530. Snow And Ice And A Purple Sky And Dinner At Asha’s.

 

  I was meeting an old friend who last year moved from Birmingham to Saffron Walden where, he had discovered, dining out establishments are not as he had been used to here in Birmingham. He has the tastes and physique of a true gourmand, and unlike myself, is a lover of game and more impressively, is always able to sink a piece of rare purple wood pigeon from which I shrink away, the ferric flavour of it, like that of that offensive vegetable rocket, too much for my poor tastebuds. 

  We had arranged to stay in The Grand Hotel for two nights and as recounted in the previous Blog dined at Folium on our first evening in town only to be assailed by an irksome snow storm which made our journey from the Jewellery Quarter back to Temple Row somewhat thrilling as our Uber, possibly the last running that evening, slithered on the slushy, slide mean streets.

  I awoke the next morning to a snow-covered panorama looking from my window in room 503, the city paralysed with no effort having been put in by the council overnight to make either the roads or pavements safe. We passed the day quietly and resolved to dine at Asha’s, close by and no further far away than one would wish given the horrific icy state of the pavements. We made it to Asha’s without tumbling to the floor on the compacted snow and ice and heaved a sigh of relief and uttered a silent prayer in thanks for our survival.

  Unusually but hardly surprisingly, Asha’s was as empty as you would probably ever expect to see it on a Friday evening, unless perhaps Christmas Day had fallen on a Friday - I think that we were at one of only three occupied tables. We started inevitably as old campaigners with poppadoms served with some moderately interesting pickles and then we moved on to our starters - my friend judged his Prawn 65 (“batter fried prawns tossed with curry leaves, ginger and onions” to be agreeable and I enjoyed my Fish Amritsari (“Crispy fried fish pakoras seasoned with mint and aromatic carom seeds”) - they were generously portioned, certainly crispy, the unspecified fish nicely cooked but in any real flavour rendering them somewhat dull.

  I chose the again generously portioned chicken dharma curry which had satisfactorily cooked chicken in a nice thick, moderately spicy sauce. This was fine and there was some subtlety in the spicing but there was nothing astounding about it, no sparks of excitement, no evidence that going out for a curry, even at a glitzy, expensive place as Asha’s is, has moved on in any way, since the 1980s when I would often sit in Nirmal’s on West Street while working in Sheffield, being firmly guided to a more expensive dish than I really wanted by that redoubtable woman, Nirmal, herself. We know that “going out for a curry” has indeed moved on as evidenced by Opheem, ten minutes walk from Asha’s, but the latter has not - it lives on its glitziness rather than the excitement of its often quite expensive dishes. My friend enjoyed his chicken jhalfrezi and the accompanying rice, fragrant and tender was very good as was the soft cushion of the  Peshwari naan which was tasty and toothsome.

  I would have liked some kulfi but my friend was too full for dessert and so we settled up our bill and once more waddled out penguin-like on the dangerous pavements in the direction of the Grand Hotel and with a high degree of caution eventually arrived there without fatality or injury.

Rating:- 🌛🌛🌛.

January 2026.

  The next morning, I opened my bedroom curtains to the sight of a weirdly pink dawn - the shade of pink never seen by me before in the sky in all my seventy plus years. It emerged that the lights at the Birmingham City football ground had affected the clouds as a result of the snowfall but I certainly had never experienced anything like that before.

  I met my friend for breakfast in The Grand’s Isaac’s restaurant and enjoyed my Full English quite considerably. The ingredients were good quality and well cooked - the black pudding was not dry due to being overcooked though my scrambled egg may have benefitted from a few seconds less cooking and certainly did not need a clump of the omnipresent pea shoot garnish which by now really should have gone out of fashion. I like the spacious side room where guests can chose many different elements of the uncooked part of the breakfast. In all the breakfast was very satisfactory and eating it in the splendour of Isaac’s adds an extra element to it all.

  Lucy the Labrador enjoyed her stay at The Grand as did I. Of course Lucy never got to sit in Madeleine bar as I and my friend did where for lunch we both indulged ourselves in a good hot bowl of sweet French onion soup with large cheesy croutons floating on the surface. And in the evening, after dinner, we relaxed for a pre-bed drink -  a nerve-soothing Old fashioned for me.

    Finally, an interesting photograph, one of very many on display in Isaac’s, of the renovations underway, or about to be started perhaps, of The Grand’s magnificent staircase which led eventually to the hotel being reopened in 2020 in the midst of the COVID-19 crisis and where I and my much loved Lucy II were among the first guests.

506. Baraset Barn, Alveston, Stratford Upon Avon And Dog Day At The Hotel Du Vin.

 

 The Baraset Barn at Alveston to the northeast of Stratford upon Avon was included in the Michelin Guide in its 2012 to 2016 editions. So why not now?

  The present Head Chef is Aaron Bodaly who has previously worked at the Kings Head in Napton On The Hill, a little east of Leamington Spa, from April 2019 to 2021 and then, after working for a recruitment agency, he worked from April 2024 to May 2025 at the Tite Inn, in the Oxfordshire village of Chadlington near Chipping Norton, where the television personality Jeremy Clarkson has his farm. Bodaly started to work at The Baraset Barn in April 2025. He therefore has a strong background in preparing pub food. 

