426. Late Lunch At Asha’s.

 

  Asha’s has celebrity status because it has had celebrities dine there. Long famous in Birmingham dining out history will be the Hollywood actor who ordered two chicken tikka masalas, so pleased with the first was he, it is said, that he just had to have a second.

  Both my pocket and my appetite are more modest than those of Mr Cruise and Asha’s is not the place to dine for those with a limited budget. But I hadn’t dined there for a while and Michelin still includes it among its Guidebook recommended restaurants and I was in town and had limited time to dine so there I was, addressing all my needs in one venue - celebrity Asha’s.

  It was approaching end of service so I didn’t feel I could complain about being seated in the less glamorous outer area the wrong side of the bar. I have never yet been admitted to the inner, more decorous sanctum possibly because, I suppose, I myself am less glamorous than the attractive, young, Asian-chic denizens of that spacious and atmospheric zone but as I have only dined there twice perhaps I shouldn’t read too much into things. I was seated at a ridiculously small table which barely had space for the various items I ordered  and from time to time I snarled inwardly at having to move plates and glasses around to enable me to eat and drink what I was trying to eat.

  Expensive it might be (£8.90 for poppadoms and chutneys) but there was certainly a profusion of the former though the latter was less generously portioned for the price. The menu was extensive and was spread across several pages of a book with padded covers and considering the numerous poppadoms quite adequate as a starter I proceeded to choose my main.

  I preceded the meal with a large but rather timid Singapore Sling and then once the poppadoms were dispensed with, I chose Muscat gosht (£25.95) as my main paired with Peshwari naan (£6.45) and onion laccha salad (£4.45).

  The Muscat gosht which Asha Bhosle is quoted on the menu as having discovered on a sightseeing trip to Oman - “I stopped for lunch at a small ‘dhaba’ and had the most wonderful Karahi gosht. This is my presentation of that hot afternoon” - was pleasingly and punchily spicy and very tender and deeply tasty. It was also very generously portioned and I could only manage half of it before asking for the rest to be parcelled up for me to take home. The large Peshwari naan was fairly thin and enjoyably moderately crispy on the outside and had an acceptable amount of raisins inside to sweetly match the curry. The onion laccha salad was not good - raw red onion rings covered in spices and served with some pretty uncharismatic pieces of lettuce - never to be reordered on any future visit to Asha’s..

  Tom Cruise managed to eat two main courses, I managed just half of one which is probably why I’m not a film star and get to sit near the entrance rather than sitting in the midst of the opulent decor which is really what Asha’s is all about though most of the food is well prepared and does what old style curries should do. In the end though, perhaps unkindly, I wonder if Asha’s is a very triumphant triumph of style over substance. But it draws the diners in, particularly, I observed, clearly well off local Asians so it’s found its market, exploits it, clearly pleases and so carries on in a marketplace where others have failed a long time ago.

Rating:- 🌛🌛🌛

31 August 2024.

423. The Wilderness Pairs With Passing Fancies.

 A special event at The Wilderness recently saw Alex Claridge in the kitchen cooking a modestly priced menu to be served with accompanying cocktails invented and made by Matt Arnold of Passing Fancies. I enjoyed all the cocktails apart from the last, Short and Stout with Glenmorangie Signet and stout caramel, which was far too sweet and while one might drink a sweet wine with dessert, this rule did not seem to apply to a sweet cocktail. The other cocktails were all very quaffable and the novelty of it all was very enjoyable but perhaps we might learn that wine is the best accompaniment of a fine meal. 

  As regards the food, the dinner started with a delightful tartlet with a carrot purée and vadouvan (‘French curry’, a ready prepared mixture of spices with added aromatics including shallots and garlic). This worked very well, the pastry of the usual high standard one usually experiences at The Wilderness and the mixture of sweet and spice a great pleasure. This was paired with an appropriate and enjoyable cocktail, elegantly presented, which Arnold had called Rhubarb & Rye (bitter rhubarb, rye whiskey and honey).

