For me, the real highlight of BBC’s Great British Menu television series has never been the chance to see notable (some of them at any rate) British chefs showing off their gastronomic skills and discovering what food the people who matter (as they see themselves) have elevated to the height of current British culinary fashion, rather it has been the delightful relationship based almost entirely on the art of squabbling which only older British men can do so well, similar to that of Waldorf and Statler of the Muppet show, of Oliver Peyton, the restauranteur, and the splendid Matthew Fort. And now it is all over. As can be seen from the headlines of The Caterer depicted above, the BBC, glorying in its wokeness and so hateful towards older white men, mainly on the basis that they have committed the triple crimes of being older and male and white, have axed the pair of them and substituted the admittedly renowned chef, Tom Kerridge, who by the way is male and getting on a bit and even white, but whom I find to be very irritating if only because of his sheer niceness and the young Asian woman restauranteuse, Nisha Katona and the young comedian Ed Gamble (who likes to think of himself as a food expert – he has an irritating podcast). Why did the producers of the program feel it is necessary to have comedians in prominent positions in in this program? Why? After the experience of the totally unhilarious Susan Calman acting as the programme’s host a couple of years ago we must now endure this frightful young man.
I have always enjoyed moaning about the great British menu but now it appears about to be plumbing new depths. As the Frankie Howard character, Lurcio, used to say in Up Pompei, “Woe, woe, three times woe“. Or as Hamlet once said holding the skull of another bowdlerised BBC programme in his hands, “Alas poor Great British Menu, I knew it, Horatio”.
One small port in the storm - Andi Oliver, who made such a success of hosting the programme this year, is retained to host the programme for the next series.
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| Andi Oliver survives but Peyton and Fort are axed. |
The shopping streets in Stratford-upon-Avon have lost a large number of businesses as the town emerges scarred from the pandemic. A number of familiar restaurants, some much-loved, have closed for good (see Blog 153) and it is necessary to experiment a little and visit some of the more recently opened dining establishments if one is to find anywhere satisfactory to eat. The line of bistros, some of which have the same owner and serve very similar menus and even look the same, in Sheep Street are an unattractive prospect even though one of them has a Michelin Plate and though the restaurant at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre has reopened and has been likewise recognised by Michelin I have never thought it lived up to its promise. Generally I am not a chain restaurant fan though many brands serve up perfectly edible fayre.
So on a scorching day in which Lucy The Labrador could do little but rest in our usual shady room in the Shakespeare Hotel and having breakfasted several hours earlier in the dining room which served for a while as a not terribly good Marco Pierre White New York Italian restaurant (another pandemic victim) which was full of very, very old people who were dressed like they were on a Mediterranean cruise but were actually a coach tour party (never have I seen so many varicose veins in one short session), I chose to go Turkish by having lunch at the fairly recently opened Turquoise Kitchen Turkish restaurant in Wood Street.
It has a smart, tastefully decorated, modern interior with memorable deep blue lights hanging from the ceiling and is pleasingly spacious. Service was efficient though the waiter who took my order did not have a fluency in English of sufficient ability to enable him to explain some of the dishes to me which was unfortunate as my experience of Turkish food is as limited as the waiter’s grasp of English. In the end, after a good study of the large menu I settled on houmous as a starter. The dish was generously portioned with lots of accompanying flatbread and the houmous itself was studded with delightful glistening little jewels in the form of pomegranate seeds and accompanied by a spicy tomato sauce and yoghurt. The flavour of the houmous was precise - not too much lemon or garlic. It looked attractive with a slice of cucumber stabbed into the houmous reminding one of a pen in a inkwell and delivered in flavour.
Generous portions were the order of the day when it came to the main course too. I chose the Mixed kebab and this was made up of three nicely cooked kebabs - chicken, minced lamb and pieces of lamb served with some disappointing undercooked rice and a pretty salad with vibrant sliced red cabbage forming the headline. The main problem was that there was too much meat - it’s good that a restaurant does not allow its diners to leave hungry but at my stage of old blokeness excess brings its own problems. Again the dish looked beautifully colourful and was presented prettily in a rustic Turkish style. Good stuff.
Too full for pudding, I rounded off the meal with a happy cup of Turkish coffee and a splendidly gooey cube of Turkish Delight presented on a pretty little dish which I should have liked to own.
Finally, Birmingham news media were kept busy in the past few weeks covering the stay of the Hollywood movie star, Tom Cruise, in the city while he had been filming another instalment in the Mission Impossible series of films. Rather awkwardly, his extremely valuable car was stolen from outside the Grand Hotel while he was staying there but more positively, he appeared to have enjoyed dining out at the Michelin-platted Asha’s not far from The Grand Hotel and he was so enthused about the chicken tikka he was served there that he ordered a second helping - an action which has now established him firmly in Birmingham Food folklore.
He seems to have enjoyed his meal at Asha’s rather more than I did on my recent visit there (see Blog 161).
