474. Omelette Arnold Bennett At The Oyster Club.

 

  For some time, lust had been growing in me. I had recalled a spectacular Omelette Arnold Bennett on which I had gluttonised while staying at The Lygon Arms in Broadway around 2021and then I had come across a review of the Oyster Club by Adam Stokes by Grace Dent in which she mentioned said omelette and that triggered a mental lightbulb whereby I recalled seeing the dish on the restaurant’s menu but never having taken up the opportunity to order the dish.

  The moment had come to slake my lust. I prepared to reserve a table at the Oyster Club for the purpose of ordering an omelette Arnold Bennett but before doing so, checked the online menu and to my horror found that the OAB was no longer on it. Distress ensued. There was nothing to do but to email the restaurant and enquire if this was an omission and OAB was in fact still being offered at the restaurant. It was not. But Chris Fikeis, the General Manager, kindly suggested that the kitchen would be pleased to cook an OAB on special order for me and I rushed to take up his offer. And so, the very next day, there I was, full of anticipation and the sensation of lust about to be dissipated, walking through the restaurant’s door at the top of Temple Street, being kindly greeted by Chris who mentioned that he had tried an OAB that very morning and he was glad to sing the praises of that very fine dish.

  Comfortably seated in the downstairs seating area, I was soon gulping down a pleasing margarita variant whilst waiting for my first course of three rather magnificent king prawns which butterflied, luscious, meaty and nicely accompanied by a delicate alioli. I had already begun to purr. The prawns had a pleasing mild flavour very much to my taste and provided a very fine opening act for what was to come.

  And there, then, with perhaps a little less ceremony than it deserved, came forth the gorgeous-looking omelette Arnold Bennett, self consciously lording itself over the table and anything else than was on it. It sat in its pan, hot and handsome, and gave up its secrets when it was called upon to do so. And that call was not long in coming.

  I think it was as good as I could have hoped for. My expectations were fully satisfied. It was as luxurious as one would wish it to be and absolutely packed with poached smoked fish exalted by hits of cheese of which - it seemed to me - there were at least two types including a blue cheese and plenty of cream. I can not say how it compared with that prepared now and in the past at The Savoy where Chef Jean Baptiste Virlogeux invented it in 1929 to satisfy the hunger of the Stoke On Trent-born writer Arnold Bennett, given that I’ve never eaten there which is clearly an oversight I must one day rectify.

   Poor Arnold enjoyed only two years of indulging himself in this magnificent dish before he shuffled off this mortal coil, falling foul of French sanitation while in the south of that country and trusting to its tap water thereby inflicting upon himself a fatal case of typhoid. Bennett however did immortalise Virlogeux (sadly I cannot find a photograph of the chef) by basing on him the character Robo who appears in Bennett’s last and longest novel Imperial Palace (1930). The dish needed only to be accompanied by a glass of appropriate wine and the lovely Sauvignon Blanc served at the Oyster Club was the drink to do the job very nicely indeed.

  The richness and luxuriousness of the dish takes no prisoners and one hardly needs to eat any dessert after it unless it be as light as a feather. Fortunately the Oyster Club provided just that bringing a little acidity to counter the richness of the previous course in the form of seasonal poached rhubarb with a tasty rhubarb ice cream and a perfectly textured little vanilla panna cotta which might have benefitted from having a slightly more intense flavour to it.

  Replete, and with many thanks to the staff who had made it possible for me to salve my OAB lust, I made my way down Temple Street heading for New Street and when I arrived home there was nothing that could be done but to snooze and to allow the processes of digestion to do their job.

Rating:- 🌞🌞  

17 April 2025.

Arnold Bennett 

Bennett’s ‘Imperial Palace’ based on life at The Savoy & featuring the Chef, Robo, based on Jean Baptiste Virlogeux who invented the Omelette Arnold Bennett.

First edition of Imperial Palace.

472. South West Birmingham And North East Worcestershire.

 

Kings Norton from Bilberry Hill by JRR Tolkien, 8 July 1913.

  To the south and west of the city, Birmingham gradually dissolves into Worcestershire. New Frankley becomes Old Frankley, Rednal becomes Lickey End, West Heath tails off to Hopwood, Kings Norton to Wythall and Rubery to, er, Rubery. In short, suburban Birmingham becomes (mainly) rural Bromsgrove with the Lickey Hills looking down on the surrounding countryside from where JRR Tolkien painted a watercolour on Bilberry Hill looking away towards Kings Norton, the then city distant and brooding, its industry every day threatening to encroach on and overwhelm the agricultural, green lands across the border. 

