89. Brad Carter On Saturday Kitchen.

  Brad Carter, Chef Patron of the Michelin-starred Carter’s Of Moseley, appeared as one of the guest chefs on BBC1’s Saturday Kitchen on 14 March and presented one of the dishes sometimes sold at his at his restaurant - Scottish dairy beef with wheat grass and bone marrow. I have only visited Carter’s once before (see Blogs 5 and 12) because I dislike Moseley and having to travel there and I feel I should go to the restaurant again though if anything, despite this being a very well thought of restaurant by many, Carter’s dishes aren’t all to my taste and with a no choices menu and some of the dishes being just a little bit eccentric I dislike the thought of having something I wouldn’t have chosen forced on me particularly when I’m paying for it.

  The programme was interesting as Carter stated that he liked serving food along with the food that the creature would have eaten itself. I suppose if he serves frogs’ legs he might try to find a way to also serve flies which would be a splendid realisation of the old joke about there being a ‘fly in my soup’ - this would not be so innovative as he already serves, as Alex Claridge famously once did at The Wilderness, ants to deliver a lemon flavour (see Blog 1). I’m not sure what flavour flies would hold in them.

  It was good to hear the Brummie accent, which he has, let loose on a BBC programme. After Glynn Purnell’s hosting of the programme the week before the BBC seems to be coming along leaps and bounds in giving more recognition to the West Midlands and its people and they way they speak. Perhaps it’s all to do with Peaky Blinders.

Brad Carter

  And this is what to drink with your plate of Scottish dairy beef, bone marrow and grass:- 

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  At last year’s Ludlow Food Festival I very much enjoyed the talk given by Suree Coates who for many years has had a single-handed, small fine Thai food restaurant in Ironbridge. I was very sorry to see on a Midlands news report two or three weeks ago, when the flooding of the River Severn was at its worst, a picture in the report which showed that her restaurant, Suree’s Kitchen, had been badly affected. The good news is that the restaurant was able to reopen on 5 March. It’s a place I dearly want to visit (I would have gone before but there was a long waiting list for a reservation). It’s distressing to see small businesses affected by these calamities after all the efforts their owners have put in over the years to keep their establishments going. But it’s pleasing to see how quickly people can bounce back.
  And now the Coronavirus problem will be a blow upon a bruise for many dining establishments whether they have recently been affected by flooding or not.

Suree Coates

The riverside flooding at Ironbridge with Suree’s Kitchen clearly affected.

“I’m back” Facebook message.

63. Ludlow Sausage Trail, A Brummie In Anglesey And A Thai Lady In Ironbridge.

  The Saturday session of this year’s Ludlow Food Festival was memorable for the beautiful weather and the large crowds attending, I read that there were 15000 people on that one day. Sunday was cloudier but pleasant and the crowds had thankfully thinned out considerably but there was a lot to see, taste, listen to and enjoy.

  There were large crowds ambling around the town for the Sausage Trail which is always the highlight of my dog’s year as she has her own ticket which provides her with 6 sausages in the space of a few hours as well as a lot of attention from the many dog admirers present in the town.

  This year my favourite sausage was from Morgan’s Country Butchers of Water Upton which stood out because of the mustard seeds added to the meat giving a little heat and vibrancy to the product. Strangely, as seems to happen even year, Lucy The Labrador gave the sausages the same scores as I did myself so she too, like myself, gave the Morgan’s sausage a perfect 10.

  For me, one of the best demonstrations was by Brummie Andrew Tabberner who has worked in Anglesey in recent years and then in July opened his own restaurant there, The Gaerwan Arms. Tabberner’s links with Ludlow occurred when he worked at La Becasse with Will Holland. Tabberner waxed lyrical on the wonders of running a restaurant in Anglesey with most ingredients available fresh within just a few miles of the restaurant and the pork belly dish he prepared in front of the audience made the rather tired cut of meat look astonishingly attractive. He also provided some highly spicy popcorn for the audience to sample and some slices of a fabulous blackberry Bakewell tart which is currently on the menu in his restaurant and alone makes the journey to Anglesey well worthwhile. He clearly loves Anglesey but this is one Brummie chef whom I would love to see working back in his home city.

  I thoroughly enjoyed the demonstration by Suree Coates who single handedly cooks exquisite Thai Food at her tiny restaurant in Ironbridge, Suree’s Kitchen. The restaurant is open only 3 evenings per week and there is, perhaps not surprisingly, a month’s wait for a table reservation. But the lady is charming and the smell from her food as it was cooking was enough to make me want to head for Ironbridge and indulge myself in her clearly delicious and very personal Thai cuisine.