399. Le Petit Bois Adieu!

  In Blog 391 I reported, with a heavy heart, that the delightful Moseley restaurant, Le Petit Bois, was to close on 27 April. It’s a lovely place and I was determined to have one more throw of the dice in this comfortable, bright, perfectly sized French-style culinary establishment, more like dining in someone’s cosy home with its perfectly judged front of house service than a restaurant. Everyone else who had ever known the place, and some who had not, had clearly got the same idea and the diners kept coming on this penultimate evening of service. What an atmosphere and the opportunity to greet one or two diners I had met there before, all wanting to wish good luck to Chef Ben Taylor, Zsofia Kisgergely and their fine staff, made this an evening to look back on with a warm feeling and a smile.

  And so to the food - a pleasing and sensibly limited à la carte menu chalked up on a blackboard, all very tempting and at a very affordable price. 

  From the Specials menu, mounted on the wall opposite the main menu, I chose the warm salmon with a beetroot salad. This was one of the loveliest salmon dishes I can recall eating - at first glance simple and pleasingly uncomplicated - but this was the most toothsome of salmons, the beetroots were nicely cooked and a perfect foil for the salmon and there were little bursts of horseradish working along with the beet. What a great pleasure.

  For the main, I thoroughly enjoyed the, again, beautifully cooked fillet of cod served with an extremely tasty lobster bisque - the dish shouted lobster - and four plump mussels with a side of haricots verts to give some bite to it all.

  Finally, a magnificent - in size and quality - crème brûlée served with a delightful walnut biscuit. This was an exceptional dessert. Undoubtedly Chef Ben Taylor and Le Petit Bois was going out on a high.

Ben Taylor

Zsofia Kisgergely 

  And so Adieu! to Le Petit Bois. We shall not see its like again though we hope we will. 

395. Politics, Film Noir and Shakespeare (Part 2).

 

  I am not someone who particularly likes being photographed nor do I wear black clothes but I still went ahead and made a reservation to dine at The Wilderness on the evening filming was taking place there and the dress code was “all black”. The experience was named Film Noir and a short film was being produced by a company titled Made by Brum. The documentary was described as a “love letter to Birmingham’s alt scene” which is hardly my bag but well, anyway, in for a penny, in for a pound. 

  And so, yet again, off to The Wilderness I did go. Fortunately, I was of no interest to the filmmakers and so I had all the pleasure of dining off a remarkably excellent menu without the discomfort of making a screen appearance, so to speak.

  Several of the items on the menu were familiar but there were one or two new dishes to bring the freshness of spring to the Jewellery Quarter.

  As ever, the canopés were delightful - robust, punchy flavours, thin, crispy pastry, hidden in there a chomping good tartare with the sweetness of little blobs of mango purée. Such little pleasures are paradise made of.

  The first course was by now familiar to me but familiarity, with this gem, does not breed contempt. Chutoro tuna, gorgeous  with the tang of jalapeño bursting around the fish more like a bang of wasabi, and thin slices of fine olive. A dish now established as something great.

  ‘Tis the asparagus season and a fine, bruiser of a Wye Valley spear was next to be delivered to the table. With plenty of bite to it, it basked on the plate before me, and was happily accompanied by tasty pieces of smoked eel but the prettyThai green curry sauce was lacking in any heat and was not as exciting as it might have been. Perhaps it did not need to be, asparagus, it seems to me, should stand alone relatively unadorned and untroubled by anything going on around it.

  Then an irreproachable dish of Chalkstream trout with a delicious yuzu butter ponzu sauce and the tang of XO sauce. Then, another familiar member of the menu’s ensemble - BQ Cull Yaw lamb, cooked exquisitely, with seaweed, shiso and wild leeks served with remarkably slowly cooked and robustly flavoured lamb on a muffin; the latter is the element, as I have previously remarked, which gives me least pleasure. The highlight of the dish was the gorgeously unctious lamb sauce.