  In those southwest suburbs when Tolkien was living in Rednal, Herbert Austin was busy establishing his motor car factory at Longbridge and the Cadbury family had established their chocolate factory and had built a model village in which their workers might live very pleasantly unless they wished to consume alcohol which was banned within the boundaries of Bournville village by the Quaker Cadburys.

  Southwest Birmingham is barely recognisable as what we think of as Modern Birmingham. The population is dominated by white people, many of whom arrived there in the nineteen fifties and sixties as the old buildings of the inner city were demolished, in contrast to the population of much of the inner city. It is a mixture of former council estates (many of the houses on those estates were bought by their tenants when Margaret Thatcher introduced the right to buy) and upmarket houses where savvy members of the Birmingham middle class live in houses priced at a fraction of the cost of a similar home in the north of the city at Sutton Coldfield. The residents have all the advantages of living in the city while being close to rural landscapes, just a short walk from home in many cases, as well as cheaper housing. And now those residents of south west Birmingham also have the benefit of being close to some pleasing eateries.

  Recently I had lunch at Kafenion facing Bournville green. It is a busy, sizeable, shabby chic, rustic establishment full, when I went, of the sort of affluent middle class women in early middle age who make up the dominant species in well off-but-socialist Bournville (long gone are the female factory workers who now live in council houses towards the edges of the city). They either had their infants with them, the sort born to ‘elderly primips’, or were luxuriating in their children’s absence at school. It was like a scene from the hilarious BBC comedy, Amandaland. The image of Ladies who lunch has evolved to this new generation of Women who do coffee - with their intensively worked on casual image and their devotion to their mobile phones with much scrolling and texting going on in between the exchange of gossip and oneupwomanship. This certainly is a city of diversity.

    My dining companion, a frequent visitor to Kafenion, and I, who had never eaten there before, were soon settled and studying the paper menu and the blackboard which also listed the dishes on offer. The cuisine is Anglicised Greek or just plain English (with perhaps a little unEnglish spice added). This, in theory, was to be a light lunch and I was very drawn to the spicy (I was warned that it was very spicy by at least a brace of serving staff) curried butternut squash soup which was not only hot in the spicy sense but extremely hot in the temperature meaning of the word. It was very good and the spiciness was not just easily tolerable but also very enjoyable.To accompany the soup I ordered a bowl of excellent chips - crispy outside and soft and digestible inside and made interestingly pleasurable by being sprinkled with sage. There were also a couple of slices of toasted sourdough to mop up the soup.

  My lunch companion ordered an old favourite of hers - Turkish eggs - well poached and spicy and served with an appealing flatbread and she reported that they were very good.

I will have no hesitation to visit Kafenion again when the opportunity arises.

26 March 2025.

Rating:- 🌛🌛🌛.

  In the past twelve to eighteen months, north Worcestershire has gained the excruciatingly excellent Wildmoor Oak Inn (see Blog 454) and in Barnt Green, Andrew Sheridan and his Open Restaurants Group who already have the Michelin-listed Black and Green on the  main street through the village, have opened Cofton on the Green across the road from Black and Green. 

  This is similar to Kafenion in many ways - it acts as a bar for locals and diners with reservations for Black and Green who are waiting for the restaurant to open and serves all-day breakfasts and, an odd pairing, a variety of homemade pizzas. The clientele is similar to that of Kafenion though probably even more well-heeled as Barnt Green is exceedingly affluent (mere mortals in south Birmingham refer to it wondrously as the place where “the footballers live”).

  Regardless, when I and the same lunch companion with whom I visited Kafenion, pitched up at Cofton on the Green, we noted that it was busy, not very sizeable but with outdoors seating, shabby chic, rustic and full of the same sort of clientele as those we encountered in Kafenion, only this being a Saturday, they also had their gaggle of offspring with them though this did not prevent them from paying intense attention to their mobile phones and allowing their next generation to make feral noises or wander around while chewing on some sort of healthy option piece of carbohydrate or the other.

