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.