I think I have made it clear before that I haven’t been caught up in the lemming-like plunge from cliffs into a sea of expensive, often somewhat unpleasant street food served on nasty cardboard trays that has become inexplicably popular in this city. Much of it just isn’t very nice. There are a couple of recent developments in this aspect of Birmingham dining that are worth mentioning here.
Firstly Digbeth Dining Club is no more or at least not in the form in which those who like that sort of thing (mostly aged under 40 who have lead a life of whining and who are now prone to long-COVID) have come to know it. It has been based in Lower Trinity Street since it began almost ten years ago in venues such as Mama Roux’s and Spotlight but as the triumph of the government’s vaccination campaign enables the hospitality industry to be reborn imminently the DDC has revealed that it will open a new venue in the Jewellery Quarter in Hockley. DDC does say however that it is looking for its own venue in Digbeth, the charms of which remain lost on me to this day, and that the venue will be, “a place where we can grow, develop, champion independence and incubate the best food traders, musicians, DJs (I don’t think they’re referring to dinner jackets), artists and makers that the region has to offer”. So that’s alright then. The new location in Hockley will be in Great Hampton Street and it is said that the “Hockley Social Club will still feature a line-up of street food and DJs in a 10,000 square feet space” (really you’d think that cool street food-consuming dudes would have converted to metric measurements by now).
Meanwhile Birmingham’s appalling City Council which is dominated by a Labour Party locked in perpetual civil war between the Corbynistas and Starmer’s Limp Left faction, which in itself does not give much hope for good governance, and made up of a lot of worthless inner city councillors who make no contribution to the progress of the city apart from claiming their £18000 annual ‘expenses’ (they’ve just voted themselves a substantial rise again) and anything else they can get their hands on along with councillors representing privileged members of the wealthy, self-satisfied left leaning-middle class who have swarmed in places like Moseley and Harborne, has taken it on itself to withhold licenses from long established street-traders unless the traders introduce an “innovative approach”to what they offer for sale.
In reply the traders have taken the council to court accusing it of wanting to “gentrify” the city centre which one expects is just the vision that the denizens of Moseley and Harborne and their council representatives probably do hope to see happen. In court the lawyer representing the Council was forced to deny that the Council wished to replace current stalls selling beefburgers with those selling chai lattes and Tibetan curries (I had to look up what a Tibetan curry is and had to conclude that it most certainly has a home in Moseley). The lawyer for the Council, one Jonathan Manning, said that an “innovative approach is what the council is looking for”. He continued that traders were not required to sell “something that no-one has ever heard of, that no-one knew existed” (not Tibetan curry then obviously). “if you are burger van (an interesting piece of transformation in itself) you can still innovate within the burger market by selling goods that are perhaps more diverse than you were previously selling,. An example could be perhaps a vegetarian line or a different kind of meat - one could have a venison burger”. Such drivel. Frankly I find most burgers to be pretty unpleasant but I do support the traders who have worked in this city through all sorts of weather over many years and resent the assault on them by those who represent the Tibetan curry-eaters who live in their million pound houses in Moseley and such suburbs. If they want a venison burger then you are bound to find one in B13 or B15 and you can wash it down with an over-priced Côtes de Rhône at the same time.
What is a Tibetan curry? Well nothing special I wouldn’t think though it is said to be less oily than Indian curries and have a “cleaner, healthier feel” (that figures, I’m surprised Birmingham City Council has not already made it de rigeur in all Birmingham restaurants). Recipes on the internet seem to centre on bright yellow potato curries and while genuine Tibetans (I’m not sure how many there are in Moseley or Harborne) use a yerma peppercorn in their’s, western recipe variants seem to feature a lot of fenugreek. So now we know. I wonder how soon it will be before Birmingham city centre is full of Tibetan curry stalls and if one will find its way to the Hockley Social Club (actually to give myself an easy time I often make a potato curry and like to use a lot of fenugreek so I think I have been several years ahead of the denizens of Moseley on that one). However I haven’t yet made myself a venison burger.
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