Tamatanga, Birmingham

Another week, another opening of somewhere hyperactive on colour offering Indian street food. We’ve a lot of these in Birmingham now, with even more to come. Latest addition to the chaat show is Tamatanga, a bright and loud space that has blasted down the M42 from Nottingham. It’s a try hard kind of place, where lights dangle from the ceilings and illuminated slogans fight for space on walls. They have cocktails with chillies in and things they call ‘Eating Kits’ – cutlery to you and I – a phrase that makes me want to remove the pointy one of the three and stab myself repeatedly in the eye. I personally don’t like the room, it’s too busy and my mind cannot settle. But what for me is a migraine in waiting will be to others their ideal dining room, even if that audience is half my age and twice as optimistic.

Before I go on the type of bashing spree not seen since Negan started waving Lucile around on Walking Dead, let me tell you about the positives. The staff are brilliant; warm and well trained, they are a credit to the business. And the paneer was as good as any I have ever eaten anywhere. Large cubes of the bland cheese marinated and blasted with heat, these are well balanced in flavour and texture thanks to petals of pepper that still have bite and substance. I would say that I would order these again and again, but that would be a lie as I have no intention of ever going back.

The rest of it can be imagined in your heads if you take a Turtle Bay and replace their mediocre take on Caribbean food with equally mediocre Indian. It’s food without complexity, all one-level blasts of flavour. A garlic and chilli curry has plenty of moist pieces of chicken thigh but the sauce is nothing but tomato and chilli flakes. It feels half-arsed. It is served with two peshwari naans which is two too many, being heavy and sickly sweet. The menu tells me that the Tamatanga fries are ‘legendary’.  This is a lie. They are about as legendary as I am marriage material.

When done properly, I love thali. Meaning that on this occasion I have fallen out of love with thali. It’s a fifteen pound tray of pots with very little to admire. Once again we’re back on the familiar ground a chicken curry with good meat and an unremarkable sauce, only this time its joined by a lamb curry with not very good meat and an unremarkable sauce. Throw in to this tragically overcooked green beans, a tasteless vegetable curry and a dhal even thinner than my hair. It’s a post-Brexit dinner; deflated, with an air of disappointment. Lovely poppadums, though.

We finish with a sugar concoction that shut down my pancreatic gland which you may know as a cheesecake. It’s a dessert that will appeal to their target market; sweet base, sweet cheese mixture, sweet topping.  I am twenty years too old to be put through this. We take one between the two of us and manage a spoonful each. Stick to the chai which is a milky kiss of warming spices.

I hate comparisons but there is a direct one that I feel is necessary to mention here. For me, Zindiya is the present leader of this type of restaurant in our city. I understand that they are looking to expand and roll-out to other cities, which was never in their initial plans, but one that has happened organically based on the success of the business. Tamatanga gave the impression that has been designed to be rolled-out from the start. It’s brash and heavily marketed – the Indian Turtle Bay that I mentioned earlier on. It’s just not very good, and I hate to break this to them, but that should be the starting block for anything. Others will no doubt lap it up, but it is never going to be for me.

5/10

I was the guest of someone invited and therefore did not see a bill.

Transport was provided by A2B Radio Cars. For more information and to download their cashless app visit http://www.a2bradiocars.com/

 

El Gato Negro, Manchester

The Michelin guide in Manchester reads like an night-time astronomical report for their persistently dreary and overcast weather: No stars. It has a handful of recommendations for the city centre, though without us wishing to splash over a ton a head at Manchester House, we’re desperately short on options for a pre-gig Saturday lunch. We settle on El Gato Negro, a very popular Spanish restaurant housed in a townhouse on the nicer part of town.  We are placed on to a corner table on the 1st floor, squeezing past the wine guzzling bigot who is happy to squeeze the staff a little too much and likes to share a view on Nazi Germany that would appeal to Trump fans. He singlehandedly ruined lunch until the food arrived and took over the baton.

