Saturday, 31 May 2025

484. Namaste England, West Heath.

 



  Stirchley and Kings Heath are fashionable and Bohemian in a calculated, scruffy sort of way; Harborne, no more attractive than a suburban high street might be expected to be but looking plainly prosperous from just looking at its well-heeled denizens and Edgbaston, all regency and nicely spoken and populated by the less common of Birmingham’s wealthy citizens such as the nouveau riche of Four Oaks or Solihull.  There’s the Jewellery Quarter, populated by the Bohemian middle aged and elderly with a lot of money to spend and then there are all those ghastly flats scattered around Ladywood and the innermost city where the well off young will pay a packet to live in boxes but have easy access to bars and restaurants and possibly the view of a canal and a bit of status imbued by the location of their accommodation.

  Then there’s a different city - that where the less well off live generally comfortably in far less overpriced housing sometimes with extensive gardens, the fresh air blowing briskly from the neighbouring countryside. I think particularly of south west Birmingham, on the edge of Worcestershire, where Longbridge has risen from the ashes of Herbert Austin’s now long closed motor factory to supply the locals whose families have lived in the area since the 1950s and 1960s and never felt the need to move elsewhere with a neo-brutalist town centre with a Marks and Spencer’s - far better than the store in town - and Herbert’s Yard, the site where street food salesmen bring their food for the locals to enjoy and for hipsters from Harborne to visit and praise and feel uncomfortable about because they are surrounded by so many non-diverse common people whom they view as having very little food knowledge.

West Heath is part of the city ward which includes Longbridge - until 1911 it was not part of Birmingham but home to farmers, agricultural workers and nailers and it really only began to grow in the 1950’s when the monstrous Manzoni devised a plan to rehouse thousands of poor inner city dwellers on new estates there which swept away the countryside and inflicted concrete and multi-storey flats on what had once been farmland and beauty. At the heart of this most rural suburb the original small village remained and still does - a sort of downmarket Barnt Green. And even there on the edge, green fields and grazing cattle, soaring buzzards and wild roe deer, and public footpaths that head off across the countryside, the residents like to eat out and from time to time a new restaurant springs up.

And, a couple of months ago, this did indeed happen - a new Indian-style restaurant,  Namaste England,  opened in West Heath village in the small shopping area in Alvechurch Road. I visited it very early on a Thursday evening at 5PM which turned out to be a little too early as I was the only diner at that time and the atmosphere was, er, flat.

  The advantage of the location and the restaurant’s large window was that the place felt spacious and light and appealing, unlike some of the boutique dining establishments in Stirchley for instance which are dark and crowded. There was a nice bar, not obviously heavily laden with a choice of drinks but actually quite appropriate for this particular restaurant. I did not particularly crave any alcohol but instead ordered a tasty, soothing mango lassi which was nicely presented and so enjoyable that I had a second later in the meal.




  There was a good choice of dishes featured on the menu but not so many as one might find on a good old Indian restaurant menu and this was quite pleasing, I thought. For starters I chose the nicely crispy pani puri served with a well judged spicy tamarind sauce and spiced water with puffed rice. This was excellent. The presentation was very pleasing and the dish itself had an air of rusticity about it, like home cooking.



  I then opted for a very fair priced ‘Chef’s special thali’ which again conjured up the homely rusticity of the first course. At just over ten pounds it’s hard to expect too much but this seemed very fair. The dish highlighted Malvani cuisine from Maharashstra, the chef being from Mumbai, and there was a very real air of authenticity about it. There was a spicy small bowl of chicken curry with the chicken being served on the bone. This was a problem as it seemed there was more bone than meat but what chicken there was was moist and tasty. There was a separate bowl containing a curry sauce which seemed to be a rather thin broth but it soaked up the rice which came with the meal and the bread was also of use in the eating of it. Other accompaniments included a pappadom, slices of onion and a mango pickle about as aggressively sour as one would want it to be.

