It has to be said that I could well be on to a winner when I say that 670 Grams probably has never had such a great combined age at a single table as when I and a number of old - in both senses of the word - friends dined there recently. This was the first time I had eaten in its extended space and the spaciousness certainly enhanced the pleasure of being there though I thought privately that maybe this might have been a good time to review the decor and make it less austere in its cutting edge sort of way. It’s a little joyless but ferociously interesting.
How nice it was to have a printed menu. Short of making detailed notes at the moment each dish was described to my straining ears, I have always found it hard to remember precisely what I have eaten at 670 Grams.
The aged group settled into our comfortable spot in view of the still small kitchen area. Chef Patron Kray
Tredwell did not appear to be on the scene this particular evening and the dishes were being prepared by Sous Chef Callum Slater who had worked at 670 Grams since August 2020 and who has clearly been working with Tredwell long enough to know what he’s doing with Tredwell’s culinary style and dishes.
Those dishes which I had previously experienced were very much as they have been when I dined there before but at times they did take a long time to come to the table - a three and half hour meal starts to become a little wearing though as old friends we had plenty to talk about and the gaps allowed for good conversation and inevitable reminiscences.
I did not photograph dishes I have illustrated before but the meal included the profoundly tasty slow cooked lamb in tiny oriental pancakes, the gastronomically lust-inducing Kray FC (gorgeously crispy salt and pepper chicken with Szechuan mayonnaise), the glorious chicken stock soup with ginger and lemon grass, the prawn with ponzu and burnt lemon, the powerfully flavoured prawn bread, the scorched sweetheart cabbage … seemingly unending familiar pleasures.
The apogee of the meal was reached with finely cooked Newlyn cod with a red pepper sauce and then Market Lavington Guinea fowl accompanied by a crispy little spring roll, the dish happily bringing with it turmeric, garlic and ginger.
The evening was drawing on and we were all a little anxious about being able to obtain taxis to take us home amidst the bustle of Saturday night Digbeth, with its hints of being Birmingham’s closest shot at a Soho district. We worked our way through the three desserts featured on the menu - toasted waffle with smoked ice cream, parsnip and miso caramel, ‘custard factory tart’ (aptly) and a chocolate dessert served with ‘espresso slush’ which had one or two of my fellow diners full of dread lest the caffeine in the dessert keep them awake all night though I have to say that it did not inhibit my sleep once I eventually got between the sheets (which was not immediately as a brave subsection of our group, successfully and immediately enubered, finished off the evening comfortably at the far from austere Madeleine bar in the Grand Hotel). The old people - we few, we happy few - were entranced by what there was to witness in Digbeth at 1145PM on a Saturday night - one of my obviously more suspicious-looking companions was approached at least twice by those wondering if he would like to buy interesting, and illegal, substances though I would have thought that the query was made more in hope than expectation.
So, a memorable meal at 670 Grams and afterwards, for a minute or two, in the rude streets of Digbeth.
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