The dishes we ate are much like the long list of my ex girlfriends; pretty but ultimately underwhelming. It is food that has had a boob job when a heart operation was required. Baby monkfish fillets look the part on a lipstick red salsa and caper dressing, but tastes of very little. Even the quenelle of tapenade on top is flat. We reach for the salt grinder – a move that we would become familiar with over a two hour lunch.

Considering nine dishes are ordered, the pace is awkward. Everything comes in ones, with large gaps between some. Morcilla scotch eggs come as three pert bosoms, nipples and all, straight out of Total Recall. The quails eggs are runny, the blood pudding mixture smooth but bland. The mushroom duxelle base tastes of nothing, as do dots of apple puree. It is a dish conceived on appearance, not flavour. Tomato bread suffers from being ordered two days after eating a brilliant one back home. It simply pales in comparison.

They do best when stripped back and unrefined. Padron peppers are occasionally fiery and always delicious because of (hurrah!) a liberal hand of sea salt. Same goes to a whole rack of pork ribs, slowly cooked and glazed in a sticky sherry glaze. We carve and gnaw to the bone. At thirteen pound it is the only time it feels like value. Onglet beef is in a puddle of a dark and heady sauce that we love but feels like a fifteen quid jaw workout thanks to some distinctly chewy meat.

Three vegetarian dishes highlight just how inconsistent lunch has been. Sweet potato is a victory of coherency, dressed in a mango and chilli yogurt dressing that simultaneously sharpens and soothes the root veg. The sauce with the patatas bravos is allegadly spiced, which may be the case if sugar were a spice, but were at least edible. Horror dish of the day is the one that I insist on because I liked the sound of it. In principal carrots, manchego, pesto and aubergine sound delicious together, had the latters purée not been watery and the carrots boiled to the point they are falling apart. They go unfinished.

Pricing here is keen with the bill hitting over £120 for the three of us and the portions on the small side. Afterwards we put my girlfriend’s mother on a train and watch The National play a perfect set of intelligent indie. It more than makes up for an incredibly lacklustre lunch. The food of Spain is one of vibrancy, colour and boldness – here it tries too hard to be stylish with very little reward. Not that my opinion counts for anything of course; on the afternoon we dine they are turning away customers. Obviously the people of Manchester see a very different restaurant to the one that I did.

5/10

Le Champignon Sauvage, Cheltenham

Expectations are higher than usual before our lunch at Le Champignon Sauvage, because having eaten here before, I’ve set them there. When I sit down and think about the food I’ve been fortunate enough to eat, few places stand out as much as the first time I dined here.  It was dinner full of twists and slight of hand, of punchy flavours that evolve in the mouth.  It was technically perfect, confident and brave. I’m anxious when we book again because I want it to sparkle like it did before, and because I’ve backed myself enough to tell Claire the food is up there with the very best I’ve had. She’s a fussy one, that girl.

Fortunately, it’s everything I remember and more. The cooking of David Everiit-Matthias still continues to push boundaries with the subtlest of gestures. Canapés on arrival see an exquisite walnut and blue cheese cookie, with the lunches only misstep; a creamed cods roe on a spongey squid ink cracker that leaves us hankering for water.  From there it’s back to the ethereal bacon and shallot bread that we smear thick with salted butter and instantly request seconds of.  I remember the little ceramic pots that the amouse’s come in fondly, this one with a courgette and lovage set cream at the base, dots of parmesan cream and a crumb of black olive and flax seed.  What on paper reads like a random list of ingredients is coaxed into dish that evolves from an almost curried vegetal start into one that finishes with a long savoury depth.  It’s a brilliant pre-starter that pulls you in and refuses to let go.

I always feel guilty when I order soup in a restaurant, especially so in one bestowed with two Michelin stars. It’s always the most beige of options, the decision to make when the ability to make decisions alludes you. The cauliflower and cumin soup may have been beige in colour but the flavour is there in abundance – a blast of earthiness and warning spice.  Texture comes in the way of a crunchy Bombay spice mixture that takes it up a notch by adding interest and definition. We dredge the last of it from the base of the bowl with more of that bacon bread.