  There was no need to order a dessert as the thali came with an excellent gulab jamun which was not oversweet having not been doused in syrup and was therefore not horribly sickly as this dessert may often be.



I enjoyed my first visit to this delightful restaurant which still has some way to go in its development but it’s good to see Birmingham’s less fashionable suburbs serving as home to some interesting and stylistically less familiar dining establishments especially when they avoid a clichéd image and strive to bring a different approach to what by now has become a tired south Asian cuisine. I left the restaurant feeling that if it had been located on Stirchley’s high street then it would already be another hipster niche favourite.

Rating:- 🌛🌛.

29 May 2025.



Friday, 30 May 2025

482. Great Brummie Menu, Birmingham College Of Food.

 



  This was the second year of The Great Brummie Menu, held at the Birmingham School of Food, part of University College of Birmingham, which was a charity event on behalf of the Queen Elizabeth Hospital. I had been unable to attend the first event but was delighted to go this year’s which featured Liam Dillon of The Boat in Lichfield, Luke Tipping of Simpsons, Jonathan Howe of Lumière in Cheltenham, Glynn Purnell of The Mount in Henley in Arden and Darryl Collins, pâtissier at Resorts World at the National Exhibition Centre who had previously worked at the Lygon Arms in Broadway among other locations. The event was attended by about 90 diners and preced by a sparkling wine reception with some decent canopés.





  Liam Dillon was the first chef to present his work to the diners and it took the form of some passable Isle of Wight heritage tomatoes served nicely with an unaggressive goats cheese, herbs from the garden of The Boat and, most delicious of all, some very toothsome smoked eel. A good start though heritage tomatoes served nicely dishes are a great risk unless every presented tomato is packed with flavour.




  Luke Tipping served up a remarkable scallop dish - a variant on the numerous scallop dishes I have enjoyed at Simpsons over the years. The plump and well cooked scallop was served with the mild bitterness of chicory, the invigorating thrill of lemon, the savouriness of sauce épicée and sesame. A very fine dish, the best course of the whole meal.






  In contrast, I am sad to write that the main, a particularly small piece of nicely cooked Creedy Carver duck (though I can see that some might have felt it was somewhat over) served with a terribly soggily coated bonbon of dry and almost inedible duck meat (how lovely it might have been with a nice crispy coat on the bonbon) along with Cheltenham beetroot about which it was difficult to build up any enthusiasm and various purées, one of which was said to be fennel but which I found difficult to identify. I don’t think Jonathan Howe was having the best of days. Next came Glynn Purnell’s ‘10-10-10 Egg surprise’ alongside its ideal companion - strawberries and tarragon including a lovely strawberry ice cream. Purnell, I felt, had not lost his touch. 





  Finally from Darryl Collins a chocolate dessert which is best described as “safe” though nicely done.



  To close, five different mignardises including a macaron, a well made pate de fruits, a cracknel, a truffle and a Turkish delight. Each petit four was thoroughly enjoyable and the same could be said for the accompanying wines which were donated by Arch 13 Wine Bar

  This was a happy evening held for a good cause with the guest chefs donating their precious time and energy. Matt Davies played a large part in making the event occur. He had been cmployed as Andreas Antona’s first apprentice at Simpsons after it had moved to Edgbaston. He eventually became Executive Chef for the Lewis Partnership in Staffordshire which included the Moat House at Acton Trussell where unfortunately in 2018 he was seriously injured in an electrical accident necessitating long running treatment at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital. He was now the Vice President of the British Culinary Federation. The Great Brummie Menu was a way for him to thank the hospital for the treatment he had received there and a sum of £17,000 was raised during the evening to support the Queen Elizabeth.




  I was saddened by a note on the back page of the menu which stated, “In loving memory of Wayne Thomson 22/09/1971 - 12/04/2025”. I had dined very happily a number of times at Wayne Thomson’s excellent Michelin-listed No. 9 Church Street in Stratford upon Avon. He was a hard working man who cooked extremely enjoyable dishes and his small restaurant was a charming delight. It was a sad event when the restaurant failed to reopen after the COVID-19 lockdowns though Wayne continued to work in the catering industry. Ars longa vita brevis.