  A young woman, somewhat inarticulate, dropped off a pair of menus at our table and we agreed outr choices and waited for one of the several staff standing at the bar to come and take our order. Eventually, after some minutes, the penny dropped on all sides, and it was revealed to us that one must order at the bar and that way one’s interest in any particular would be registered and in time brought to the table.

  I had a cocktail and we both failed to resist ordering the all day breakfast though I was pulled towards trying one of the pizzas on offer as I suspected they were probably rather good. The breakfast/brunch was very good even at 1.30PM. By the time it reached us, most of the feral children had moved on with their mobile phone-clutching parents and there was only one table left occupied by three women-who-do-coffee  whose cackling was only barely above the level of tolerance. These factors made for a more relaxing lunch than we might otherwise have hoped for half an hour previous.

  These were fine ingredients. The Lashfords sausage, of very good size, was delicious and nicely cooked though the fried egg was cooked so that there was no runniness in the yolk whatsoever. The bacon and hash brown were very tasty but the highlight was the black pudding even if it came at an added price. The cooking of the pudding was perfect, helped, no doubt, by the pudding having plenty of fat in it; it had a  moist but firm texture - too often black pudding is overcooked and cloyingly dry. The twist to this Full English breakfast was that it was served not with toast (which made a truly pleasant change) but with the exoticism of middle eastern flatbread which was also very good. I should not forget to mention that the chopped mushrooms were also delicious and some of the tastiest I have eaten for a long time.

  The choice of dessert is limited and amusingly quirky - a variety of doughnuts - my lunch companion chose the lemon meringue doughnut and said that she enjoyed it. I thought that a milk shake might make a nice way to end the meal and opted for the alluring Malteser flavoured variety. I was disappointed with it - the flavour of chocolate masked the flavour of malt and the milk shake was not anywhere cold enough. 

  My companion and I had enjoyed our visit to Cofton on the Green and again, like Kafenion, I should be happy to return perhaps next time to sample one of the pizzas though a repeat of the Full English, especially if the chef can reproduce the excellent cooking of the black pudding and the mushrooms, would also be very tempting. 

  Cofton on the Green is dog friendly which makes much more sense than letting in a load of feral middle class children spreading which ever virus they have just picked up at school or nursery.

Rating:- 🌛🌛.

12 April 2025.

  In addition to Black and Green in Barnt Green (Blogs 250 and 285), south west Birmingham dwellers also have the opportunity of selecting their choice of fast food at the popular Herbert’s Yard in Longbridge (Blog 201) and the fleshpots of Stirchley and, now trending, Cotteridge which are both just a few minutes away.

471. 670 Grams.

  It was longer than it should have been since my last visit to Kray Tredwell’s 670 Grams in Digbeth. The last word of the previous sentence is the likely explanation of my absence from Tredwell’s excellent dining establishment - “Digbeth” . I really don’t like Digbeth. To visit there involves a lot of girding of the loins and raising of the moral fortitude. But that is where 670 Grams is located and if I want to eat there then ‘tis to Digbeth I must go. So I did, trailing a regular dining companion with me, our Digbethphobia dispelled by a punchy Red Zombie at The Alchemist in Colmore Row prior to embarking on our Digbeth-bound journey.

  And there it was, the trendy Custard Factory in Digbeth, less unattractive in the bright spring sunshine and home to 670 Grams. Digbeth, Birmingham’s downmarket Bohemia.We probed our way into the restaurant, nicely extended since our last visit and were seated in the bar prior to mounting the steps to the now quite large dining area. Alas we were the only diners booked that lunchtime which rather dampened the atmosphere but did not, it appeared, reduce Kray Tredwell’s fine - very fine - culinary skills and inventiveness and ability to thrill both visually and with the flavour and textures of his food. The lack of customers was worrying given that a few weeks before, a social media comment from Tredwell identified the falling off of trade and the threat of resulting closure. 

  We did our best to spend what we could and I hope we covered his lunchtime overheads at least. 670 Grams is too good a restaurant for Birmingham to lose as our lunch there reminded us. Tredwell has tried different menus recently to address the needs of potential customers but has now gone back to doing what he most likes doing - a Tasting menu of his highly original dishes to bring some colour and thrill to the whole proceedings and this he indeed succeeded in doing that particular lunchtime. The Tasting menu is somewhat shorter than it once was but that is not a bad thing as what was presented this day was immaculate, extraordinary, exciting and delicious - not a dropped ball with any of the courses. The whole of it seemed more mature, more polished, more harmonious. And the length of the menu now seems absolutely correct - nothing excessive requiring old blokes to dig in the their pockets in search of their proton pump inhibitors. What a relief - a meal should be a pleasure not a convoy of numerous dishes each adding more and more to the thunderous flow of gastric acid.