  And then a thrill for dessert - a sorbet of acutely flavoured Amalfi lemon sorbet with a grating of Buddha’s fingers fruit as well as of the lemon itself. What fun to have the fruit itself presented at the table. The sorbet was served with a crunchy buckwheat cracker and marigold.

  I thoroughly enjoyed the second dessert made up of little cubes of delightful and perfectly textured Riesling poached pear with bay leaf and the not-overbearing flavour of cinnamon. To end, The Wilderness’ white chocolate skull was served as a petit four.

  The restaurant was buzzing with its sable clothed diners and the film makers homed in on what was happening at the pass. It had been yet another happy evening in The Wilderness.

397. Hotel Du Vin Bistro, Stratford-Upon-Avon.

 

    When in Stratford - and staying at the dog-friendly Hotel Du Vin - do as the French do. Just as, by extension, when staying in Paris where Molière was born - do as the English do - well perhaps that would not be entirely wise given the amount of shoulder shrugging which would result. Regardless, Lucy The Labrador and I were passing the weekend in Stratford to enable me to attend the Birthday lunch and stabling ourselves at the chic, if expensive (especially at this particular weekend) Hotel Du Vin.

  Sunday dinner was needed and I opted to dine in house. The dining room is modern and in the style of the rest of the hotel. The music is a little too loud and not quite in character with the Gallic nature of it all but the service is satisfactory though mildly muddled at times and the menu promising with some Gallic delights on offer.

  French onion soup is irresistible and I chose it as my starter. Underneath a happy melted cheese lid was a tasty soup with plenty of pleasing, tender slices of onion though I have had sweeter onions but nonetheless this was a pleasure to dive into (see illustration at the head of this piece).

  In addition to a menu with a generous but sensible amount of choice on it, there was a ‘Specials board’ which had some heavily priced items on it. But - like French onion soup - I can not resist a sole when it’s on offer and the noble fish can not be better served than when it is sole meurnière and so I plunged into ordering from the board.

  The sole was indeed a magnificent beast, and was prepared beautifully with a perfect texture and nicely seasoned. I should have liked a little more citrus but this was a fine dish, larger than many of the soles that have been offered unto me in recent times and so, I guess, the higher price was understandable. All accompaniments were extra but I opted for the very toothsome pomme purée with Camembert which was lovely.

  There’s a sound argument for sometimes eating meals in reverse. Desserts are for me very much an afterthought and I would often rather not have one if only because I am too full to enjoy them coming, as they do, as the meal’s curtain is winding down. Being served two desserts is the sort of thing, in my opinion, that happens to souls in purgatory and that is something which tasting menus often inflict on the innocent with or without their consent. 

  I always like to see what is being offered on the dessert menu and I always find the presence of tarte tatin to be a temptation but frequently reject that naughty French pleasure in the knowledge that it would overfill me. Such was the case this particular evening. Now, if dessert were served at the beginning of the meal, then the tarte tatin would have been winging its way to my table in next to no time.

  Regardless (shrugging of shoulders) - I signed off with two pleasingly sharp sorbets - lemon and blood orange and felt I had dined well.

Rating:- 🌛🌛🌛🌛

396. Politics, Film Noir And Shakespeare (Part 3).

 

  This year, 2024, Stratford-upon-Avon held its annual Shakespeare’s birthday celebrations on 20 April, three days prior to the actual anniversary. There was the usual parade through the town, see below, and more importantly, the annual birthday lunch held in a vast marquee in the RSC gardens where a smattering of theatrical levees may sometimes be spotted.

  This was my sixth Shakespeare’s birthday lunch (because of the pandemic no lunch was held in 2020 nor 2021) - the food is often unspectacular but edible enough but there is usually an exciting atmosphere as four to five hundred people who know lots about Shakespeare and the theatre gather together in their smart togs to have a generally good time. This year, everything was helped along by the fine, sunny spring weather and the presence of Dame Vanessa Redgrave who was to receive the annual Pragnell Award for her contribution to our appreciation of Shakespeare.