  Next, a fine and fairly familiar dish to Wilderness/ADC regulars of seared mackeral nicely balanced with apple and sorrel and well matched with Watermelon 75, the ingredients of which were apricot fino sherry, watermelon and champagne. 

  A course of aliums and wasabi was fairly unmemorable and there then followed a nicely cooked piece of wild turbot (which was added for an extra £15) served with a pink fir potato confection. This was very enjoyable and accompanied by Dinosaur Food, a cocktail made up of rhubarb, rum and palo santo (derived from a Peruvian wood used in the aging of beer and, in Ecuador no less, a palo santo tea). 

  After there was another dish familiar to regular diners at the restaurant or its sister, scarlet prawn with the happily punchy, hot prawn head sauce but this dish was raised to fabulous new levels by the addition of a bubble of wasabi. Now a truly great dish. It was paired very appropriately with Metric Margarita.

  On to the main course of moist quail with barbecued cabbage and tom yum. This was tasty and matched with a cocktail,  Adult Ribena, a combination of cognac with blueberry and kumquat.

  The dessert took the form of various forms of peach but the flavours were severely suppressed by the excessively powerful vanilla flavour of tonka bean which rendered the dessert somewhat difficult to eat. As mentioned above the accompanying cocktail awas too sweet and did not match well the flavours of the dessert. This was a shame. Generally it had been a fine meal, full of innovation and experimental combination of flavours and the involvement of Passing Fancies had brought an added intriguing aspect to it. The Wilderness with ADC is right at the cutting edge of gastronomy and dining out in the West Midlands. Claridge’s food continues to evolve and wait to see what comes next.

22 August 2024.

 News

  Under my radar for a while, new Head Chefs/Executive Chefs have been appointed recently or at least in the not too distant past, in a couple of interesting Birmingham dining establishments.

  At Adam’s, which I visited recently (see Blog 422), while Adam Stokes remains Executive Chef, the role of Head Chef is now shared by a duet - Adam Wilson and Simil Gurung. Presently it’s hard to find any background information about either of them. 

  The Grand Hotel has finally appointed a new Executive Chef to replace Adam Brookes who departed there in April. Highlighting its new head of the kitchen on Facebook and Instagram without any particular fanfare that I could see, the Grand Hotel management state that, “Andrei is the mastermind behind the magic in Isaac’s restaurant and in the Grand Hotel kitchen!….”. The posts give no other information about Andrei, not even his surname. Doubtless all will be revealed in due course. For the present at least, the New York-themed menu remains unchanged. Let us hope that the new Executive Chef will come up with something more enticing. What about a Birmingham-themed restaurant, I don’t think anyone’s ever done that.

  The Good Food Guide added The Bell At Selsley in Selsley near Stroud in Gloucestershire to its list of recommended restaurants on 16 August 2024. That’s almost as far south in the West Midlands that one get to before crossing over into undisputed West Country territory.

425. Lunch At The Harborne Kitchen.

  Harborne looked busy and thriving on the warm late summer day when the taxi carrying my dining companion and myself pulled up just around the corner from the Harborne Kitchen. I was pleased to have returned as, I think, almost a year had passed since my last visit. Tempus fugit.

  

  It is a smart, comfortable and interesting place which, as I have written before, was once a Walter Smith’s butcher’s shop and jolly good meat they served too - their beef was unrivalled in my family’s opinion in the area where I live. The welcome was pleasing and we moistened our throats with the Harborne Kitchen’s Passion flower Sour which did have a nice sourness to it but was also a little too sweet for my taste. 

  But we were there for the food and with us comfortably settled, and both having chosen the £100 11 course tasting menu, the show began. Firstly, a pleasing Devonshire crab arancini which was delightfully crabby and the rice had a nice texture but we agreed that the dish was too salty. We reached the same conclusion with the second amuse gueule - another pleasing English pea (and broad bean) and ricotta tart. The peas were cooked admirably well but to be perfect I would have liked them to have been a little sweeter. Then there was a little oblong of brioche covered with tasty aged Cheddar and a successfully crispy chicken skin. This canopé was not troubled by excess salt and was very enjoyable.

