442. Tropea.

 

  I last dined at Tropea in the well-heeled suburb of Harborne back in July 2022 - much longer ago than I had realised. A lot has changed since then. The restaurant has been extended into the next shop and a smart bar added in the extension and the decor of the dining area itself upgraded considerably with apt prints on the walls and comfortable furnishing. The seating is a little close together but tolerable and the overall effect is to make Tropea a very pleasant place in which to pass a couple of hours. The service is friendly and welcoming and completely on the ball. A fine start.

  The menu offers small plates which can be halved and paired with another half plate but courses are still delivered in appropriate order - starting with an aperitivo and then moving on to antipasti, primi as pasta, secondi as meat and fish with contorni and/or insalata and finally dolce. Pleasingly and wisely the menu is written with English subheadings rather than Italian expressions.

  I very much enjoyed the delicious Paper Plane cocktail, served with a paper plane, which I had had on my previous visit. This was exquisite with just the right amount of appetite-invoking bitterness that one might want and this little drink has suddenly come up on the inside track to become my favourite cocktail of the present. I naturally brought my paper plane home with me as a souvenir! 

 But to the food. My lunch companion and I shared two small plates - a fine, crispy-coated arancino with textured rice and stuffed with sweet butternut squash and sage and blanketed in Provolene. This rich little dish was nicely paired with the sweet pickled vegetables that made up the giadiniera which provided a nice crunch and balanced the rich arancino. My only regret was that we had only ordered one arancino - I should have liked a whole one to myself.

  Then two half-dishes each of very, very fine pastas. The pastas were irreproachable. We chose tagliolini with an exquisite Parmesan cream and glorious black autumn Staffordshire truffle and hand rolled gnocchi with Gorgonzola dolce, confit sweet red onion and the mild crunch of walnut. These dishes were permeated with the season of mists and mellow fruitfulness and were an absolute triumph.

  And on the subject of triumphs, the secondo of tender braised pork cheek in sofrito and orange, served with valiant potato rosti and lovely Savoy cabbage accurately cooked in wine, was another of those triumphs and when paired with a truly fabulous aubergine Parmigiana, surely a definitive version of that dish, a triumph of Trafalgar proportions was indeed served to us.

  Two happy desserts were chosen - a pleasing acceptably wobbly if not fully set vanilla panna cotta was chosen and enjoyed by myself, served as it was with a spiced plum compote and the loveliest toasted almonds I can ever remember being served  and my companion opted for the cannoli filled with sweet ricotta and salted caramel and chocolate and had nothing about which she felt the need to complain.

   Tropea has risen to the heights which fully justify its inclusion in the Michelin Guide. Thi was an exceptionally enjoyable meal.

Rating:- 🌞.

441. The Wilderness Collaboration With Konjö.

   I dined at The Wilderness where a meal was being served by Alex Claridge and Marius Gedminas in collaboration with the Head Chef from Konjö - more fully, Konjö Robatayaki Kitchen - Joel, a Chef originally from Wolverhampton but now employed at the sister restaurant of Jöro in Sheffield (see Blog 41, 27 October 2018). Könjo has been described as a a”Scandi-Japanese mash-up with a mouthful of Jöro’s favourite ingredients, street food style”. Could that be a fusion one step too far? It was time to find out.

  The meal took the form of several courses of ‘snacks’ preceded by ‘bread’ and followed by a main course which was centred on quail with several other elements accompanying it.

  The opening bread - a beautifully textured focaccia, gorgeously unctuous with sesame oil and accompanied by kimchi relish and gochujang honey butter - was a very good start and the subsequent snacks gave much pleasure - a fabulous, crispy, again delightfully unctious, beef fat hash brown lifted to celestial heights by a sashimi of tuna belly nestling on it and intermediate texture provided by corn XO and all complemented by the precisely chosen flavour of yuzu..

  Then another highly successful, crispy ‘tostada’ with a prawn head mayonnaise and the citrus of finger lime. The next starter took the form of a pleasingly light bao filled with exquisite beef tartare, a combination of Könjo’s McBao and The Wilderness’ Unhappy Meal which took the informed diner back to Claridge’s battle to keep his restaurant alive during the period of the pandemic. A memorable play on street food from both restaurants.

  Then, a distinctly recognisable dish from ADC/The Wilderness - the sublime dish of hamachi with sliced green olive and jalapeño. To close the starters section there was subtle, delightful barbecued Cornish mackerel in a fig hot sauce with a side dish of a steamed and fried hot bun with zingy kimchi butter. Yes very, very good.

  This would have been perfectly adequate but the main course was still to come and when it did, though the various ingredients were pleasing, the whole was very much a dog’s dinner of disparate plates. The dish was centred on a poor little half quail coated in heavily cooked nam prik pao paste, its little pieces of meat hard to cut off.  There were some pleasingly crispy smoked fermented salt and pepper roast potatoes, the texture of which was enjoyable but the flavour of which I found to be less pleasing. There was a little dish of garlic aioli for which I could find no use - it did not seem to fit in with anything else that had been brought to the table - and some mango nam jim  alongside the little bird which looked pretty but for me was not quite the right accompaniment. The plate of green salad seemed equally out of place. I thought the quail needed warm accompaniments not all these cold elements. For me the whole just did not work. It was as though everything plus the kitchen sink had been mobilised and barely any of it seemed appropriate.

  I made little impression on the multielemental main course but enjoyed my unusual dessert, some of which was recognisable from ADC, of toasted jasmine rice ice cream served with an optimally citric calamansi curd and the fun of puffed pawa rice, reassuring caramelised aerated white chocolate and the freshness of kaffir lime.

  Many individual elements of the meal had been very enjoyable but as a whole it seemed incoherent with too many disparate dishes. The main was a hotchpotch. I am not too sure about Nordic-Japanese fusion. It may well indeed be a fusion too far. But, as always with Alex Claridge, this was an interesting and at times challenging meal. Who wants dull food?

  The previous evening was passed in Stratford upon Avon. Prior to attending the Royal Shakespeare Company’s latest production at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre - Othello (easily the best production I have seen there for several years with no gimmicky casting, men playing men, fine mature actors declaiming magnificently, no racial confusions, splendid period costumes and excellent direction) - I had eaten another very good early evening dinner at the Hotel Du Vin, where I was staying the night.

  To kick off I had a very fine Boulevardier, its subtle bitterness a tease to the appetite. Then a starter of a spot on chicken liver parfait which had an excellent texture, its richness nicely cut through by the accompanying plum and figgy chutney (I would have liked a bigger portion of this) which was served with two remarkably large slabs of toasted buttery brioche.

  For the main, I chose pan-fried cod served with lentils, winter root vegetables and cavalo nero. This was very a fine dish - the cod was cooked perfectly, the flesh white, glinting and perfectly yielding, the lentils were perhaps a little too numerous for my taste but they were very nicely cooked, tender but still with body and their flavour enhanced the earthy pleasure of the winter vegetables. The deep fried cavalo gave a cheeky, happy crunchy texture which no-one could complain about. A fine dish indeed.

    I needed a simple dessert. I was not in the mood for crème brûlée and opted for a simple dish of vanilla ice cream. I should be more ambitious with my choice of desserts but I do not need too much after my main course and my tastes in dessert are somewhat limited. So ice cream it was.

  The Bistro du Vin really is very good. 

Rating:- 🌛🌛🌛🌛.

29 October.