  The meal kicked off with a generous portion of burrata paired with a very toothsome heritage tomato and aubergine caponata with pickled shallots and decorated with seasonal flowers including those of the tasty wild garlic and an amusing coloured quill-shaped cracker, each diner at the table of eight receiving a cracker coloured differently from those of his neighbours. What a great opening act.

    How difficult it must be at such an event to arrive at a main course which will not be offensive to any of the diverse diners (allowing of course that vegans will be offended by anything given half a chance). This chef made the very sensible choice of roast Cotswold chicken and a fine job was made of it - pleasingly plump and nicely cooked chicken breast with an apt sauce laced with foraged herb oil and a reasonable pomme purée and three robust Wye Valley asparagus spears and tiny pickled mushrooms. A great dish for a large banquet. My compliments to the chef. Vegans, by the way, were regaled with a plate of delica pumpkin and pumpkin purée and more.

  Dessert took the form of a deconstructed pavlova with stone fruits and a lemon verbena custard. The meringue was presented in shards and, as with the first course quill, each diner at the table received a different coloured meringue and furthermore, very cleverly, each received their meringue in the same colour as that of their quill. What a triumph. 

  To close, three excellent local English cheeses were served with crackers and focaccia and grapes and a scintillating truffled honey which is probably the same stuff served to the gods of Olympus.

    It was just left for Vanessa Redgrave, all cracking voice and Shakespearean delivery to the core, to speak after the award was made to her and close with Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day ….. and everyone turned out into the late afternoon sunshine and ambled through Old Town with the rosemary twigs still jammed in their buttonholes or pinned to their eye catching dresses. A very English afternoon and none the worse for it. And … good food.

  Prior to the lunch, Lucy The Labrador and I attended the annual birthday parade from Bridge Street, along Church Street and Chapel Street, through Old Town to Holy Trinity Church where Shakespeare and family members are buried. There was plenty to see - Mr Shakespeare with his quill, priests, town criers, the inevitable Morris Men, the MP, lots of local dignitaries all wearing chains and splendid gowns, men in military uniforms, musical bands, scholars, vast numbers of schoolchildren, lawyers and even ambassadors. 

  Only in England.

394. Politics, Film Noir And Shakespeare. (Part 1).

 

  A busy week of local politics, another visit to The Wilderness with a twist and ending with the annual Shakespeare Birthday Lunch in Stratford Upon Avon. What exciting lives we old blokes live.

 Monday. My first visit to the Hockley Social Club, the fast food and events venue on the edge of the Jewellery Quarter which replaced the iconic Digbeth Dining Club and is a mothership to Herbert’s Yard in Longbridge. It is altogether more inviting than Herbert’s Yard in that it’s warm and spacious and reasonably comfortable, none of which adjectives can be applied to the large, wooden barn in the south west of the city where I live (well, I suppose Herbert’s Yard is spacious - I must be accurate in my reporting). It’s shabby and struggling to be hipster-chic and, I suppose, cool (I am still not sure if that word continues to be used by those in the know) and seems ideally suited to the local population of comfortably off hipsters who inhabit the overpriced flats in the nearby Jewellery Quarter.

   In previous Blogs I have expressed a lack of enthusiasm for street food. There should be a context for street food. Ideally it should be eaten in the street, be it on a warm, barmy evening in a bustling south east or southern Asian city or as a gratifying scoff at some event here in England, be it a fair or a football match or a concert or somewhere else where crowds meet and are feeling a collective peckishness. Street food is almost by definition not something to be eaten in a heated, dimly lit building with tables and chairs and the paraphernalia of cosy modern British hipster living. Street food should also be reasonably priced and not sold at the bloated prices many of our street food traders charges. The prices alone exclude a lot of the population and reinforce this as a dining scene for negroni-swigging, well-off, self-satisfied hipsters who will not visibly blanch when they receive notice of the massive increase in their council tax charges. Well, everyone is entitled to their own environment and the Hockley Social Club, with its mock working class name, is an ideal venue for the Jewellery Quarter socialist with nothing useful to do.