  Passing a couple of days in Stratford to go to see ‘the play with the dog in it’ at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre, I had been tempted to make a reservation at the Baraset Barn after an acquaintance had told me she had been served there the very best scallops she had ever eaten in her life. Well, there was a recommendation one just had to follow up on. Unfortunately there were no scallops on the present menu but I was up for it especially as the restaurant is dog-friendly.

  My dining companions and I were seated in the light, bright, comfortable bar area and Lucy the Pup Labrador was calmed by the kind, friendly and indulgent staff with little tidbits. The humans chose from a tempting menu and clearly we both had to start with the recommended scallops. We were not disappointed, they were indeed exquisitely cooked, unimpeachable. The  accompanying pea purée was very agreeable and the little cuts of pancetta were indeed the perfect match to scallops as of course they should be.

  We were both delighted with our mains. She enthused about her dish of roast rump of lamb served with peas, pistou, celeriac purée and goats cheese and I myself enjoyed equally my main, chosen from the list of ‘specials’, of king prawn and white crab (though I would have happily paid more to have been served more crab, a lovely lobster bisque risotto and very successful, pleasingly tender samphire. These had been excellent and interesting mains.

  Desserts were very good. I had lovely rice pudding with pineapple (shown above) and my companion chose salted caramel tart.

  Baraset Barn serves lovingly prepared food and I shall not hesitate to dine there again on one of my future visits to Stratford.

Rating:- 🌞

26 August 2025.

  And so, on to the Hotel du Vin in Stratford with the aim of seeing The Winters Tail at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre. I saw it and thought it was excellent and the next morning chose scrambled egg on toast for my breakfast. Scrambled eggs can so often be ruined by overcooking but those served that morning were perfect -  buttery and mildly baveuse - exactly to my preference. Absolutely delightful.

  On arrival at the hotel, the day before, we received a wonderful welcome, it being International Dog Day, and the hotel had come up with the idea of greeting each dog staying there with a special doggy bag containing little pleasures for them. Lucy posed nicely for a publicity photograph, her coooperation assured by a chew dangled before her. Well done, dog friendly Hotel du Vin.

505.The Swan Fairfield.

 

  It’s good to explore the countless dining establishments around the area in which one lives and a voucher for 40% off the price of a main course was enough for me to suggest a visit to the Swan in Fairfield near Bromsgrove, a short distance from the excellent Wildmoor Oak at Wildmoor. Fairfield is another tiny and picturesque north east Worcestershire village and the attractive Swan sits opposite one end of Swan Lane there though, like the chicken and the egg conundrum, I’m not sure which came first, the name of the inn or the name of the lane though I expect it would have been the former.

  It’s a very pleasant and spacious inn and on our arrival it was hosting a good number of lunchers who may or may not have been taking advantage of the 40% off the cost of the main course as we were. There is a section where diners accompanied by dogs are accommodated and we were settled there with my still youngish pup who strove to cause as little trouble as a pup may cause if given the opportunity. There was a choice of dining from an à la carte menu or opting for a two course lunch at just £16. I was keen to have dishes which were not on the lunch menu and so we dined à la carte. The dishes on offer were pretty standard pub offerings and I wasn’t entirely sure that these were not dishes prepared and delivered to the Swan and reheated there. 

  I chose the chicken liver and brandy paté which was served in an interesting cylindrical format along with a yellow beetroot piccalilli, peashoots which contributed very little and “toasted focaccia and salted butter”. The butter, however, failed to make an appearance but the amount of paté was generous enough to coat the focaccia which, if it had been toasted, had been subjected to a minimal amount of flame. The dish was quite edible though the paté was a little too bitter for me. My lunch companion chose a starter of “our garlic and cheddar baked mushrooms” - which the menu described as “sautéed button mushrooms in a  cheese sauce, topped with Cheddar cheese, crispy smoked streaky bacon, Mozzarella pearls, chives and toasted focaccia”. My dining companion was very pleased with her starter and had no grumbles about it.

  For my main course I opted to lunch on a very satisfactory beef and Malbec pie served with an equally satisfactory Malbec gravy. The vegetables were far from perfect though I enjoyed the large honey glazed carrot but the mashed potatoes were somewhat claggy as one finds when prepared meals are reheated. On the whole it was quite edible and with the 40% price off offer, one could hardly complain. My companion again very much enjoyed her choice of sausage and mash which was served with “crispy smoked streaky bacon” (strips of distinctly uncrisp bacon as far as I could see) and onion gravy and a generous helping of green beans.

  We rounded off our meals with desserts - my companion once more enjoyed her salted caramel sundae but I found the flavour of vanilla rather difficult to identify in my “classic vanilla cheesecake” although the accompanying cherry compote was not without some pleasure.

