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.

494. Summer - Sunday Lunch At Isaac’s

 

   When the Grand Hotel reopened in May 2021 after years of abandonment, near-demolition and ultimately entire refurbishment, the management opted not to open a fine dining restaurant within its walls - there were enough fine dining restaurants - it was said - within easy walk of the hotel but instead to open something with more popular appeal - NewYork-type grand diner which served burgers, hot dogs and at first, at least, dishes such as lobster Newburg. This restaurant they named Isaac’s after Isaac Horton, who founded the Grand. It was stylish but the food was not as good as the price charged might have suggested it should be. 

  A new Executive Chef, Andrei, was appointed in August 2024 and the approach to the menu has slightly altered and the serving of a Sunday lunch is now being offered for the first time. My new dog and I were staying at The Grand on Sunday night and this seemed like an ideal opportunity to avail myself of the roast beef on offer. The price is not cheap and not far off that of The Oyster Club’s superb Chateaubriand and so it seemed reasonable to expect food approaching that standard

New Executive Chef appointed August 2024.

  I dined, accompanied by New Lucy the Labrador, quite late in service and while Isaac’s was as smart as ever, there were very few diners still in the restaurant.

  I was greeted and served pleasantly and professionally and after ordering a well made cocktail I chose a starter of pea, mint and courgette soup from the longish menu. It would have been nice to have a cold soup on a hot summer’s day and pea and mint may have leant themselves very nicely to such a dish but this was a warm soup and actually quite good with the mint bringing a lively freshness to it. There were chunks of feta in it which were far too salty to be pleasurable until they had completely melted but the lemon oil lifted the overall dish. The dish came with an edible crusty mini-baguette which was not unwelcome though it was served with two packs of butter spread which, when I opened them, I discovered to have completely melted served as they were up against the hot soup dish and rendered completely liquid which caused me to splash the fluid on my clothes which was not good.

  For my main, I chose the roast sirloin served with a Yorkshire pudding filled with slow cooked braised beef, tenderstem broccoli, carrot, roast potatoes and red wine gravy. The beef was well done to which I did not object though I imagine there would have been some who would have preferred it to be rarer. It was certainly nicely tender and generously portioned and by itself was quite enjoyable. I had bought the stuffed Yorkshire pudding a couple of days before at the Isaac’s stand at the Colmore District Food Fair in Victoria Square and while appreciating how well cooked was the beef I had found that it rendered the pudding soggy and while that might have been reasonably satisfactory as street food I would have preferred to enjoy my Sunday Yorkshire pudding in the raw so to speak and to enjoy the texture of it. The accompanying vegetables were all, in contrast to the beef, somewhat undercooked and this main course failed to rise above the standard of a fairly run of the mill pub lunch.

  I felt rather enthusiastic about trying the cherry opera cake as my dessert. It was rather nice - the sponge was light and moist and cherry flavour came through nicely. The griottine cherries helped to make the cake look pretty and added a different texture. The cake was accompanied by a very tasty cherry sorbet and some ubiquitous crumb.

  This had been an edible meal which would have been more acceptable at half the price though as it happened that’s precisely what I paid as I had been given a 50% discount voucher for Sunday lunch at the Isaac’s stall at the Colmore Food Festival. I might have felt more resentful if I had paid full price.

  I fear The Grand has not yet found the standard of food hospitality one might expect when staying there. But Lucy enjoyed being able to join me in the bar to watch me eat (she is presently strictly on her own puppy food though I did melt and slip her a little bit of beef) and sitting there in Isaac’s from time to time is a pleasure in itself.

Rating:- 🌛🌛.

6 July 2025.

423. The Wilderness Pairs With Passing Fancies.

 A special event at The Wilderness recently saw Alex Claridge in the kitchen cooking a modestly priced menu to be served with accompanying cocktails invented and made by Matt Arnold of Passing Fancies. I enjoyed all the cocktails apart from the last, Short and Stout with Glenmorangie Signet and stout caramel, which was far too sweet and while one might drink a sweet wine with dessert, this rule did not seem to apply to a sweet cocktail. The other cocktails were all very quaffable and the novelty of it all was very enjoyable but perhaps we might learn that wine is the best accompaniment of a fine meal. 

  As regards the food, the dinner started with a delightful tartlet with a carrot purée and vadouvan (‘French curry’, a ready prepared mixture of spices with added aromatics including shallots and garlic). This worked very well, the pastry of the usual high standard one usually experiences at The Wilderness and the mixture of sweet and spice a great pleasure. This was paired with an appropriate and enjoyable cocktail, elegantly presented, which Arnold had called Rhubarb & Rye (bitter rhubarb, rye whiskey and honey).

  Next, a fine and fairly familiar dish to Wilderness/ADC regulars of seared mackeral nicely balanced with apple and sorrel and well matched with Watermelon 75, the ingredients of which were apricot fino sherry, watermelon and champagne. 

  A course of aliums and wasabi was fairly unmemorable and there then followed a nicely cooked piece of wild turbot (which was added for an extra £15) served with a pink fir potato confection. This was very enjoyable and accompanied by Dinosaur Food, a cocktail made up of rhubarb, rum and palo santo (derived from a Peruvian wood used in the aging of beer and, in Ecuador no less, a palo santo tea). 

