324. Summer Heat (2 - Low & Slow At 670 Grams).

  A hot early summer afternoon in Digbeth. I arrived early for my lunch at 670 Grams and had an amble around the streets near the Custard Factory to update my memory of the street art that was exhibited all around. Then on to the restaurant where chef Kray Tredwell was keeping cool in his shorts by the open entrance door. But there was no need to worry for another chef  - Andy Stubbs of Slow n Low - was hard at work in the kitchen above preparing the lunches. This was to be a six course collaboration by the two chefs.

  To start there was a remarkably good cabbage dish which transformed the edibility of cabbage from chore to unbearable pleasure.

  Then on to a remarkably delicious and visually beautiful - all gilded and glittering - mackeral dish which did for humdrum mackeral what the first dish did for cabbage. Then a magnificent portion of excruciatingly tender and tasty ox cheek with charred maitake and the improbability of cherryade sauce, one of the world’s greatest gastronomic developments. It seems that centuries have passed since I last drank cherryade. I lusted for a glass of it and Chef Tredwell obliged me with a can of the drink to down with the ox cheek. It is clear that any sommelier who does not add cherryade to his wine menu is not the sommelier he/she ought to be.

 

   There followed a dish of barbecued pork collar with elements of pineapple and gooseberry to balance it.

  The dessert of toasted seeds and honey sorbet was a pleasure but the final course was, perhaps, a little underwhelming - an undistinguished grilled half banana with a hazelnut mousse and chocolate soil. Despite this, it had been a pleasurable meal with many enjoyable elements; a collaboration of note.

323. Summer Heat (1 - Birthday).

 

  The weather in June in recent years if I remember correctly, and being an old bloke I probably don’t, has been somewhat disappointing. But not 2023. Sun, almost without a break, heat and blue skies with just a day or two of thunder and deluge, which must be put up with, for after all, this is England. Much dining out and little time to report it. So here are the highlights.

  My usual birthday dinner at Purnell’s was delayed to accommodate guests from here, there and everywhere, old friends in both senses of the word, not all making it to Birmingham as was hoped. But in the end, Purnell’s once more came up with the goods - its obligatory Saturday tasting menu looking very familiar but dishes tweeted enough to once more delight my guests.

The dishes - 

The black canary potatoes and edible charcoal with chorizo dip were as enjoyable as ever and I would happily live on a diet of them. The Emotions of Soixante Dix disappointed me - I could have done with a stronger contribution from the pineapple, though everyone else derived considerable enjoyment and amusement from it.

   The outstanding dish, I thought, was the Cornish sea bream ceviche with radish, yuzu koto and the taste of orange. I didn’t have the Haddock and eggs remix and I did not photograph it but my fellow diners said they enjoyed the dish. Next came, alas, overcooked Scottish halibut with a fine champagne and mussel velouté with Yukon Gold potatoes and caviar to up the ante on the luxuriousness of the ingredients.

  The main of fine Wiltshire lamb was finely cooked though not heavily burdened with flavour. The accompanying elements, including morels and black garlic purée, added interest to the dish.

I enjoyed the rhubarb-centred dessert and of course who could be distraught at being served Purnell’s egg custard surprise? though I don’t like the latest twist on the dish with the apple and cognac lurking under the custard. If the egg surprise has taken a turn for the worse, the mint choccy chip is better than ever so all was well that ended well.

  

There’s just a little nagging thought. Is it time for Purnell’s to evolve to make it more like a 2020s restaurant than a 2010 dining establishment? Fashions change and that’s as true now with gastronomy as with clothing or decor. Perhaps it’s time to make witty comments on the plate about 2020s food and put the playful nostalgia on the back burner.

Rating:- 🌞

322. Folium.

 

  May was a quiet time for restaurants. There were three bank holidays, one associated with the coronation weekend, and this seemed to discourage diners from turning out to eat at upmarket restaurants and probably the downmarket variety too. Chefs were tweeting messages full of anxiety, intimating that the end was in sight, restaurants everywhere were about to fold, that something needed to be done about the taxes the hospitality sector had to pay.

  I visited Folium on one of those May Friday evenings. The weather was being generous and the Jewellery Quarter was looking pleasant and placid. Certainly the restaurant had not managed to fill all its tables; as I say, this was Friday evening.

  Chef Ben Tesh was busy in the kitchen but even though I was able to watch his activity the restaurant had a serenity to it. It’s such a nice place. I hope it does well and carries on doing what it is doing the way it is doing it. The amuse gueule was familiar and none the worse for that - a roasted onion flavoured pipe with a soupçon of deliciously full bodied chicken liver parfait. So elegant. After Tesh’s own bread and cultured butter, on to a visually and gustatory gorgeous dish of Winterbourne char (I discovered the geographical location of Winterbourne - not the one in Edgbaston by the way, of course) with English wasabi and chive flowers. Then a magnificent spear of Wye Valley asparagus with a little mound of Exmoor caviar and white asparagus and a vibrant espuma.

