287. Lasan.

 

  According to the records of my dining companion at the time, the last occasion I ate at Lasan in James Street in the Jewellery Quarter was 21 May 2012. Clearly this was going to be a long delayed second visit. Back then, Lasan had been featured in a Gordon Ramsay television series and won some sort of award in it and more notably, Aktar Islam was Head Chef there then. 

  I remember having an enjoyable evening there apart from there being a very noisy table of men out on the town and doubtless ‘out for a curry’ but my friend, always grudging in praise and able to carry adverse criticism to atmospheric heights of disagreeability, noted that he had had his “worst meal of the year” there (though the year was less than half way through). He was disparaging about the soft shell crab dish for which Islam had won the fish course in one series of The Great British Menu; his main of monkfish, he claimed, was ‘not cooked’ properly and felt that the accompanying sauce overwhelmed the flavour of the fish and he did not like his dessert of halva. To round things off in his uniquely curmudgeonly way he noted that the service there was “poor”. His problem with food is that he much prefers analysing it rather than eating it. Indeed he very much has “a lean and hungry look” and in the words of Caesar, “such men are dangerous” (especially it seems to chefs and restaurateurs). His own cooking, by the way, is not as good as he believes it to be.

  So ten years later I returned, this time with an altogether kinder and more appreciative dining companion. From both the street and indoors the restaurant is impressive - smart, spacious and shining with an added veneer of discreet rusticity contributed by the numerous little wall decorations and artifacts scattered around. The menu presented to us was a little grubby and needed refreshing. 

  We were served a delightful little prawn puri as an appetiser and we also ordered some poppadoms and chutneys which were enjoyable. As starters, my dining companion was delighted with his Sarson king prawns and my choice of Bihari beef kebab gave me great pleasure. 

  For my main course I chose Methi chicken. The chicken was somewhat overcooked and my taste buds felt assailed by the flavour of tomato and were not aware of the desired taste of fenugreek. My dining companion chose Makhan chicken which was altogether more successful I thought (though again the chicken was over) - if anything the flavour of tomato was less evident than in my dish which made me think for a moment that we had been served the wrong dishes but my companion pointed out that the flavour of cashew was very discernible in his Makhan which was as it should have been. We ate our dishes with shared rice and Peshwari naan.

  

  We were replete and did not feel that we would delve into Lasan’s choice of desserts, assuming there was one. This had been a satisfactory meal in pleasant surroundings but it had not been faultless. 

  Rating:- 🌛🌛.

122. Tiers For Fears.

   As Birmingham restauranteurs come to terms with the reality of the COVID-19 Regulations Tier 3 designation for the city there are more reactions from local leading names in the industry. In a question put to his customers on his Facebook page Glynn Purnell sought to gain information about the potential success of a takeaway service for his restaurant until the present crisis is over.

  Alex Claridge’s The Wilderness announced the non-reopening of his Jewellery Quarter restaurant by e-mail to his clients and used it is an opportunity to promote a tee shirt the restaurant is selling with the inscription, “It can’t rain all the time”. We hope that is true.

  

And Simpsons and The Cross at Kenilworth:-

 

 Jabbar Khan, the founder of Lasan, made famous by its then head chef Aktar Islam, and other restaurants, meanwhile is planning to open a new restaurant on Harborne High Street in the unit formerly housing a Cafe Rouge though the type of cuisine to be served there is not yet known. The restaurant is being designed by the Spencer Swindon Design group which designed the interior of the Plough Inn which will be opposite Khan’s new eatery. Khan has described it as going to be, “elegant and urban chic”. In the first part of the twentieth century, Brummies usually referred to the area using the derogatory term “Hungry Harborne” because the notoriously snobbish inhabitants liked to give the impression that they had rather more wealth than was actually the case and to maintain this image they would rather miss a meal than not have the items which projected prosperity. Perhaps Khan’s new restaurant may help to prevent the locals from still being ‘hungry’ and with its ‘urban chic’ still project the image of prosperity. I suppose the arbiter of that will be the effect of COVID-19 on jobs in an area where young professionals, unemployed, furloughed or still working, like to think of themselves as cool. Then again, t’was ever so.