We dip into the a la carte menu for pigeon. The breast is very rare, with a pastilla of spiced leg meat and pistachio.  It needs the sweet acidity of the cherry to cut through it all and it’s here in puree’s and gels and most cleverly, as a glazed dome in a pate de fruit style that had the appearance of a cherry, stalk and all. It’s a brilliant bit of cooking; light and packed with flavour whilst always offering contrast.  This alone is better than anything we ate at the three star Ducasse two months back.

There was also so much to admire about a rabbit main.  The leg is beautifully moist, stuffed with offal and roasted, as was a teeny boudin sausage that had the faint tang of working organs.  We love the thick baton of slow roasted carrot and dots of the same pureed vegetable which I swear had been enlivened with a squeeze of orange juice.  Top billing goes to the croquette of confit shoulder that manages to make the usually delicate flavour of the meat more forceful.  The entire dish is complex in technique yet gloriously simple in taste.

The last time I was here I waxed lyrically over a pork dish that I then described as one of the finest I have ever eaten. I still stand by that. This is another stellar piece of porkery, a slender rectangle of belly, pressed and roasted to perfection with a glass-like piece of crackling lining one side.  What makes this dish so special is the juxtaposition between the sweet and the acidic: The latter is everywhere, from the lightest of pickles used on baby onions and walnuts, to salad onions and gossamer thin slices of pear.  The former is a deep brown sauce of cooking liquor reduction that has been thickened to an almost treacle like quality. It is beautiful. The man is a genius.

Claire fancied two of the desserts so I am told to order an apple cheesecake even when there is a cheese trolley with my name written all over it.  The cheesecake is good, maybe a little too subtle for my liking, but it works so well with a vivid blackcurrant sorbet that tastes purely of the dark fruit.  Solid pastry work is at hand with a pistachio and raspberry tart with pistachio ice-cream. Sandwiched between the shortest of pastry is a pistachio frangipane and the smoothest of raspberry jams.  It’s a Bakewell tart for grownups. Adventure can be found elsewhere on the plate with candied pistachios and glazed raspberries.  Like the cheesecake it’s just two ingredients, each perfectly aligned with one another.  We finish with petit fours which veer from a divisive chocolate flavoured with star anise to a mini rum baba that neither of us want to share.

With lunch an absolute bargain at £34 for three courses and wines starting at £22, we could have done this for under a ton had we not had a bottle of fizz and something indulgent from Paulliac.  But hey, who cares, it’s places like this that are worth saving for. Afterwards we saunter around the corner to John Gordon for another glass of red and get the train before it starts to get a little blurry. On said train we discuss the lunch; she loved it. Of course she would, it’s brilliant. Two years on from my last visit this little hobby of mine has taken me to some very serious restaurants, yet this little place in Cheltenham firmly remains one of my absolute favourites.  Le Champignon Sauvage is vital. You must give it a go.

Nosh & Quaff, Birmingham

Way before I started eating and writing about the nicer places around Birmingham, I used to read about them and not eat at them. I would buy the Birmingham (then Evening) Mail on a Friday only, moving just past halfway to Paul Fulford’s weekly piece. There you would have found a small picture of his small and shiny head in the upper left and two hundred words or so of Paul’s concise writing below. His occasionally acerbic, always honest writing style was an early favourite of mine, more so on the occasions he slipped in a subtle knob innuendo. He’s my neighbour now, which I still find bizarre, and occasionally I get to spend time over dinner with him, taking in his stories and counting the wrinkles on his face.  A couple of nights back I met him at 7pm sharp at Nosh & Quaff where in the deep red leather booths you would have found the unlikely combination of a Birmingham food legend and Paul Fulford, the ex restaurant critic for the Birmingham Mail.

There is a valid reason for us being here.  Back when I first wrote about Nosh & Quaff the menu was even shorter than Paul; lobster, burgers, some ribs.  I liked it, others less so, finding the options too limiting and the pricing aggressive.  Two years and a little introspection later, we have a full page of options and a considerable decrease in the pricing.  I think it needs it.  Downstairs is still a beautiful space of marble and deep red leather with ceilings high enough to fit my ego without the need to crouch, it just now has the kind of pricing and options to fill it more frequently.  There is a large industrial room  of bare brick and wood upstairs that they should turn into the city centre location of Fiesta Del Asado, a stablemate of the same group.