  And how pretty it all looked, starting with three pleasing amuses bouches or whatever you call to call them which were savoured in the bar prior to ascending to the restaurant. The menu listed them as ‘Tom yum’, ‘Balti pie’ and ‘Venison’ which was broadly what they were - in miniature. Then, once settled comfortably rapt our table in full view of the proceedings in the kitchen, the menu trumpeted, ‘The  Brummie Welcome’ soup & cake whereby a deeply flavoured broth was presented to general purrs of delight.

  Then the courses began to arrive in earnest. First perfectly textured new season asparagus with an asparagus cream and grapes and we splashed out on the addition of Exmoor caviar about which the critic-blogger, Andy Hayley, is always a little sniffy but which we being two old men with less critical caviar acumen found to be perfectly pleasing.

   Next, a flashback to Tredwell’s days at the Man Behind The Curtain with a Jackson Pollockesque presentation of barbecued hispi which was so gorgeously sweet with its smoked butter, caper and togarashi dressing. Normally my heart sinks when hispi raises its head above the parapet and finds its way to a plate from which I am about to eat from but this dish was in a different league altogether and showed convincingly that it is possible to serve the rather cliched ingredients and still bring immense pleasure to the diner. Tgere’s no doubting that Kray Tredwell is a master of flavours.

  Next beautifully cooked virginal white cod, with an espuma of goma dare (sesame) sauce , bone oil and smoked ham topped with our second helping of caviar which added to the visual beauty of the dish. A dish of true harmony of textures and flavour.

  And then to the main. This was Ethical Game venison (Ethical Game is a Stirchley-based business specialising in venison sold only for a limited season) which was supremely well prepared - tender and delicious, cooked perfectly and served with a delightful combination of sweet black fig, maitake, a light massaman curry sauce and a small milk bun which was useful for soaking up the remains of the curry sauce. This was a delightful dish.

  A dessert - ‘Milk Street’ - was centred on ice cream which was apt post-curry and then a second dessert titled 1926 (I forgot to ask why - perhaps it had something to do with the general strike or perhaps something else quite different) which combined Mayan Red chocolate, raisins, the texture of almonds and the luxurious sweetness of Pedro Ximenez.

  A petit four in the form of a light carrot cake rounded off the meal. 

  Kray Tredwell told us that the restaurant had a good number of reservations for the evening which was good to hear. This had been an excellent meal. The restaurant would be Michelin-starred had it been located in London. 

Rating:- 🌞🌞🌞.

470. The Lazy Lobster, Chew Magna.

 

  On a visit to Weston super Mare, for a change accompanied by a human as well as my beloved Labrador, I decided I would take the opportunity of having a car and driver available and ventured out into the attractive village of Chew Magna. Its prettiness has clearly attracted the wealthy and presumably also tourists and there are rather more upmarket restaurants and public houses there than one might expect for a village of such a size. It was a warm, sunny spring day and the location was all very pleasurable. I had chosen to reserve a table at an appealing seafood restaurant, The Lazy Lobster, recommended enthusiastically by the readers of Harnden’s food guide, and found the place and service to be charming though the seating was not entirely comfortable.

  The dishes are described mostly as ‘small plates’ which are complemented by some larger dishes and the menu is displayed on several blackboards of various sizes scattered around the small restaurant. The dishes were appealing and we shared dishes between us and the resulting cost was remarkably reasonable.

  As is the case with ‘small plate menus’ dishes came out when they ready though pleasingly the order of their appearance was wholly appropriate and I think the kitchen intended it to be. The first pleasure to appear was a fine dressed crab - no hint of any crab shell, I’m pleased to write - with an excellent aioli and delightful toasted sourdough. This was everything I and my dining companion could have wanted. An excellent start. We also had a double helping of scallops served with their coral - tasty and pleasing and cooked perfectly.