  After there was another dish familiar to regular diners at the restaurant or its sister, scarlet prawn with the happily punchy, hot prawn head sauce but this dish was raised to fabulous new levels by the addition of a bubble of wasabi. Now a truly great dish. It was paired very appropriately with Metric Margarita.

  On to the main course of moist quail with barbecued cabbage and tom yum. This was tasty and matched with a cocktail,  Adult Ribena, a combination of cognac with blueberry and kumquat.

  The dessert took the form of various forms of peach but the flavours were severely suppressed by the excessively powerful vanilla flavour of tonka bean which rendered the dessert somewhat difficult to eat. As mentioned above the accompanying cocktail awas too sweet and did not match well the flavours of the dessert. This was a shame. Generally it had been a fine meal, full of innovation and experimental combination of flavours and the involvement of Passing Fancies had brought an added intriguing aspect to it. The Wilderness with ADC is right at the cutting edge of gastronomy and dining out in the West Midlands. Claridge’s food continues to evolve and wait to see what comes next.

22 August 2024.

 News

  Under my radar for a while, new Head Chefs/Executive Chefs have been appointed recently or at least in the not too distant past, in a couple of interesting Birmingham dining establishments.

  At Adam’s, which I visited recently (see Blog 422), while Adam Stokes remains Executive Chef, the role of Head Chef is now shared by a duet - Adam Wilson and Simil Gurung. Presently it’s hard to find any background information about either of them. 

  The Grand Hotel has finally appointed a new Executive Chef to replace Adam Brookes who departed there in April. Highlighting its new head of the kitchen on Facebook and Instagram without any particular fanfare that I could see, the Grand Hotel management state that, “Andrei is the mastermind behind the magic in Isaac’s restaurant and in the Grand Hotel kitchen!….”. The posts give no other information about Andrei, not even his surname. Doubtless all will be revealed in due course. For the present at least, the New York-themed menu remains unchanged. Let us hope that the new Executive Chef will come up with something more enticing. What about a Birmingham-themed restaurant, I don’t think anyone’s ever done that.

  The Good Food Guide added The Bell At Selsley in Selsley near Stroud in Gloucestershire to its list of recommended restaurants on 16 August 2024. That’s almost as far south in the West Midlands that one get to before crossing over into undisputed West Country territory.

410. Oyster Club. Purnell’s Cafe And Bistro Coventry Closed.

   Passing the weekend with Lucy The Labrador in town I opted to have Sunday lunch at The Oyster Club by Adam Stokes as I have on a number of previous Sundays in town. Well, actually I had a reservation for 6PM so the use of the word ‘lunch’ is somewhat stretching things. 

  The town was busy with countless fathers being dragged around the city centre to whichever dining establishments were open so that they could pay for their offspring to wish them “Happy Fathers’ Day”. 6PM on a Sunday evening is usually a nice quiet, civilised time to dine at The Oyster Club, one of the very few well thought of dining establishments to actually bother to open at this particular time on that particular day of the week and the restaurant was as civilised as ever on this visit though noticeably busier than usual with a number of men being entertained by their grateful broods and then handing over their bank cards in the knowledge that their families had enjoyed the occasion at their expense. Happy Fathers’ Day indeed.

  Sunday lunch at the Oyster Club usually involves me partaking of the excellently priced Chateaubriand plus all the trimmings lunch on offer there but on this particular day I wanted fish and nothing less than Dover sole would do. After a starter of pleasingly lightly battered tempura King prawns with a tongue tingling Gochujang dipping sauce which gave great pleasure, though one or two of the prawns were a little oily, there was presented a magnificent sole, meaty and of impressive size, quite adequately accompanied by nothing more than a wedge of lime and a fine beurre noisette with the right amount of saltiness and a happy texture provided by a multitude of capers and an insistent flash mob of delightful little prawns. Away you vegetables and you sea herbs, your presence is not needed here! The, I repeat, magnificent, fish was as much as any normal man could cope with though perhaps I might have thought of asking for some little buttered new potatoes (chefs - don’t sauté them please) but I was replete and the sole had not died in vain but such a fine chap had it been than dessert was out of the question.

  And to think, I had toyed with “going for a curry”

  Back to the Grand Hotel and the joyously sumptuous Madeleine bar for a couple of Vieux carrés which were rather good and rapidly served and, I thought, more paralysingly alcoholic than one might expect, which was rather good as there seemed to be no barmen there making the drinks. Great stuff. I do love Birmingham.

  There seems to be a little group of true gourmands in this city and they all tend to be attracted by special events at The Wilderness in particular, or perhaps Simpsons, and now Albatross Death Cult (I love typing the name, how will Michelin deal with it? - there’s no doubt that Alex is a real star). So at the public opening of ADC I was able to ‘network’ with the star Birmingham gourmands - dare I call them ‘epicures’ - who were present there and heard news that had previously bypassed me. This was that Purnell’s Cafe and Bistro in Coventry had been closed for the past winter and had not reopened, nor was it intended to do so. It had been Michelin-listed and well thought of and its life was short. Adieu.