500. Return To The Land With Kray Tredwell.

 

  An unlikely collaboration I thought, Kray Tredwell (670 Grams) with Tony Cridland (Land) at Land’s premises in the splendid Great Western Arcade. Intrigued, I was compelled to make a reservation.

  I had visited Land a couple of times before and eaten its food at a collaboration at Simpsons. I still needed to be convinced that vegetarian/vegan was really a satisfactory option for dining out. I had long been convinced that vegetarian food was only interesting if it was spiced up - meat stands on its own two feet, vegetables need the support of the heat of spice. Clearly, however,  those who have chosen the vegetarian style of life find it to be an acceptable option

  In between courses I was able to have a conversation with the couple at the table next to me, one vegetarian, the other strictly vegan, a marriage surviving happily it seemed despite its divided preferences, on where they liked to eat out and what they ate at home (everything now seems to have a vegan facsimile so it appears that preparing meals at home is no problem at all for the vegan/vegetarian household of the twenty first century). The couple had recently dined at Simpsons and found the vegan menu they ate from there to have been excellent. This was their first visit to Land and they were keen to see how the food served there compared with that coming out of Luke Tipping’s kitchen. As was I.

Kray Tredwell at centre, Tony Cridland at right of pictured.

 I started with a pleasing elderflower cocktail and then feeling happy and summery indulged in a glass of Nyetimber rosé. The menu was printed on a tiny scrap of doubtlessly recycled paper and the first two dishes mentioned were amuses gueules which both proved to be immensely enjoyable though one was superior to the other and I correctly identified it as being a product of Kray Tredwell’s creativity and ingenuity and skill.

  Tredwell's amuse bouche rook the form of a crispy charcoal pastry with little popping caviar-like spheres and a pea mousse - this was an exceptional nibble - while Cridland’s potato croquette also with the hit of lemon and similar to an amuse bouche I have been served at Simpsonswas also very enjoyable.

  The first savoury course I again correctly identified as a Land dish (Tredwell’s dishes are generally more refined in appearance while those from Land have a fair degree of rusticity about them) and it was a relatively small piece of barbecued lettuce which had little merit made infinitely more agreeable by a tasty splodge of mildly spicy hot satay with plenty of crunchy peanut texture. I remain to be convinced that the act of smoking a piece of vegetable elevates it to such a degree that it can be considered to be worthy of being served as a ‘course’.

  It was not hard to identify that the next course - a firmly textured piece of tasty celeriac with a gorgeously tasty espuma with a spicy kick to it and served with a toothsome steamed bun and butter - was another Kray Tredwell dish - it was more elegant and more interesting.

  Next, another elegant-looking dish but this time from the Land stable - a thick slice of tomato with a risotto, nicely textured by tapioca and what I would have called a gazpacho, nicely punchily flavoured by tomato and wild garlic. This was delicious though the texture of the tomato itself seemed a little spongy and not entirely to my liking.

 Land provided the pre-dessert. It was pleasant but not palate-cleansing enough to fulfil the duties of a predessert. The dish was centred on pandan which was accompanied by the always pleasing flavour of coconut; all very southeast Asian.

  Again there was more elegance in the presentation of the chocolate dessert and it was, not surprisingly, another product of the 670 Grams kitchen. The dish brought with it the classic combination of the chocolate and cherries, all very Black Forest though sitting on a crisp tuile rather than sponge and with them also almond. A delightful and happily light dessert with the flavour of chocolate that was neither too aggressive nor brutal.

  This meal confirmed my prejudices. Vegetarian, unless prepared by a chef at least one step above ‘merely inventive’, in Kray Tredwell we have such a chef, continues to leave me unfulfilled and unmoved. A lump of scorched lettuce does little for me and it’s clear that my hypothesis that to be successful vegetarian food requires heat and spice is quite correct. My vegetarian dining table neighbours enjoyed their meal although they were a little hesitant to fully endorse it but generally Kray Tredwell’s dishes seemed to have been the more successful ones for them. 

471. 670 Grams.

  It was longer than it should have been since my last visit to Kray Tredwell’s 670 Grams in Digbeth. The last word of the previous sentence is the likely explanation of my absence from Tredwell’s excellent dining establishment - “Digbeth” . I really don’t like Digbeth. To visit there involves a lot of girding of the loins and raising of the moral fortitude. But that is where 670 Grams is located and if I want to eat there then ‘tis to Digbeth I must go. So I did, trailing a regular dining companion with me, our Digbethphobia dispelled by a punchy Red Zombie at The Alchemist in Colmore Row prior to embarking on our Digbeth-bound journey.

