The heat, it seemed, for the present at least had gone out of summer. Some may have said that a little blast of global warming over the West Midlands of England might have been quite welcome, given the frequent showers and distinct chill. Still at least Brummies weren’t roasting chickens on the heat of the bare pavements which the rule-by-anxiety BBC news broadcasts were suggesting might be possible in Rome or some other hot and ancient Mediterranean conurbation.
I was gradually working my way through the Jeeves and Wooster books which are fascinating and record intermittently what the upper crust - in the form of Bertie Wooster - was eating in the 1920s and later (the books move on through to the sting of post Second World War socialism when good servants are scarce and the idle rich, now reduced by Attlee’s welfare state, are having to work for a living or, in Bertie’s case, attend courses on how to look after themselves when servants are entirely non-existent). Incidently Bertie is expelled from his course because he uses an old woman to substitute for him in the sock darning exam (would any young person of what is now the idle middle class believe that at one time socks were darned or even that men actually wore socks?) Also of interest is that despite the passing of decades Bertie barely ages at all. But I digress.
The upshot is that wherever I am to be seen currently, there’s a copy of a Jeeves and Wooster novel, presently The Mating Game, in my hand. This fact has some relevance to my visit to 670 Grams as my dining companion for the evening could easily have emerged from the pages of a Wodehouse novel and so partaking of Kray Tredwell’s 16 or was it to be 18 course tasting menu with a Gussie Fink-Nottle/joyless Aunt Agatha amalgam had all the prospects of making for an interesting evening.
Tredwell was in good form. Fink-Nottle-Aunt Agatha had been greatly shook up by me walking him through the backstreets of ‘cool’ Digbeth; crowds of barely clad girls - ‘hens’ I suppose, scruffy bearded young men in Hawaiian shirts (despite the the very temperate temperature), middle aged hipsters who were old enough to have really known the meaning of ‘mutton dressed as lamb’, all queuing to be allowed access into one or other of Digbeth’s drinking establishments. I had intended to show FN-AA the street art which, to some, has its merits and provides a relatively harmless pastime (unless they paint it on your wall) for the otherwise pointless young people who seem to frequent the area but FN-AA had rapidly entered a fugue state of panic as he thought he was about to be set upon and sold into the white slavery trade. Therefore arriving at 670 Grams and then discovering that Kray Tredwell was a rather fine chef served not only as a nerve-soother for him but also a revelation and delight. His initial facial expression of silent doubt turned to that of a rather happy punter within the period required to partake of the first two courses and after that everything surpassed the heights which FN-AA felt he had experienced even in some well known 2(+) Michelin starred restaurants in which he had dined. All this, like Gussie Fink-Nottle, without ever touching a drop of liquor.
There were a number of familiar pleasures - the ‘left-overs soup’, the grilled pineapple, the supremely delicious Kray T fried chicken in its unique cardboard pot (this secured FN/AA’s love and everlasting devotion to 670 Grams) but we enjoyed new little tidbits - well, I had not tried them before at any rate - and new versions of previous triumphs - I adored the deeply flavoured charred cabbage, the play on sweet and sour pork - the meat finely cooked - and the wonderfully apt Birds custard and rhubarb tart with very fine pastry. Each dish worked perfectly which can not be said of every long tasting menu I have eaten in various restaurants over the years. FN/AA was ecstatic. He always moans about something - I’ve never heard him not do so - but here he was totally uncomplaining.
Well done Kray Tredwell, the Anatole (Bertie’s Aunt Dahlia’s chef) of modern Digbeth. Just as Aunt Dahlia would do anything to keep Anatole in her household so should Birmingham to keep your ingenuity and work ethic here in Birmingham.
Rating:- 🌞🌞
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