  The pub itself is very attractive but the staff that day were too stretched to deliver any feeling of warmth to us and the other customers. The food on offer was standard pub food not rising above the mundane in the main though the pie itself was the highlight for me with very good pastry and a tasty filling. The Swan is just a short distance in geographic terms from the Wildmoor Oak Inn but several hundred miles from it in the standard of food served there. 

Rating:- 🌛🌛

18 August 2025.

503. Levain And Cherry and The Den, Stirchley

 

 The Good Food Guide, after its revival following the withdrawal of support for it by Waitrose, seems to want to be all things to all men (and women and all other genders that we may or may not know about) and is a little confusing. In a dining out guide (I prefer that term to Food Guide) I really want to discover where to go to eat a good meal in pleasant surroundings on comfortable furniture with good service. Presently the Good Food Guide is not necessarily directing one to eat somewhere which fulfills all of those reasonable criteria. Of course it is titled ‘Good Food Guide’ rather than ‘Good Meal Guide’ and so, one may deduce that as long as the food is ‘good’ at the recommended establishment then the guide has carried out its stated goal. It’s all a little iffy if you ask me, and I can see that no-one is asking me, but still I feel that the Good Food Guide is losing its way. 

  I was a little alarmed this weekend by a new addition, not surprisingly located in Bristol, to the Guide which takes the form of a “tiny trailer kitchen on an inner city farm [which is] an idiosyncratic delight” and is described as, “Possibly Bristol’s best kept secret….reached by an overgrown, graffiti-strewn lane with the trains rattling by…a green oasis if ever there was one”. Only in Bristol, I think. And if anyone’s tempted to walk down the over-grown, graffiti-strewn land then the “tiny trailer kitchen” is called Chez Candice (Modern European  Cafe  rated Good). The Good Food Guide appears to be trying to be madder than ever. I really did have to check it wasn’t April Fool’s Day. 

  However I have to thank its editor for recommending an establishment where one indeed can get good food though not a true meal and certainly not dinner and that food being of a very limited range - in short - a French bakery for which I see no reason why the term patisserie should not be used. This was an eating establishment - I remind you, recommended by The Good Food Guide - where I have only one course to report on and that being a single pastry and eaten outside in the fresh air (well, as fresh as the air along the Pershore Road in Stirchley can be).

  The patisserie is Levain and Cherry, the second shop opened by Pascal Bishop, born in Paris of Birmingham mother and French father. He opened his first shop/cafe on Kings Heath High Street at the age of 40 in 2020 having eschewed a course on baking that he was enrolled on as a young man and then travelling internationally to learn his craft. The hipsters of Kings Heath fell over themselves to buy his products and there were half hour or more-long queues to obtain some Levain and Cherry bread or pastry. Bishop expanded his business recently in 2025 by opening the Stirchley branch where once again the local hipsters and others could indulge themselves in good quality boulangerie and patisserie though there were no tables inside the establishment only tables and chairs under an awning which is very nice given the good weather we’ve been having though the traffic noise can be a little hard to bear.

  The business’ name (Levain) derives from the type of sourdough starter used to leaven  bread and ‘Cherry’ alludes to the coffee cherry, the coffee fruit from which the coffee beans are obtained. Bishop obtains his flour from France near from a mill near Paris. Pastry eaters or coffee suppers may sit outside under the awning with their dogs and I took my pup along with me to share the experience and a tiny portion of my chosen edible.

   And my chosen edible was, it has to be said, remarkably delicious - a ‘fruit brioche’ which took the form of a delightful, large crispy-on-the-outside, soft-on-the-inside pastry encircling a well, filled with perfectly sweet custard and a soft half peach looking like a golden island rising from the centre of a lake. The coffee was very pleasant but the pastry stole the show, so much so that both the dog returned the following day to have another bite of the (Levain and) cherry and indulge quite joyously in the great pleasure of the fruit brioche once more. I also bought two remarkably toothsome large canales to take home with me and wished I had bought four at least as well as a savoury circular, confusingly non-crescent shaped croissant filed with, I think, chunks of blood pudding and a fried egg which was not entirely to my taste (photographs at the bottom of this piece).

Rating:- 🌛🌛🌛.

    So, returning to Stirchley the next day, and finding the establishment to be dog friendly, I dropped into The Den on Pershore Road at the heart of the suburb, for breakfast. This was a large establishment with indoor seats and garden seating. Treats and water were available for the dog. I found the service to be pleasant and helpful. I opted for a brunch from the menu and found the prospect offered by the (home-made) corned beef hash with accompaniments to be very enticing. The corned beef was very good though I did not particularly like the spicing of it. The generous amount of crispy potato hash was delicious and certainly did what it said on the menu - that is - it was indeed gorgeously crispy but the rest of it did seem something of a dog’s breakfast (though of course it was a brunch), there being all sorts of elements to it - silver skin onions, fried egg (nicely done), good ‘house’ baked beans, carrot which really did not seem to have a part to play, pickled sliced onion and other elements. The hot-cold combination really did not work for me and this might best be described as ‘interesting’ and a lesson in not going over the top when creating something different.

Rating:- 🌛🌛.

  And so, after The Den, on to Levain and Cherry, as described above where everything was a little more straightforward and very enjoyable.