  And there it was, the trendy Custard Factory in Digbeth, less unattractive in the bright spring sunshine and home to 670 Grams. Digbeth, Birmingham’s downmarket Bohemia.We probed our way into the restaurant, nicely extended since our last visit and were seated in the bar prior to mounting the steps to the now quite large dining area. Alas we were the only diners booked that lunchtime which rather dampened the atmosphere but did not, it appeared, reduce Kray Tredwell’s fine - very fine - culinary skills and inventiveness and ability to thrill both visually and with the flavour and textures of his food. The lack of customers was worrying given that a few weeks before, a social media comment from Tredwell identified the falling off of trade and the threat of resulting closure. 

  We did our best to spend what we could and I hope we covered his lunchtime overheads at least. 670 Grams is too good a restaurant for Birmingham to lose as our lunch there reminded us. Tredwell has tried different menus recently to address the needs of potential customers but has now gone back to doing what he most likes doing - a Tasting menu of his highly original dishes to bring some colour and thrill to the whole proceedings and this he indeed succeeded in doing that particular lunchtime. The Tasting menu is somewhat shorter than it once was but that is not a bad thing as what was presented this day was immaculate, extraordinary, exciting and delicious - not a dropped ball with any of the courses. The whole of it seemed more mature, more polished, more harmonious. And the length of the menu now seems absolutely correct - nothing excessive requiring old blokes to dig in the their pockets in search of their proton pump inhibitors. What a relief - a meal should be a pleasure not a convoy of numerous dishes each adding more and more to the thunderous flow of gastric acid.

  And how pretty it all looked, starting with three pleasing amuses bouches or whatever you call to call them which were savoured in the bar prior to ascending to the restaurant. The menu listed them as ‘Tom yum’, ‘Balti pie’ and ‘Venison’ which was broadly what they were - in miniature. Then, once settled comfortably rapt our table in full view of the proceedings in the kitchen, the menu trumpeted, ‘The  Brummie Welcome’ soup & cake whereby a deeply flavoured broth was presented to general purrs of delight.

  Then the courses began to arrive in earnest. First perfectly textured new season asparagus with an asparagus cream and grapes and we splashed out on the addition of Exmoor caviar about which the critic-blogger, Andy Hayley, is always a little sniffy but which we being two old men with less critical caviar acumen found to be perfectly pleasing.

   Next, a flashback to Tredwell’s days at the Man Behind The Curtain with a Jackson Pollockesque presentation of barbecued hispi which was so gorgeously sweet with its smoked butter, caper and togarashi dressing. Normally my heart sinks when hispi raises its head above the parapet and finds its way to a plate from which I am about to eat from but this dish was in a different league altogether and showed convincingly that it is possible to serve the rather cliched ingredients and still bring immense pleasure to the diner. Tgere’s no doubting that Kray Tredwell is a master of flavours.

  Next beautifully cooked virginal white cod, with an espuma of goma dare (sesame) sauce , bone oil and smoked ham topped with our second helping of caviar which added to the visual beauty of the dish. A dish of true harmony of textures and flavour.

  And then to the main. This was Ethical Game venison (Ethical Game is a Stirchley-based business specialising in venison sold only for a limited season) which was supremely well prepared - tender and delicious, cooked perfectly and served with a delightful combination of sweet black fig, maitake, a light massaman curry sauce and a small milk bun which was useful for soaking up the remains of the curry sauce. This was a delightful dish.

  A dessert - ‘Milk Street’ - was centred on ice cream which was apt post-curry and then a second dessert titled 1926 (I forgot to ask why - perhaps it had something to do with the general strike or perhaps something else quite different) which combined Mayan Red chocolate, raisins, the texture of almonds and the luxurious sweetness of Pedro Ximenez.

  A petit four in the form of a light carrot cake rounded off the meal. 

  Kray Tredwell told us that the restaurant had a good number of reservations for the evening which was good to hear. This had been an excellent meal. The restaurant would be Michelin-starred had it been located in London. 

Rating:- 🌞🌞🌞.

468. Pretheatre Dinner At The Theatre Royal.

 

  The brooding darkness surrounding the local and national restaurant industry has been exemplified by a social media posting by Kray Tredwell, Chef Patron of 670 Grams in Digbeth, in which he pointed out that he may have to close his Michelin-listed restaurant in the coming months if the number of diners coming through his doors does not pick up.