19. Folium Opens, Wilderness Wanders, Edmund's Closes And Turner On The Move.

  Dining out in Birmingham has been very interesting in the last few months. 

  Folium opened in Caroline Street. I've had two excellent lunches there so far. Ben Tesh is producing some wonderful food and the place is bright and modern and comfortable.

  What a pleasure indeed was the salt marsh lamb. A fine start to Folium in its Jewellery Quarter home.

  A little further into the Jewellery Quarter a surprise temporary home for The Wilderness. With work on its new Bennett's Hill home delayed, Alex Claridge is cooking in the previous location, down an alley in Warstone Lane, of Two Cats and, more historically, The Toque D'Or. The all-black decor follows the rule that less is more and Claridge's whimsies are no worse showcased in this perhaps slightly claustrophobic environment than anywhere else. Claridge' food is magnificent and full of humour. His Big Mac appetiser does to steak tartare what it has always been asking for. His lamb (charcoal, cucumber) is perfect and his 'Quail, Tamarind' (NAFB - the waitress will tell you what it stands for - not only is Claridge a gastronomic genius but also one of Britain's great comedians) gives us one of the most memorable 'curries' ever served up in Birmingham. Notably, all tables were taken at a mid-week lunchtime.

  Perhaps The Jewellery Quarter is the new Ludlow.

  Having mentioned the Toque D'Or there comes the sad news that Didier Philpott's later restaurant, Edmund's in Brinkley Place, closed suddenly and is to be reopened as Maribel where the Head Chef will be, of all people, Richard Turner, who closed his own Turner's At 69 shockingly suddenly in January this year. I liked Edmund's though it's fate always seemed sealed by how few people were lunching there whenever I went. Philpott's cooking gave us perfectly fine and accurate French cuisine better than that served at the persistently 2 Michelin star Champignon Sauvage in Cheltenham and I shall miss it.

  Turner of course went through revisions of his menus at Turner's eventually ditching his multi-course tasting menus for a return to the pleasures of a la carte. Now an article in the Birmingham Post tells us that Turner will be presenting an 11 course tasting menu at a cost of £85 in Maribel but that there will also be a three-course a la carte menu which in my view is a relief.

  Finally The Post tells us that Aktar Islam, his days at Lasan numbered, is planning 2 new restaurants in the coming months - the Opheem in Summer Row which will feature 'progressive Indian cuisine' and  also in Summer Row will be the Mi Amore Ristorante Pizzaria to open in May. Oh good, another Italian-style restaurant - as Claridge would say, "NAFP", the last initial standing for 'pizza'.

18. Richard Turner Closes Turner's at 69 and Ben Tesh Opens Folium.

  Richard Turner closed Turner's at 69 in Harborne on 15 January 2018. Turner had opened the restaurant, known simply as Turner's for most of its life, in 2007 and it won a single Michelin star in January 2009. The restaurant was highly thought of throughout its existence but in August 2016 Turner changed the restaurant's style to some extent and the restaurant lost its Michelin star in the 2018 edition of the Michelin Guide. At the beginning of 2018 Richard Turner has announced that he closed the restaurant on 15 January 2018. This is despite the fact that Harborne has a busy dining scene with the opening of Jamie Desogus' Harborne Kitchen which one Harborne resident I know who likes to dine there describes as "almost as good as Purnell's but less expensive".

  Folium duly opened in November 2017. It got off to a slightly stuttering start in that I had a reservation there for lunch a few days after opening but my reservation had to be cancelled due to the non-appearance of a sous-chef. However I'm very pleased to be going to lunch there in a few days' time. I look forward to enjoying Ben Tesh's food having thoroughly enjoyed it in his former 'Pop up' restaurants. I'm pretty sure it will be worth the wait.

  Islam Akhtar, the chef director of the Lasan restaurant group, has stepped down from the role. He has made a number of television appearances including in three series of The Great British Menu where his soft shelled crab dish, which I ate at Lasan, won a place in the Banquet itself. Lasan was awarded a Michelin Plate in the 2018 Michelin Guide.