304. The Oyster Club On A Slow Sunday Evening.

 

  This will be a short piece. One full of praise and positive adjectives (very positive adjectives). Though not to start with but that is more to do with the wet, cold late March weather and the flight from Birmingham (not an aircraft, you understand, but the general abandonment of the city centre associated with transport strikes and a witless city council) which made the streets look like those of a ghost town.

  It’s a good thing that The Oyster Club by Adam Stokes opens its doors to diners on Sunday evenings as it is now almost a refuge from the streets all but empty apart from a burgeoning army of beggars queuing up to be given end-of-date sandwiches by various charitable middle class people who serve as honey to bees. I crossed St Phillip’s Place, the thirty seconds walk from The Grand Hotel to the Oyster Club at the top of Temple Street, and burst into the warmth and light of an otherwise empty restaurant. A good welcome, fine service and though I think it’s ridiculous to eat meat in a restaurant which specialises in fish and seafood, I drew the line at missing out on the Oyster Club’s wonderful Chateaubriand Sunday lunch which is keenly priced, happily luxurious and makes any Sunday afternoon, rain or shine, a red letter day.

  This was an excellent dish, the Chateaubriand was generously portioned, cooked impeccably - perfectly seasoned, caramelised nicely on the exterior and gorgeously tender and tasty on the interior, just look at the pictures of it - and served with fine ‘trimmings’ - a Yorkshire pudding, brilliantly puffed up and crispy, a delicious sweet, nicely textured carrot (none of that daft undercooked bullet-style texture, beloved by some chefs), spinach,  a powerfully flavoured cauliflower cheese, a fine sauce and, perhaps the only disappointment, a creamy horseradish sauce which had no bite to it all. Still, horseradish sauce aside this was a memorably enjoyed late Sunday lunch.

  Nicely full, Greed insisted that I have a dessert. Thank you Greed, I would have not wished to miss this gem for anything. Menued as Vanilla panna cotta, this was so much more. The panna cotta really was loaded with the delightful flavour of vanilla but with it came three strips of precisely cooked rhubarb, so timely as we reach the end of the forced rhubarb season, it’s spot-on crunch and mellow sourness  accurately balanced by a sweet syrup and a most astonishingly good rhubarb sorbet, the best sorbet I have had for a long time. A great dessert.

Rating:- 🌞🌞

  All too soon it was finished. I was very happy. Back to The Grand to digest at my leisure and see what Steven Knight has done to Great Expectations.