuisine for the first half of the decade.
  Neighbourhood restaurants with varying cuisines were not ignored in the eighties and Maharajah and Days of the Raj joined Rajdoot in being recognised as homes of worthy south Asian food as the decade moved on. Chinese restaurants, led by Dynasty, were also beginning to have their moments in the sun.
  As the nineties began Rajdoot fell out of favour and Maharajah became the flag bearer for south Asian cuisine and then it too fell and was replaced by Shimla Pinks. The Sir Edward Elgar at the Swallow Hotel became the real dominant restaurant in Birmingham as the era of great European food began, previously the Plough and Harrow had been esteemed by Michelin for a short period.
  But at the start of the new millenium Sir Edward Elgar’s, surely at one time the closest restaurant to becoming Birmingham’s first Michelin star holder, fell by the wayside and for a short period French-style cuisine was in style but modern British started to come into its own. Andreas Antona’s Simpsons moved to Birmingham and in 2005 joined Jessica’s with its chef, Glynn Purnell, in being awarded Birmingham’s first ever Michelin stars. It was not long before Purnell moved on to open Purnell’s, his own restaurant, and Jessica’s became Birmingham’s first Michelin-starred restaurant to close.
  By then most non-European/modern British restaurants were ceasing to appear on Michelin’s Birmingham listings and modern British food had arrived in grand style. Purnell’s and Turners in Harborne became Birmingham’s new starred restaurants in 2009 and these were followed by Adam’s in 2014 and Carter’s of Moseley in 2016. Richard Turner effectively gave up his star in 2017 but Aktar Islam returned  Birmingham to its five star status in 2020 when his Opheem became Birmingham’s first-ever south Asian restaurant to be honoured with such recognition.
  And so into the 2020s.

Addendum - Is Raymond Blanc the gastronomic equivalent of Nostradamus? Well look at this paragraph from the Birmingham Mail from February 2008 when Le Petit Blanc in Birmingham was closing down:-

  As many as five Michelin-starred restaurants? Not far wrong there, mon fils.

108. Summer At Purnell’s.

  At the risk of being pretentious - the reader may judge - fine dining is an art. Of course if it succeeds as a visual art then that’s really rather pleasing in itself. It makes the diner pleased, even excited that, he/she is about to eat the enticing gem that has been placed before him/her. 

  But what really matters is the sense of taste and perhaps touch - the perception of texture - that’s the real art. If there’s no art in it then the resultant food may still be enjoyable, even very enjoyable, but it’s not fine dining. Fine dining is not a smartly plated dish of food sold at a remarkably high price. Some chefs and restaurant owners think it is. Their businesses usually fail within two years of first opening.

  Purnell’s has remained in continuous business for over 13 years. In that restaurant is art and certainly not just the visual. Four months of lockdown has not drained away any of that art from the chef and his team. If anything, my first post-lockdown lunch there was as good as any I’ve had (and I’ve had a few there now I think about it) and - I hesitate because I often say it after I have eaten at Purnell’s - but this might have been the best lunch I’ve had since my first ever visit there in 2009. Classic mixed with innovative. There are restaurants which serve fine classic cuisine and those which serve innovative cuisine, or what the chef feels to be innovative, and there are some which even have wit reflected in their dishes but there are few that combine all these elements in such perfect symmetry as Purnell manages to do time after time after time. And in that is art. High art. ‘Modern British’ is too trite.

  To the food, just pausing to mention that the table spacing is reassuring and generous and the nearest diners are almost distant objects. I had my own little corner and felt thoroughly at home and a glass of Hendricks and tonic with a new garnish using sweet little chunks of cucumber melon rather than cucumber itself had me happily embedded in the relaxed but careful and respectful atmosphere of Purnell’s. The staff, welcoming familiar faces in the main, enhanced the feeling of reassurance that dining here was about as safe as an old bloke out on the town could hope for.

  Life continued as it had ended 5 months before with the very great pleasure of Purnell’s joyous edible charcoal and his always startling and shamefully pleasurable faux black canary potatoes, a subtle flavour of lemon blended into them, with the most remarkably deliciously flavoured chorizo mayonnaise which always has me furtively scraping my finger in the little bowl to ensure none of it is wasted. There was only one sad omission - Purnell’s chip constructed from chickpeas rather than potato and one of the great inventions of the 21st century which proves that this new millenium has not been a total waste of time so far after all. 

  Afterwards there came the best restaurant bread in the city, still warm from the oven, Purnell’s very particular pain de campagne, lighter than a feather, tasty and with a splendid crusty edge. I wish he’d market this delicious bread for home consumption as I would never buy any other sort ever again. Somehow it seemed that balance had been restored to the universe.

  The starters. Not new but really another one of Purnell’s classics to assuage the angry vegetarian breast. While his Beetroot mousse remains, the beetroot craze of a couple of years ago will have been all worthwhile. His mousse, shamelessly creamy and tingling with horseradish and wasabi, lies as pretty as a picture (I turned it into one - see below) all the colours of beetroot nestled around it.