 The Mayoral hustings debate was fascinating with the sitting candidate and present mayor, Andy Street (only fair therefore that I should eat some street food while there), able to demonstrate everything he had done for the region and his plans for the future in a straight forward way while his socialist opponent with a whining, wheedling, sometimes almost inaudible, voice failed to give a straight answer even once but from time to time would suddenly squeak loudly at something Mr Street was saying and then smirk at a tiny cabal of his supporters to his right though his embarrassing ejaculations were something the Hockey Social Club sound system found alarming and incapable of dealing with without assaulting the audience’s hearing.

  The subject of what the Mayor could do for the local hospitality industry was raised by the founder of the Digbeth Dining Club, Jack Brabant, and neither had much in practical terms that they could seriously put forward at this stage - Mayor Street answered the question honestly and directly while the sheep next to him wittered on for a couple of minutes with no useful result. This was the pattern of the evening and unless one were a socialist fanatic, a fair neutral observer would have scored an overwhelming victory to Mayor Street. It will be interesting to see if the ordinary regional voter, removed from the comforts of the hipster lifestyle, will support Mayor Street. I do hope so - his opponent has the charisma of an over grilled snail (not that there were any escargots on sale at the Hockley Social Club) which enables me to segue into the food.

  Only two stalls were open -  giving a choice of ‘jerk’ fried  chicken and, er, ‘jerk’ fried chicken. It was disappointing that Dan Lee’s east Asian food stall was not selling its wares that evening - I am keen to see just what he has on offer. I chose the ‘Mango box’ from Only Jerkin’ Fried Chicken priced at £14. This offered 4 strips of nicely flavoured, crispy coated, pleasingly moist and well cooked chicken together with a very edible coleslaw and agreeable sweet potato chips which, like the chicken, were well cooked. 

  But this was fried chicken with a mildly spicy taste. Had I missed something? My Caribbean food knowledge is. I’ll be the first to acknowledge, very limited though I think the repertoire needed to present Caribbean-style is fairly limited. But shouldn’t this chicken have some punch to it? Shouldn’t I have been hit by the bite of spice and the tang of smoke? Well, I wasn’t. This was just deep fried chicken, not grilled, not barbecued, cautiously spiced - ideal for the audience it was being served to, I suppose. Where was the adventure in it?

  What else can one say? Fried chicken is everywhere. I eat it rarely and would not go out of my way to do so though Greidy’s fried chicken which I’ve had a couple of times at Herbert’s Yard is particularly enjoyable. As for Only Jerkin, it reminded me of the Labour Mayor candidate - quite nice but otherwise unremarkable.

Rating:- 🌛.

  

393. The Wilderness - Sunday Lunch .

 

  I waxed lyrical about my first Sunday lunch at The Wilderness a few weeks ago. A repeat waxing lyrically is now in order. My lyrical waxing however can be brief on this occasion. This was an absolutely A1 meal. 

  “Delicious” must be applied to all the food which arrived at the table and then journeyed on to my buccal cavity. The starter - flatbread covered in wild garlic and aged Parmesan - was absolutely gorgeously toothsome - it underlined the fact that relative simplicity is often best. The sweet, moderate flavour of the wild garlic was delightfully matched with the power of the Parmesan. An A1 dish in an A1 meal.

  For my main I choose the fabulous barbecued turbot and had side dishes of immaculate wagyu beef fat roasties tickled up with an underlying aged vinegar and a cauliflower cheese which had considerably more personality than most cauliflower cheeses you bump into. But the turbot, cooked on the bone to the very second of total precision, this was the stuff that dreams are made of. Chefs pay lip service to crispy fish skins and often fail to deliver. This crispy fish skin was in a league of its own and beneath it was the most succulent, delightfully flavoured turbot flesh, glistening white with no need at all to court an amorous looking glass to steal a quote from Richard III.

  To the dessert. As before it was the sumptuous sticky truffle pudding which is a magnificent creation; the luxurious and perfectly considered flavour of truffle with artichoke caramel balanced by the soothing, silkyTahitian vanilla ice cream. Every mouthful was a rapture.

 

Head Chef Marius Gedminas was at the pass. What an artist.