  Finally, for the record - the first Great Brummie Menu was held at the School of Food on 21 May 2024 with the guest chefs being Luke Tipping, Adam Bennett of The Cross in Kenilworth, Jonathan Howe, Thom Bateman of the Flintlock at Cheddleton in Staffordshire and Louisa Ellis.






481. Riverine Rabbit.

 

  I was delighted to receive an invitation from Erin Valenzuela-Heeger, best described as ‘Front of House’ (though in reality no more Front of House than Ash, her partner, the Michelin ‘Best Young Chef of 2025’), to reserve a spot at the counter of Riverine Rabbit, for dinner as it is remarkably difficult to get a place there and it had been a while since I had last dined there where things have now moved on to, perhaps surprisingly for this tiny, casual and very relaxed restaurant, diners being offered the choice of one of two tasting menus, one of five courses, the other of seven. Rabbit is clearly getting serious.

  Arriving a full half hour early, I cocktailed in Couch, Rabbit’s next door neighbour which is a perfectly matched spot to start the evening before moving next door to explore Ash’s stream of edible delights. and inwardly enthused at my delicious. Despite it being highly regarded and having been the recipient of several awards, I had never visited Couch before but was pleased that I did. It was busy at the start of this particular Friday evening and the service was excellent and the gimlet variant cocktail enjoyable.




 Then, on to Riverine Rabbit where I was the first diner to arrive and was therefore able to have a little chat with Ash and Erin including asking some questions about their experiences at the Michelin awards in Glasgow earlier in the year. I decided to choose the eight course menu - after all what’s the point of missing the full experience when the opportunity comes so rarely?

    I was first offered a cup of Seychellois vanilla tea which I had had before having visited the islands several times in the past and bringing packets of the very pleasant beverage back with me. The reason for offering vanilla tea as a starter was related to Ash’s family having a hotel in Seychelles and she had recently returned from there. It is, it has to be said, a soothing drinking. 

  It was followed by ‘kitchen snacks’ - pretty amuses gueules - and very tasty they were too. Next, the ungenerously named ‘spring peas’ which was more a symphony of things pisine and more summer than spring. 






  Delicious Chalkstream trout tartare with sea herbs moved the meal forward demonstrating Ash’s flair and inventiveness and then, from the longer menu ‘fried chickenn& caviar’ which reminded me of the chicken oyster previously served at Carter’s of Moseley where Ash had worked previously. The crispy coated  chicken was moist and succulent and nicely complemented by the generous portion of Oscietra caviar - this was a course of turf and surf, or perhaps, chicken coop and seabed, which made it essential to lash out on the longer menu.







  Via a happy course of adequately al dente Wye Valley asparagus, finely flavoured and served not with a Hollandaise but a cream fraiche-based sauce I arrived at the lovely slice of accurately cooked, for me, Wagyu which gave much pleasure and then the two desserts, a clever play on another seasonal favourite, strawberries and cream, though being early in the season Ash had sweetened them too heighten the enjoyment of them. Finally, an excellent chocolate dessert which rounded the meal off nicely.








 This was an excellent meal, kindly priced given the work and ingenuity and skill on display, and emphasise Ash Valuenzuela-Heeger’s remarkable brilliance as well the astonishing business good sense she and Erin have shown in picking their location and type of prospective clientele, the food to be served and the price the diner was likely prepared to pay.

Rating, undoubtedly:- 🌝🌝🌝.

As a footnote, Brad Carter, Ash’s former employer at Carter’s of Moseley, announced that he would be opening his new restaurant,  Island, at Kings Cross in London in cooperation with Chef Tom Brown. It will take the form of a surf and turf establishment with Carter handling the meat side of the menu and Brown concentrating on the fish and seafood. No early return to Birmingham, then, for Carter.

Wednesday, 28 May 2025

483 . The Oyster Club By Adam Stokes.

