March 2008 Archives

While my family tucks into bangers and mash at home tonight, I'll be at the ICC at the Best of Broad Street awards. It sounds glitzy occasion and there will be a full report of who won what in Tuesday's Birmingham Mail.

It has its critics, but I reckon Broad Street is a real success story. Think back a few years and it was a dismal, semi-derelict stretch with only the Rum Runner and Barbarella's to pull in the punters.

Today, with my clubbing days well in the past, you're unlikely to find me in any of its buzzing nightspots. Now Symphony Hall, the cinema or one of the restaurants appeal more.

Good luck to all the contenders at tonight's awards ceremony. Birmingham's hospitality industry is crucial to this city's success.

Wrinkly bottoms have seldom held much appeal....until now.

I bought a few bits and pieces yesterday from Red Robs, the kitchen and catering equipment shop in Holloway Head. While I was there its owner Kevin Roberts gave me two Italian-made wine glasses with ridged bottoms.

I was a bit sceptical when he said the waves set up by the indentations when swirling wine in the glass improved the taste. But the flavour of a bottle of very pleasant Argentinian syrah I opened last night really was enhanced by the glasses. I was impressed.So much so that I felt the need to experiment with further bottles and today have the hangover from hell.

No more smooth bottoms for me from now on.

The chef at one of Birmingham's best known restaurants tells me that he's taken foie gras off the menu - not because of the animal rights protests taking place, but simply because it wasn't selling well. Perhaps the activists are winning the propaganda war.

But how long, I wonder, before it disappears from menus to be sold under the counter - a bit like booze in the United States' sorry and misguided Prohibition era?

I can't help thinking there would be an added excitement if a waiter furtively whispered: "Wanna score some of our special pate, man?"

Perhaps the animal rights campaigners should worry that forbidden pleasures are often considered the best.

Great news that Ludlow's La Becasse will be among e restaurants showing off their signature dishes at the Taste of Birmingham festival at Cannon Hill Park this July.

I hear great things about the cooking at the restaurant and it would be a grave dereliction of duty were I not to drive to the Shropshire town to review the place ahead of the festival.

Last time I ate in the premises it was occupied by Hibiscus - owned by Claude Bossi with a youthful Glynn Purnell working there, too. It was a superb meal, I remember. The flavour, texture and fragrance of bread made with roasted white flour still lingers in my memory.

Which probably says something about my obsession with food...

Here's an unashamed free plug for a great offer in Thursday's Food + Drink section of the paper. We've teamed up with the Gourmet Society to launch the Birmingham Mail Restaurant Club.

There's three months' free membership available, with members getting big savings on meals out at a long and varied list of restaurants.

Check it out in tomorrow's Mail - and don't be afraid to let me know if you think I'm spiinning a yarn. I reckon it's a cracking offer.

Since I live in the People's Free Republic of Moseley, tolerance is a quality that isn't so much natural as obligatory. But there's a limit.

I'm soon to cook for a vegetarian. Call me unreasonable, but I consider vegetarians pests. Would they fry me a rare chunk of steak were I to visit their house? Not on you nelly. It would be the usual raw carrot and lettuce sort of muck on which they smugly survive. Why, then, should they expect me to cook them special unfleshy food?

I accept that there are veggies who have thought long and hard about their choice not to eat meet - good for them! But most, I think, are guided simply by sentimentality. And none, I believe, takes true pleasure in food.

Sacre bleu! The travelling French deli that for two weeks pulled up outside my house is no more. At least, for the time being.

We waited full of anticipation on Saturday afternoon, but instead of the ramshackle van all that arrived was a note saying the vehicle had broken down and deliveries would be by request and would arrive by car.

Of course we'll continue to try to support the business, which goes under the name of the Scarlet Pimpernell. But there was something very satisfying about chatting to neighbours as we gathered around the van buying various French delicacies once a week.

I hope Mr Pimpernell soon gets back on the road.

Are restaurants there to please customers or simply to make life comfortable for themselves? Some seem to think they're doing us a favour by letting us eat there.

I drove with my family to one of my (until now) favourite Chinese yesterday afternoon on a whim because we decided we wanted to eat dim sum. We arrived at 5.10.

"Sorry, dim sum stops at 5pm," we were told.

So ten minutes after that time, they couldn't rustle us up a few pork dumplings, spring rolls and the like in exchange for our money?

Anyone know when Lent finally ends? Though I'm not a Christian, I like the test of willpower that Lent presents so I generally give up chocolate. Believe me, it's an ordeal for someone with such a passion for sweet things.

Trouble is, I'm never sure when Lent ends. One devout friend says Easter Saturday, another says Easter Sunday.

There's a cupboard full of chocolate just waiting to be devoured and I'd like to think the scoffing could start tomorrow. Help...

How much are you willing to pay for a meal before you wince at the cost?

Recently, celebrating a birthday, I clocked up a bill for £300 for four of us for dinner and wine at Simpson's in Edgbaston. Now I'm not going to claim that's anything other than expensive, but I didn't feel in the least ripped off.

The food was cleverly conceived, beautifully cooked and fabulously tasty. The wines, from the cheaper end of the list, were excellent. And service was impeccable.

The bottom line is that our view of whether a restaurant gives value for money doesn't rest only on the cost, but on the quality of food served.