Fazenda, Birmingham

My first experience of Fazenda was at the opening party. It is all a bit of a blur to be honest. I remember being on a table with people far cooler than me, and Foodie Boys whinging about his shoes, and my wine glass being topped up about twenty times before the meat arrived. I recall the table descending into chaos with darts chants and a very detailed chat about what our dart nicknames and entrance music would be, and then singing those entrance musics. And then singing ‘Sweet Caroline’ because thats what people at the darts do, except I am not at the darts, I am in a smart restuarant in a smart part of town. We left early to find a dart board, except we never found a dart board, we found more wine at Grace and James and I woke up with a really bad head and bottles of wine I dont need in a paper bag at the bottom of my bed. Anyway, I never took any pictures and I didn’t eat much food.

I am aware that even by my low standards this makes an awful blog piece at present, so I go back on a week night when my phone is being fixed at the Apple Store. I hope they don’t check my pictures unless they like Peter ‘Snakebite’ Wright and Daryl ‘Superchin’ Gurney. The room is huge; a basement space that has the whiff of a costly fit out, with bottles of wine filling the spaces within the bare bricks, and animal hides in various guises as furnishings and ceiling decorations. There is a buffet bar in the centre of the building, with cheeses and cured meats, stews from continents afar, soft breads, snappy bits of bread, fish, grains, and pulses, to make up for the skewers of animal who no longer have them. I usually hate buffets, though even I manage to fill my plate with cheese stuffed peppers, a kind of black bean casserole with nuggets of pork, couscous, and slivers of salty Parmesan.

The meats almost all impress. They come cooked as promised; the red meats rare towards the core, the bits of chicken and pork given further time yet still retaining its juices. The trademark picanha, a cut from the rump, is tender and full of flavour, the sirloin deeper in beefy notes with thicker layers of fat. The high points are unexpected: bone in chicken thighs protected from the heat by bacon, and lamb which is seasoned to within an inch of it’s life. The rest of the meat can be labelled as ‘good’, with the exception of the gammon, which is too salty and over-smoked.

I don’t have dessert for two reasons; the first being that it is not included in the £32.50 price, and, more importantly, I’m properly stuffed. This is a difficult one for me to judge: personally the concept is not to my taste; I like my food from a menu and cooked to order. On the other-hand they do everything well, and I’d have no problem recommending it anyone looking for a potentially huge feed in smart surroundings. There is clearly a desire for an up-market all-you-can-eat meat feast and for that, Fazenda do it better than anyone else in this city. I think they’ll prosper.

7/10

Images supplied by Fazenda

Legna, Birmingham

I’ve long been of the mindset that Italian food doesn’t translate well into fine dining. That by tidying the edges and reducing the portion side you are taking away the essence of the culture that has family at it’s core. There is nothing dainty about Italians; they welcome with huge hugs and kisses that cover both sides of the face, not gentile handshakes or softly gestured bows. They seldom speak in soft tones, both literally and metaphorically, with their loud voice always joined by gesticulations that reinforce every syllable. This is not the language of refinement: pasta does not need a softness of hand to gently manouvere it into place; it needs a bowl-shaped bed to lie in and a blanket of sauce to keep it warm. A pizza is essentially a sandwich that is not afraid to show it’s true emotions, the risotto a rice dish that never wants to leave home. They are embraces from a Catholic mother. This is the heart of Italian food.

It is also a cuisine that is difficult to perfect – just look what we do to it in homes across this country. Pasta should never be boiled to it’s cooking instructions; it should be taken out of the water two minutes early and teased through a little of the sauce in a pan so that the residual heat finishes it off, with the finished product requiring the same pressure between the teeth as a nipple during a bit of rough and tumble. Ingredients should be as fresh as possible; herbs that release oils between the fingers, and mozzarella that sobs a little when squeezed, not set to the consistency of a cooked cows bollock. The fact that we think it acceptable to construct dishes of this cuisine directly from jars tells you just how much the average person respects Italian food. Perhaps the older generation still hasn’t forgiven them for ze war.