 

  Lunch in town with a friend at short notice. Where to go? Where more conveniently placed as well as serving good food than The Oyster Club by Adam Stokes? A cocktail first in the very relaxing though bustling The Alchemist and then a very short walk across St Philip’s churchyard to the upper part of Temple Street.

‘The legal one’ cocktail, The Alchemist.

  A pleasing welcome by general manager Chris Fikeis in an otherwise quiet lunchtime atmosphere. Another cocktail and then straight on to the chilled seafood platter for one with its gargantuan collection of marine life which was easily enough for two. The oysters were excellent - full of maritime salinity and the mussels were generally plump and satisfying. There was dressed crab, which caused us both to order the platter in the first place, and a multitude of other crustaceans with particular pleasure coming from the fine langoustines. There were also king prawns and Atlantic prawns and a series of dips - shallot mignonette, aioli, saffron rouille and a particularly tasty Marie Rose.



  Then on to a regular favourite of mine, a fine whole Dover sole on the bone served with brown butter and capers and delightful brown shrimps. The simplicity of the dish is its strength though perhaps my sole was very slightly over. We ordered a side plate to share of new potatoes but were both sorry to find they had been sautéed. Chefs can not resist overegging the pudding - they need to show off their skills, quite understandably - how much more enjoyable are new potatoes boiled optimally and served salted and with butter. One is rarely presented with this simple presentation of potatoes - I should like to see it more frequently. 




  Despite our potato disappointment, we enjoyed our visit to The Oyster Club and were far too full for dessert. 

  I was pleased to be informed that, following my recently bespoke omelette Arnold Bennett at The Oyster Club, the luxurious dish was soon to be back on the main menu. The Oyster Club then, will be seeing me again soon.

Statue of Arnold Bennett, Stoke on Trent.

Rating:- 🌞.

Tuesday, 6 May 2025

480. The Last Sunday Lunch At Simpsons - The Beef Wellington.

 


 The hospitality business being what it is at present, it was announced a short while ago that with bookings not being quite as numerous as they might be, this was to be the last Sunday lunch served at Simpsons - at least for the foreseeable future. And at last I had someone to join me at Sunday lunch there so that I could order the somewhat celebrated Simpsons beef Wellington. And, who knows if Simpsons’ Sunday lunch will ever return given that Andreas Antona has put the business up for sale? The end, or the possible end, of an era. All things must pass …. eventually.



  The Sunday lunch went out in style. Firstly, two familiar amuses gueules - no less delicious for their familiarity - both very toothsome indeed - and this also applied to the equally familiar and equally excellent bread though as always, I would have preferred plain, ordinary salted butter to spread on the breads and this was kindly supplied was requested.



  I had the scallop dish which had been cooked beautifully and served with its beurre blanc sauce in a delightfully retro fashion in a scallop shell. The tender mollusc had a remarkably enjoyable butteriness to it and there was little else that could have been done to improve the dish. There was much apparent simplicity about it and it did not suffer because of this. My companion thoroughly enjoyed her beetroot starter.




  Then came the presentation of the Wellington. It looked magnificent and its service did not disappoint. The beef was accurately cooked inside its surrounding cover of mushroom duxelle and fine pastry. Its companions were a very sensibly sized serving of pomme purée, a dish of happy cauliflower with cheese sauce, stunningly delicious, sweet, tender carrots and confit cabbage and a fine red wine sauce. This was a memorable dish served on a memorable occasion at a memorable restaurant.








    Dessert was not an afterthought. My lunch companion was overwhelmed with pleasure at her excellent passion fruit soufflé and I was impressed, more than I expected (though I should have known better) by the caramelised miso tart served with a splendidly tasty blood orange sorbet. 



  The mignardises - a chocolate cracknell decorated with a pattern of the tiles in Simpsons, powerfully flavoured blackcurrant pate de fruit and gorgeously buttery madeleines - rounded off a first class meal at a first class restaurant. Long may it keep serving such magnificent food to the diners of Birmingha.




Rating:- 🌞🌞🌞.