  And mackerel follows made more edible than it has ever been before - for my gastric juices - its  brisk flavour rendered perfectly subtle by honeydew melon, cucumber and dear old Granny Smith apple gel. Honeydew melon - I shall never again want mackerel without it, the combined flavour is celestial. Art - innovation. Worth making a ‘special journey for’.

  Plaice (Breaded and pan-fried with (excessively - sorry Boris) buttered crushed new potatoes and sweet petit pois has been one of my mainstays during the days of house arrest and I can’t get enough of it though I remember a horrific experience a few years ago at, of all places, Everett-Matthias’ two-starred Le Champignon Sauvage in Cheltenham where three exquisite little pieces of plaice were murdered by drowning in a sea of unpleasantly bitter beurre noisette served with what seemed like upwards of a thousand grim broad beans which was more like a wet August than a memorable summer (well it was memorable summer for all the wrong reasons). I could not have been more delighted therefore to find that the Fish du jour (Glynn at his most waggish) was indeed a supremely perfectly pan-fried piece of plaice (no limp water bath-cooked fate for this little pleasure) with a miraculously enjoyable accompaniment of a mijote of supremely correctly textured and flavoured St Austell mussels and Scottish girolles with a real final triumph in the form of samphire which didn’t advertise itself, sure in the knowledge that it was the little element that said that a genius was at work. Worth making ‘a special journey for’. 

  I almost forgot the parsley sauce. Parsley sauce and I are not the best of friends but that which accompanied this meal will be a friend for life if I bump into it again, just the right degree of parsleyness. I got to pour my own and think I made a rather chefy job of the pouring even if I say so myself (see photograph below).

  Main course. Pork. Fillet not belly - a victory for Chef already. No mention of the pork having been part of those dear little curly-haired individuals which Aktar Islam regaled me with two evenings before at Opheem so no need to be haunted by their appealing little faces which are more attractive than most peoples’ babies. I’ve long felt that the fat-counterbalancing acidic element of a pork dish can only really be apple. Chefs muck around trying out sharper-flavoured berries and the like, and of course pineapple has its place, but there’s no truly successful substitute for apple. Until now. The finely barbecued fillet was served with an apt celeriac purée and instead of apple a blatjang chutney, apple among its ingredients, which was a masterfully well thought out alternative to bring something new to this pork dish. And the cherry on the cake? Just like the modest samphire in the plaice dish, a smart little turnip was lying there waiting to impart its own completely appropriate taste, and texture, to the dish. Art again, you see. It’s the little details, the clever insights, that others don’t think of.

  As reported in Blog 79, Jarek Samborski took over as Manager from Sonal Clare in January 2020 with only a few weeks to run before the national shut-down. Now back in action, he seems to have hit the road running and has his team deftly organised and welcoming and seeming to cope well with the ‘new normal’ (ghastly term). And his wine advice is thrilling. He suggested a lovely buttery Uruguayan Pinot Gris which served the 2 fish dishes well and asked me to try out a very tasty Portuguese red which smacked the front of my tongue with a resounding flavour and lived well with the pork fillet course. And the suggestion for the ‘dessert wine’ was flabbergasting in its exciting deliciousness, “It’s controversial,” he said “but might I suggest a plum sake we’ve introduced”. Yes you may. Mmmm. So sweet, but not excessively so; Jarek said that there would be a hint of bitterness which actually I didn’t really get but to be fair I didn’t really want to. So that’s my new dessert wine and birthday and Christmas presents for those deserving of it. Thank you very much Mr Samborski.

  The plum sake accompanied a truly delightful dessert - Purnell’s Eton Mess (which to be honest, it really isn’t - it’s neat and pretty and alluring not bits of meringue broken up and mixed with cream and fruit and stuff) - just look at the photo and you’ll see what I mean. It came along in its own social bubble (actually it looks a bit like a social bubble) with a dish of gorgeous brown butter crumble with blueberries and raspberry ice cream which complemented the dish’s soft, perfectly mildly chewy meringue. Is 10/10/10 (burnt English egg surprise) much greater than this very special summer dessert? I asked myself.

  This was one of the best summer menus I’ve ever had and it steered away from the summer menu clichés of peas and peashoots and strawberries and the always overrated broad bean with everything (not that I’m averse to peas and peashoots though I recall a couple of meals in the past where chefs thought that raw peas were a good idea with a charming lack of awareness of just how indigestible raw peas are for old blokes). Highly recommended and memorable and as always at Purnell’s a happy and comfortable experience as well as an opportunity to eat remarkable food at a price of unarguable good value.

  I ensured that I didn’t miss out on my coffee with the two accompanying petits fours, the chocolate on a stick and the ultimate, and what I believe was the original, scintillating mouthful that is Purnell’s blackcurrant jelly which should always be the last thing to be enmouthed at a Purnell’s meal.

  Oh! I forgot. The new final course:-

  Watch out, The Old Bloke is back in town. Buying works of (culinary) art by our city’s greatest artists. Art to make a special journey for.