  I myself have not visited there for a while. I find Digbeth unappealing and getting there, though in reality it is a perfectly simple thing to do, to be a prospect too unappealing to enable me to pluck up the energy to strike out and head in that direction. The problem is that chefs think these areas with their ‘cool and hip’ (two adjectives, I fear, almost certainly to be sneered at as uncool and unhip by those who feel they are cool and hip) shabby chic, hipster inhabitants will be home to a younger trendy population eager to eat a relatively expensive, multicourse meal. But it seems that they are not so eager to do so as I was told by a senior front-of-house figure at a restaurant in the Jewellery Quarter - when the restaurant first opened in the Jewellery Quarter, the young and the well heeled were expected to flock to the location - instead it turned out to be the older (and well-heeled) inhabitants of the Jewellery Quarter who made up a sizeable part of their clientele. Cool locations are fine if the cool locals are prepared to turn up and support a restaurant located there but it seems those particular individuals are not so keen to do so when they can stuff premium burgers and upmarket pizzas down their gullets.

  Kray may have a problem. 

  On a different note, I travelled to London sitting in the excellent Premium Standard carriage of Avanti West Coast heading for the Theatre Royal Drury Lane to see what turned out to be the theatre’s latest execrable production of a Shakespeare play, Much Ado About Nothing, which starred Tom Hiddlestone whom, it seemed, the audience made up largely by women in their thirties, had turned up to see regardless of whoever was the playwright. They giggled ecstatically whenever he declaimed a line (via a microphone) though if he had been reciting The Boy Stood on the Burning Deck I expect their reaction would have been no different. 

  On two occasions during the play Hiddlestone contrived to bare his torso which thrust his female audience (and probably some of the males as well) into excited enrapturement. It was a grim night for Shakespeare. It was predictable I suppose, the moment I bought the pink programme. Pink programmes always spell doom for a Shakespeare production. The RSC has sold a good number of pink programmes in recent years and the production has inevitably always proven to be disastrous and dire.

  Despite the appalling waste of money involved in buying a ticket to see Much Ado About Nothing as well as the additional cost (£10) of the pink programme, there was a silver lining to visiting the theatre. It seems, the theatre has recently introduced a pretheatre dinner service in the gorgeous chanderliered Grand Saloon on the upper floor of the theatre and this seemed like a very useful place to eat prior to sinking into one’s seat and enjoying - or otherwise - the play.

   Firstly, as I arrived early an Eliza Doolittle cocktail in the Cecil Beaton Bar, nicely atmospheric and mood setting and ultimately relaxing, and then an accompanied trip to the Grand Saloon to take in the the pleasant spaciousness of it, the remarkable art, the grand chandeliers and to be comfortably seated, though my chair was a little low for the table, to study the menu and order the food and wine.

  This was a simple three course meal with four appealing choices for each course. The dishes were unpretentious, good value - especially for London and served in such an attractive setting - and enjoyable. The menu was bistro-style and included for starters, parsnip soup which almost lured me, smoked salmon, a warm goats cheese salad and my choice, a tasty pork terrine served with a sweet but pleasingly acidic half pickled onion - though a whole one may have been kinder - and a couple of cornichons.

  The main course was about as straightforward as one might wish - tender ox cheek Bourguignon with a couple of perfectly cooked carrots, a tasty mash and watercress. Straightforward and enjoyable - the meat nicely unctious in its sauce and well seasoned. Who could ask for anything more? There were alternatives - I might easily have chosen an alluring fish pie or perhaps the roasted chicken breast with lardons, winter kale and mash. I had a glass of very drinkable Spanish Malbec to accompany it.

  My least favourite dish was the dessert which was a Black Forest coupe containing some rather unusually textured cubes of chocolate brownie which I didn’t particularly enjoy with some pleasing brandy cherries and cherry sorbet and whipped cream. I might have chosen sticky toffee pudding or crème brûlée or a cheese platter (Bath Blue, Baron Bigod, Tor pyramid with quince jelly) which, given my general lack of enthusiasm for desserts, might have been my best choice.

   Despite my lack of enthusiasm for the dessert, I had enjoyed my meal and I was pleased with the price. I descended to the front stalls in a contented frame of mind though this was soon dispelled by the appallingly crass production of a Shakespeare play which was then to be unraveled in front of me. Had it not been for the pleasing dinner, my evening would have been an utter washout. 

Rating:- 🌛🌛🌛.