  Next we shared a lovely, nicely sized and beautifully grilled megram sole with pink peppercorn butter and accurately cooked samphire which we ate with what were described as crispy, spiced new potatoes. There was indeed some crispiness to the potatoes and they were cooked to have exactly the right texture and the accompanying asparagus, slim but numerous, were tender and tasty.

  We had overwhelmed ourselves with the amount and deliciousness of the food we had eaten and could consume no more. This was a restaurant to visit more than once on a future visit to the West Country.

Rating:- 🌞.

469. Simpsons.

 

  One can not be sure what the future holds for Simpsons given that Andreas Antona has put the restaurant up for sale and there are rumours of Luke Tipping preparing to retire (there is no substantial evidence that I have heard to say that Tipping is preparing to leave the stage on a high).

  Regardless of all this, my regular dining companion and I resolved to have lunch at Simpsons. On the day we visited, Luke Tipping did not appear to be in the kitchen. The restaurant was certainly quiet - possibly about half a dozen of the tables had diners sitting at them. I have seen Simpsons much busier at a mid-week lunchtime in years past.

  In the last three years, Luke Tipping has delivered some fabulous dishes and Simpsons has been at the top of its game. But would the food coming out of the kitchen in the absence of the Chef Director be as consistently good as I had come to expect in recent times whenever I have visited Simpsons? 

  We chose to dine from the ‘Prestige’ tasting menu, cost £140, and at that price we were looking forward to some fine dishes, accurately cooked with some luxury items.

  The meal started with three pleasing canapés  - admirably crispy potato rosti which was slightly oily, crispy coated cod which was very pleasurable and a tasty beef tartare tart. An individual brioche and a slice of sourdough were accompanied by what amounted to some taramasalata and some wild garlic butter, moderately potent Wikd garlic butter, the garlic, we were told, had been foraged that morning.

  Then to the first course proper - a curious smoked cheddar dumpling with the texture of a panna cotta, reasonably tasty with fermented carrots, mushrooms, black garlic and dill pollen. I shoukd have liked the dumpling to have more body to it but the overall dish was pleasing enough. Then came a finely cooked, plump Orkney scallop with a toffee-like flavoured Jerusalem artichoke purée which did detract from the flavour of the scallop, Exmoor cavia, miso and katsuobashi dashi.

  The third course was undoubtedly the star dish of the meal - superbly well cooked skrei cod with chopped mussels which I liked very much, trout roe and a wonderfully buttery smoked eel cream which brought the word “sensational” to my lips. Gorgeous to look at and even more gorgeous to taste.

    This was followed by a slightly exhausting dish which brought an example of almost everything you can do with a beetroot to the table. There was a generous slice of golden beetroot, more of it than either of us could summon up the energy to finish, a toothsome beetroot sorbet, a nicely crispy beetroot tuile, an apt wasabi cream and best of all, little strands of sweetly pickled beetroot which added a thrill to a dish which had too many elements.

  The main was very problematical. Some lovely sirloin pavé was served but it was undoubtedly overcooked, having a dryness to it and, felt my companion, a slight toughness though I found my slice to be tender. I have had some lovely meat dishes at Simpsons in recent years but this one was wide of the mark. Perhaps the apparent absence of Chef was the reason for this inaccuracy being sent out of the kitchen. The dish was lifted by some well-cooked new season asparagus, a morel, the reappearance of wild garlic in the form of a purée, a blob of truffle purée and macaroni, vigorously al dente, covered with cheese which, for me at least, did not travel happily with the sirloin, the cheese’s flavour too harsh for the beef. This is a dish, striving hard to incorporate the produce of the gathering spring, which needs some new thought put into it.

  There was a pleasant first dessert of accurately cooked seasonal rhubarb which I had been looking forward to eating and which did not disappoint me, accompanied by vanilla cream and ginger crumble of which there was a little more than I wanted to deal with. But it was a happy, seasonal dish and served as a light, gentle introduction to the very impressive passion fruit soufflé filled with mango sauce and coconut Chantilly cream. It was a little sweet for my taste but was otherwise a fine soufflé about which no-one could have cause to complain.

  I have had some very fine meals at Simpsons in recent years but this particular lunch was not quite to the standard I have grown to recognise - the overcooked sirloin, the overpowering of one or two key ingredients by the flavours of some other lesser ingredients. Perhaps it reflected the absence of the most senior chef in the kitchen.

Rating:- 🌞

13 March 2025