181. Three Days.

  I passed the weekend staying in town at The Grand Hotel and took the opportunity to relive some restaurants where I had recently enjoyed some very happy dining experiences. 

  Firstly dinner at The Oyster Club. Naturally rather more expensive than the excellent lunch deal by which I experienced the restaurant’s excellent fish and chips (see Blog 173) but worth every penny. To start I had the wondrous fish charcuterie platter with delightful thin slices of elderberry cured sea trout and supremely delicious monkfish accompanied by excellent pickles and a witty little fish-shaped helping of crème fraiche. An irreproachable first course.

  

Then on to a magnificent whole roasted Dover sole on the bone. A stupendous dish beautifully cooked and enhanced by being served with little slices of razor clams, pickled grapes and verjus sauce. This was a right royal sole and right royally was he appreciated. For dessert a very enjoyable powerfully flavoured dish of strawberry and lemon verbena panacotta with honeycomb and caramelised white chocolate to give texture though I have to say there are times I do not always want to be crunching and nibbling but just enjoying soft creaminess without exercising my jaws.

  I was sorry to hear that the restaurant manager is about to leave to go to live in France just as I was getting to appreciate her undoubted skills. 

 

  

For Saturday evening dinner I walked the short distance from The Grand to Chamberlain Square for another visit to Dishoom (see Blog ). I was pleased that I had made a table reservation as there was a sizeable queue waiting to be admitted. The place was buzzing, the staff as always were scurrying back and forth delivering an impeccable and attentive service to the colony of gannets seated at the tables. What an atmosphere. This must be the nearest thing to India in the city centre. What a disaster for the Hollywood actor, Tom Cruise, who was recently in the city while filming a movie, that the people responsible for entertaining him during his stay, took him along to Asha’s (see Blog 171) rather than to Dishoom - just sitting in the hubbub of the place is a memorable experience. Of course he famously ordered a second helping of chicken tikka masala at Asha’s. I personally would have ordered a half-helping of the spicy chicken biryani I chose on this occasion not because it was not enjoyable but because of the very generous size of the portion. I ate it with a helping of roomali roti, the thin bread I had eaten on my previous visit which just suited me. In the end I could indeed only eat half the portion and the rest was boxed up for me and I enjoyed it at home a couple of days later. It would not be true to say that this was a great dish but it was a pleasing bit of warming, tasty, filling nosh that we should all enjoy when we’re exhausted by eats which are so exquisitely presented that they take several minutes to plate up.

 

 Another food experience that I had not yet indulged myself in was the incredibly low priced Sunday lunch at Pulperia. I now corrected this foolish omission. I started with a gorgeous plate of smoky, tangy chorizo matched with heritage tomatoes which were quite tasty given the general poor quality of this year’s tomatoes and the refreshing zing of chimichurri.

  Then the roast arrived, sweet rose-pink slices of roast beef with many trimmings including an estimable, perfectly crispy Yorkshire pudding and numerous trimmings which each made their own contribution to enhance the pleasure - creamy shreds of cabbage with bacon, an admirably cheesy cauliflower, more well roasted potatoes than I could manage and unctions roasted carrot, some of the slices almost gooey with honey. A seriously fine Sunday lunch. For these delights just £25 for the two courses and a full stomach. I had nothing more than ice cream as a dessert but this gave the restaurant’s excellent sommelier the chance to let me try the still off-menu South American dessert wine which was a happy experience. This young lady knows her subject and has an impressive career ahead of her.

  So that was it. Three excellent Birmingham food experiences in as many days.

  Which brought me round to thinking of a list of the ten must do food experiences in Birmingham at this present time and so, in no particular order:-

1. Exciting, cutting edge Indian cuisine at Opheem.

2. Have a special occasion dinner at Purnell’s for yourself and a group of friends and family.

3. Soak up the exhilarating atmosphere over Friday night dinner at Dishoom.

4. Indulge yourself in Sunday lunch at Pulperia.

5. Experience the sheer glamour of afternoon tea in the Madeleine bar at The Grand Hotel.

6. Venture into Digbeth to dine at 670 Grams to experience just what Birmingham’s most exciting Michelin Young Chef of the Year is serving up.

7. Dinner - or lunch - at classy, precise, polished and very fine Adam’s.

8. Go wild and be utterly thrilled by dinner at The Wilderness which has fine tuned itself to near perfection since the pandemic began.

9. Off to the international Conference Centre for dinner at Craft Dining Rooms. No need to sit in a pod unless you really must and About Eight might be more than you really need, personally I opt for sitting in the dining room and hoping that the beef Wellington is on the menu.

10. Fish and Chips for lunch at The Oyster Club (or Dover sole for dinner).

 And here’s a possibility:- 

Not yet experienced (but reservation made), take a little journey to Hampton Manor and Smoke, Stuart Deeley’s new gaff.

  Meanwhile it’s interesting to observe which West Midlands restaurants the Michelin Guide has been mentioning in its Twitter account recently. Birmingham and the West Midlands are not featured too often in comparison with dining establishments in London, the Home Counties, the North and its present obsession, Ireland, and quite what an appearance on Michelin’s Twitter account means I couldn’t say but it may mean that the featured restaurant’s present Michelin status is being considered (and all the Twitter appearances are positive ones). So just for the record here they are:-

29 August The Wilderness.

18 August Harborne Kitchen

13 August Purnell’s

7 August Tailor’s of Warwick

3 August Wild Shropshire Whitchurch

14 July 670 Grams

 

  

  I look forward to seeing what’s happening in the Michelin Guide in these coming weeks to find out which other West Midlands restaurants are felt to be worth a tweet.