460. Dan Lee At Eat Vietnam.

 

  Dan Lee was the winner of the BBC’s Masterchef The Professionals competition programme in 2021. Subsequently he has been working at the Digbeth Dining Club and the Hockley Social Club where he has recently ended a long term residency. He has also worked at a number of pop up collaborations at various restaurants, most recently, I think, with Kray Tredwell at the latter’s 670 Grams. I had not thus far managed to be free on any of the evenings for which these collaborations were advertised and Hockley Social Club is just too much of a pain to get to from where I live in the evening. Hence I had not yet had the opportunity to experience Dan Lee’s food though I did once sit two tables away from him at a Kray Tredwell/Le Petit Bois collaboration in Moseley one evening (Blog 295) where he, like myself, were enjoying what was being served from the kitchens there. 

Dan Lee at Le Petit Bois, January 2023.

  Recently, however, it seemed at last that my long wait to eat his food was to end when a Sunday lunch collaboration with Eat Vietnam in Stirchley was announced and I hurried to make a reservation. I was irritated to find that it was impossible to make a reservation for a single diner but I made a reservation for two and a good friend was happy to join me to see what Lee had on offer. It was also an opportunity to revisit Ming Nham’s Eat Vietnam (Blog 270) as more time had elapsed since I had last eaten there than I had intended.

Dan Lee, Masterchef winner in 2021.

  Lee’s website notes that he trained at University College, Birmingham and he has also gained culinary experience working in his aunt’s takeaway shop. He travelled to various parts of Asia as well as Greece, France and New Zealand and this coupled with his English, Irish and Cantonese heritage enabled him, he felt, to develop his own multicultural fusion cuisine which led to him winning Masterchef and now forms the basis of the dishes he serves.

  The frontage of Eat Vietnam remains odd and still bears the name of Munchies, the greasy spoon café which had been located the as well as the large red and yellow poster with the sphinx-like inscription, “FISH SAUCE IS NOT FOR EVERYONE”, neither of which is helpful with locating the restaurant if one is a stranger to the area. But inside it was warm on a chilly, miserable damp day and the welcome was even warmer from a front of house staff member who had previously worked at The Wilderness. I spotted Ming Nham beavering away in the kitchen and then Dan Lee at the pass, the restaurant was filling up rapidly and the steam was rising in the kitchen. It was really quite thrilling though a tasty Saigon Gimlet proved to be a pleasingly soothing libation to counter the increasingly building anticipation of it all.

  This was to be a six course menu - a Sunday ‘Family Feast’, though this was more service à la Française than service à la Russe. The opening act of three dishes was served as one, then the two mains with accompanying plates together and finally the dessert. It was to be hearty, beautifully cooked and delicious. But I run ahead of myself.

  First came a platter of lettuce cups with pork ends, a completely delicious sandwich with lettuce substituting for bread, with brilliantly cooked pieces of pork belly, admirably crispy and tasty, possibly the most successfully cooked example of that meat I can recall being served to me, wrapped in a lettuce leaf (surely, the only useful thing you can do with a lettuce leaf apart from shredding it to use as part of a base of prawn cocktail or just feeding it to the pet rabbit), magnificent crispy butterflied prawns - such stuff as dreams are made on - and a scintillating papaya and pomelo salad. Who could ask for anything more? Well there was more to come, and no-one was sad about that.

  

  The highlight must have been the supremely perfectly cooked whole battered sea bass served with a delightful sweet and sour sauce. The fish was lovely - its beautiful white flesh exhilaratingly moist and tasty - and with it came individual dishes of plump, unctious slow cooked short rib, enhanced with fish sauce, caramel and coconut water with a perfectly cooked quail’s egg alongside it. In addition to these gems were dishes of lap cheong fried rice (with its tasty slivers of pork sausage) and a tofu skin salad which for the first time in my life, made me feel there there might be some use for tofu after all.

  These had been generously portioned dishes but there was still good reason to make room in my abdomen for the intriguingly flavoured dessert of mango and pandan cheesecake. The cheesecake was very well made - nice and smooth and just on the right side of the borderline of sweetness with, er, non-sweetness (I wouldn’t say savoury). The smallest flies in the ointment were the tiny cubes of unripe mango garnishing the cheesecake - they were flavourless and while their extreme firmness may have given a degree of texture to the dishes, it was not a particularly nice one. How I should have liked a real full-bodied hit of sweet, soft mango to seal the deal. Still, this was a small fly in the ointment and in the great, grand sweep of a very fine south east-style meal, it mattered but little.

  This had been a memorable meal with some very fine dishes - rustic but triumphant. The combination of Dan Lee and Ming Namh would appear to be a culinary marriage made in heaven.

Rating:- 🌞

9 February 2025.