The hotdog is one of those items that has fallen in price.  Impeccably sourced from the Big Apple Hotdog company it is now half the price of the fifteen quid it used to be, with only fries losing their tray gig.  It showcases what N&Q is all about; quality produce, generous portions, and an underlying guilt that you probably will need to run your dinner off the following morning. It is worth the run. The dog snaps, the bun is sturdy enough to hold everything else in place. Order this and ask for a bib to come with it.  

From the newer items are rib tips that really transpire to be precise cubes of unctuous pork, slowly cooked and glazed in a funky BBQ sauce.  This is a lot of pig for £4.50.  Chick Norris may be a dreadful name for a burger but is a hefty bit of dinner.  Two hulks of free range thigh meat in one of those thick American buttermilk batters with bacon and processed cheese. Heat lurks in the background with enough tang in the ‘slaw to cut through the richness of it all. As far as the composition of a burger goes this has it all.

American portions mean only real Americans will have room for desserts.  For the rest of us it’s a small dent in the wallet and a lie down.  I still really like Nosh & Quaff, they’re not pushing boundaries but they are taking a familiar cuisine and applying quality ingredients with precise cooking.  It’s managed to improve what it previously was, now with a menu with enough scope to warrant repeat visits.  And all in the company of a man who definitely makes the list of my top 172 food writers.  Life really doesn’t get much better. 

Mr Fulford picked up the bill, I got the Uber home.  I guess that makes us quits.    

Electro Brunch at Gaucho, Birmingham

It’s 11am on a chilly Saturday morning and I’m drinking a Bloody Mary in the chic dining room at Gaucho.  This is my kind of brunch, a booze propelled two hour blast of unlimited food and drink from booths that are more comfortable than my bed.  There is a DJ playing the kind of music I expect would make an Ibiza chill out compilation album whilst the floor buzzes with staff.  One comes to our table and asks what we want to order. I say it’s time to swap the drink to an Aperol Spritz. He meant food. Still it’s 11.05am and I have my priorities in order.

Over the two hours we eat and drink as if this were a challenge, pausing only to take in the occasional gasp of air. Steak and eggs seem the obvious place to start in a steakhouse.  The meat is of high quality, briefly shown heat to still retain a pinkness inside, with a fried egg because this is still breakfast, after all.  It’s simple and delicious. Likewise a eggs Benedict that has the traditional ham replaced with salt beef.  It’s bordering on genius in concept, not a million miles away from steak with bearnaise sauce.  We would go later back for seconds and then thirds.

The humble sausage sandwich is given the upgrade with chorizo and chimichurri  between charred ciabatta that we resist the temptation to smear inch thick with brown sauce. Beans on toast is pimped with chunks of chorizo in an almost indentical vein to what I do at home, only with a lot less butter. Fried provoleta cheese is rich and guey with onions that have been cooked down to a jam-like consistency. One of our group have this and suddenly we all ordering it in envy. It’s that kind of dish.

Fuelled by more spritz’s we gravitate towards a sweeter finish to the meal.  French toast comes with an addictive peanut butter dulce de luche that is all nutty caramel and sweetness.  We insist that it makes a return on pancakes with banana and maple syrup, half joking that we’d like to purchase a jar of the stuff. It’s no joke. I really want a jar.

All of this comes at the price of £45 per head.  To put it into perspective it is the most expensive brunch in Birmingham, but arguably the best value.  To the best of mine and Googles knowledge, all of the others offer one dish with the unlimited drinks.  This is as much a dining experience as a drinking one, decadent and comfortable, as much as you can fit in.  They really know what they are doing here.  As far as two hours go, it’s pretty much the ideal start to a weekend, leaving us with the choice of more booze or an afternoon snooze.  We choose the former.  Of course we do.  Way too much fun was had to have it any other way.

I was a guest of Gaucho at the brunch and did not pay