   Next was what for me was one of the highlights - two gorgeously tasty panisses accompanied by little dishes of herring roe, the colour of Whitby jet, sitting on a brown butter custard enlivened with spring onion. The panisses were first dipped in the roe and brown butter and the effect was an original and highly enjoyable take on fish and chips and then the remaining roe was scooped up with a little spoon to ensure nought was wasted. An excellent and clever dish.

  Then perhaps the weakest dish - a slice of Westland’s tomato with a tomato ponzu and lovage. The weakness was the tomato which was lacking in any real flavour as seems to be the case with tomatoes in general in this year of grey skies and occasional sun. Given the poverty of flavour, it might have been best to omit this weak dish though the ponzu was good and made me think I should have liked some gazpacho or cold soup in its place.

  On to the Malloreddus, by now very familiar to regular Harborne Kitchen diners. I liked the gnocchi though my companion thought them a little more dense than he would have liked them to be, but this was an enjoyable dish with punchy flavours and the joy of truffle.

  We both agreed on the excellence of a finely cooked, plump Orkney scallop served with pleasingly textured charred sweetcorn, nasturtium leaves and tiny morsels of chorizo as chorizo jam which gave an added different and enjoyable texture though I am not sure it influenced the dish’s flavour to any degree. Then the meat - excellent salt-aged Herefordshire beef cooked to give a texture which required just the right amount of chewing with a good body to it. The beef was accompanied by nicely roasted onion, a split beef sauce and the best part of all - precisely slowly cooked beef cheek served in a fabulous crispy tube of pastry looking for all the world like a piece of bone marrow - a crazy twist, I think, on beef Wellington - it was delicious.

  I like the way the Harborne Kitchen serves a cheese course prior to the desserts as in the days of yore - Tunworth served with a pleasing texture of amaranth and the sharp taste of burnt apple. Then a pleasing predessert of smooth, soothing yogurt sorbet with the great fun of puffed rice to give texture and the flavour of sorrel.

  Dessert proper took the form of a generous mound of meringue which enclosed a white chocolate mousse and served with a yuzu sorbet. To end, though neither of us could manage coffee, a mignardise in the shape of glossy lips was served and we were very happy to smile back at them.

  Harborne Kitchen is very well thought of and deservedly so. Its menus are ambitious and very good dishes are served and there’s a lot of originality which will keep some dishes such as the herring roe and chips in the memory for a long time after they were eaten; the service is excellent and the atmosphere is pleasing and soothing. The Good Food Guide, which is not infrequently somewhat quirky, judges Harborne Kitchen to be Exceptional. I don’t agree - it’s very good and deserving of high praise and always worth a visit - but I feel that the GFG’s rating might be just a little overstated especially when it rates Simpsons as being merely Good. But let’s not get carried away with all this rating claptrap - I enjoyed my meal at Harborne Kitchen and believe, also, that it represented very good value.

Rating - 🌞. 30 August 2024.

422. Lunch At Adam’s.

  The year has passed so quickly and I realised that I had not visited Adam’s. I seemed to have spent most of my dining out time this year sitting at a table (or a counter) somewhere in the Jewellery Quarter. Since I last visit it, Adam’s had acquired a duo of Head Chefs - Adam Wilson and Simil Gurung with Adam Stokes remaining the Executive Chef. So, Adam’s it was.

  I arrived purposely early so I could relax (all by myself) in the comfortable and characterful bar area imbibing a Monkey 47 and tonic. The bar area has the modern chicness and smartness of the rest of the restaurant but is relatively small, bright and relaxing. Somehow it’s seems just right and I have resolved that when dining at Adam’s, for full satisfaction and the opportunity to dissolve the cares of the outside world and prepare one for the fine food to come, it is virtually de rigeur to start off in the calmness of the bar.