  Fish was very much the theme of this meal. Lordly Cornish turbot cooked as finely as a master draftsman might draw up the designs for an exquisitely sensitive instrument, with an espuma accurately laced with yuzu and a splendid miniature beignet rather ungraciously represented as “fried bread”.

  To the pre-dessert. Iced horseradish with sorrel. Quite brilliant - it brought to mind the Tesh that gave us the sensational potato porridge with coffee grinds and toasted yeast in his pop up days in Church Street. Some may find some of his dishes - I do sometimes - but they are no less outstanding for that. What a star then and what a star now.

 For dessert, toasted hay ice cream with miso and buckwheat which did exactly what it said on the packet and made for a lovely light way to end a fine and elegant meal. The full stop was a precise mignardise in the form of a happy little fudge.

Rating:- 🌞🌞.

320. Forelles At Fishmore Hall Ludlow

 

  If I write about Forelles at Fishmore Hall it’s because I dine there a lot, staying at the hotel quite often as I and the Dog do.

  The à la carte dinner I ate there recently was a triumph, up there at the top of the meals I have eaten so far this year. There was an exciting, delicious amuse gueule of haddock kedgeree with a quail’s egg, crispy wild rice and a beautiful lime green curry sauce. The surf and turf starter was very good, being made up of tasty salt beef terrine with crispy oyster and pickled mustard seeds bursting with sweetness and acidity

  The main course was shamelessly delicious hogget served with a fabulous potato terrine, immaculately cooked layers of crispy lamb fat running through it, alongside accurately crispy coated lamb sweetbreads in an unctious sauce with precisely textured ribbons of courgette paired with precisely cooked asparagus, all brought together with a tasty lamb sauce. A very fine dish.

  The blood orange intermediate dish hit the right notes needed to fulfill its role of refreshment and the dessert was a delight, made up as it was of very accurately cooked rhubarb, white chocolate in a tube of rhubarb jelly, perfectly moist and light pistachio cake, apt ginger sorbet, crystallised rhubarb and crunchy crushed pistachios, the whole very prettily decorated as one would expect.

  It’s a pity that later in the week I found a revisit to the hogget dish to be a less happy one - the hogget was less accurately cooked and the potato terrine certainly overcooked, the sauce had evolved from unctious to claggy and the whole was disappointing after the immense pleasure experienced earlier in the week. Consistency is everything no matter who is in charge of the kitchen.

Rating:- 🌞

321. Mortimers.

  While in Ludlow I enjoyed another visit for the six course lunch at Mortimers in Corve Street. I was not disappointed with any of the dishes. There were three very pleasing amuses gueles - all of which I murmured to myself were ‘very good’ - a crispy and tasty ham hock croquette with celeriac purée, a delightful cheese tart and a pleasurable blini with crab mousse nestling on it.

   

Good things at Mortimers it seems come in threes - something of a mystical gastronomic number rooted in the distant past - and three fine breads and three fine butters next arrived at the table - goats cheese bread, sourdough and onion baguette arm-in-arm with sea salt, parsley and black olive butters (how pleasing not to be presented with the almost ubiquitous Marmite butter which lost its novelty eons ago).

    The first starter was a confit chicken terrine, nicely grilled leek and excellent shards of pleasingly sweet grilled sweetcorn with what sounded like an exciting little black pudding bonbon which sadly did not live up to its promise, being lacking in flavour and the coat not crispy enough. Next there was an excellent goats cheese mousse with accompanying pickled baby beets which had a nice balance between sweet and sharp and lovely beetroot sorbet. There was a pleasing hit of pepper, I assume from the sorrel, but the crunchy olive bread was just a little too hard for those who fear for the continuing existence of their elderly teeth. This was a pleasing dish however despite the accompanying dental jeopardy.

  

  The main course served up very fine and beautifully cooked Herefordshire beef - it was delightfully tender and adroitly seasoned and brought with it lovely, sweet roasted shallots though the confit onion mash was less successful, being rather claggy and not a great pleasure to eat. The dish was pleasingly soothed with a tasty beef sauce.

  Time for dessert - rhubarb with vanilla cream and pistachio ice cream. Sadly the rhubarb had been overcooked and reduced too much so that it lacked any bite and there was no hint of that unique sourness which gives rhubarb its raison d’être but the accompanying light pistachio cake and rhubarb meringues made this a very edible dessert despite the performance of the chief actor. The chocolate mille feuille with the accompanying happiness afforded by salted caramel that rounded off the meal ensured that Mortimers would remain a deliverer of happy memories.

Rating:- 🌞