   Then one is led into the familiar spacious, elegant dining room, the smartly dressed front of house staff, attending to one’s needs and intentions with politeness mixed with an optimal amount of informal small talk. Adam’s gets the balance right. It’s impossible not to know that one is dining in the right place. There’s a good range of menus - a three course lunch alongside either five or seven course tasting menus. 

  Canopés arrive - a mischievous sphere containing ‘beef casserole’ which is thunderously delicious and deeply flavoured even though I didn’t get to taste all of it as it exploded as I put it in my mouth and my pullover took the full force. A salmon canopé was also enjoyable and there followed a bowl of BBQ sweetcorn miso custard with sweet corn and camomile. This was a very appealing dish. The excellent bread - slices of crusty white and brown sourdough and ginger and bovril flavoured brioche where the ginger was discernible just to the right degree - was served with two pleasing types of butter and is obtained by Adam’s from nearby Medicine Bakery towards the top of New Street (this has a large cafe and dining room an£ is very trendy with in-the-know middle class Birmingham denizens).

  And so to the first course - Orkney scallop which was pleasingly flavoured but I would have liked a firmer texture to it - paired with variations of the use of peach, This worked very well and gave me much satisfaction. Next there was a piece of rabbit ballotine which was tender and tasty and pleasingly moist and it was accompanied by a langoustine which I thought needed a little more bite to it and delicious champagne and wasabi espuma with the wasabi scoring inoffensive and enjoyable little hits of heat from time to time on my throat. Among all this too was pak choi, which I usually find to have the lowest esteem and least charisma of all the inhabitants  of the vegetable cupboard, a sort of culinary Keir Starmer, but here it was really very good. Adam’s has clearly found the way to get me to eat all my pak choi - something I have never managed to do before.

  The third course brought lovely pan fried duck liver to the table - rich and creamy - with a ‘spice sauce’ and figs in their various forms as well as toasted hazelnuts for flavour and texture though  thought their contribution was not as great as one would have hoped. This was luxurious and for a moment I felt I was a late Victorian diner, dear old Nathaniel Newnham-Davis for example, bathing in rich and extravagant dishes as one should when one gets the chance. Such pleasure.

   Halibut, finely cooked and presented, was served with an orange and saffron sauce and a delightful helping of white crab meat, tasty crab sauce and courgette which lent some texture to the dish but was entirely lacking in flavour. Fish and orange, at least to me, sounds somewhat unusual but this certainly worked well and gave great pleasure. Then the main meat course was presented in the form of aged beef from Herefordshire with an excellent rich Bordelaise sauce. The accompanying aliums were less successful particularly the charred leek which was too inconsequential in size and too charred to enable any pleasure to be derived from it. A larger amount of good, soft sweet onion would have been a better route to go and woukd have really drawn out the flavour of the tender beef.

  The end approached but before the finale there was a very successful intermediate course to be enjoyed - lovely Zerbinati melon nicely balanced with a truly refreshing lime granita and the very apt presence of young basil leaves. I asked what a Zerbinati melon was precisely, the waitress wasn’t sure but the power of the Internet informed me that the melon is the produce of Oscar Zerbinati, a third generation farmer of these fruits, located in Sermide, Mantua; the plot the produce comes from having previously been the site of an overflow reservoir from the river Po. No matter the intermediate dish did its job and lead in nicely to the full blown dessert of sweet, tasty strawberries, lovely light sponge cake which soaked up the pleasing strawberry sauce, admirable strawberry icecream, happy aerated white chocolate and Marigold leaves, which for once I could actually taste and appreciate their fleeting but noticeable contribution.

  The meal ended, two little Mignardises were presented to take home - a gooey salted caramel truffle and a passion fruit chocolate. It’s the little touches that matter. 

  I noted while eating that unlike many restaurants with their bespoke artisan ceramics, Adam’s has opted to serve its food on clean-looking, shining white ceramics. This results in Adam’s being a restaurant where the food is the talking point and not the crockery.

Rating:- 🌞🌞.  14 August 2024.