So I was a tiny bit sceptical when I heard the plans for Legna, which is to be a more refined take on Italian food from a non-Italian chef. Si prego. But then it is from Aktar Islam, a man who has done wonders for Indian food next door at Opheem. In truth, I’ve got to know Aktar fairly well to the point that if Legna wasn’t very good I probably wouldn’t write about it. The four hundred words or so it has taken to get to this point can be taken that is worthy of writing about. In parts it is spectacular.

The opening play is gone in a blur of flavour. A little spherified mozarella with basil that needs tweaking, a parmesan cake with black garlic that is a pure umami bomb, the most delicate of grissini and foccacia with oil, vinegar, and a butter that tastes like pesto. We have a bowl of torn burrata, basil pesto, and slices of tomato, onto which a tomato consomme is poured. The burrata and tomato have been flown over that day and it shows; the flavours are clean and allowed to speak for themselves. We devour it.

I’m guessing that the recipe for the pappardelle that comes next has a higher concentration of egg yolk than normal, given the richness of the pasta sheets that retain the perfect level of bite. It serves as a bed for a meat-rich ragu of beef and wild boar that has nuggets of cheek and shin throughout. It is boldly seasoned, enriched with bone marrow and lightened with tomato concasse and a little vinegar. More importantly it encompasses everything that is great about Legna: a homage to the true flavours of Italy whilst using modern technique. A veal dish is given the impossible job of following this. The meat is gentle in flavour in comparison though we love the garnish of charred onion and capanota where the vegetables have almagamated and have just a little sharpness. The use of acidity is very carefully deployed throughout the meal.

We lean into the sweet courses with a ball of tempered chocolate containing a little espresso martini, and finish on a rectangle of lemon tart that has the thinnest of pastry bases and a filling which balances the sweet and sharp with real skill. A lemon sorbet on the side gives it a real cleanness in flavour. It is one of the best desserts I have eaten this year.

And then there is the small matter of the dining room which is right now Birmingham’s most beautiful. From the amber hues of the sleek bar comes exceptional Negronis to be enjoyed at heavy wooden tables under ornate lights. The wine is an all Italian list from which the superb front of house are happy to offer expert pairing advice on those available by the glass. It all makes for a very impressive restaurant; a place that plays homage to core values of Italian cuisine whilst maintaining its own sense of style. I’ve gone to its sister venue, Opheem, more than any other this year, though now it has serious competition for my sterling. Aktar has done it once again; Legna is an absolute joy.

9/10

We dined during a soft launch period and received a discount on the bill.

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Pictures by Claire

Purnell’s in pictures. Birmingham.

If any of the Purnell’s team are reading this, please take this as a public apology. Know that I normally behave far better and I’m not proud of my state in your restaurant. For clarification, we were celebrating Claire’s birthday a little too heavily; Opheem, Arch 13, Nocturnal Animals and Hotel du Vin until the very early hours the night prior. Back in Little Blackwood at 10am for breakfast and a birthday bottle of Nyetimber, The Edgbaston for a quick four glasses of Moët (and a couple of drams of Japanese whisky), Pint Shop, and then Purnell’s for lunch where we were kindly greeted with more of the fizzy stuff. You do the math. It was a lot of booze before we sat down for lunch.

As a result I’ve contemplated not putting this on the blog. I’ve been hazy on detail before, but that usually happens during the meal; I have never turned up for dinner drunk – I happen to think it’s fantastically poor form. I’ve decided to utilise Claire; her pictures and her memory (she skipped many of the morning’s drinks), and just write about the bits I’m certain on. What is clear is that Purnell’s delivered another brilliant lunch; one that is witty and theatrical, that still has real technique and flavour at its core. We have many brilliant Michelin starred restaurants in this fine city, yet none wear all that is brilliant about the city quite like this fine restaurant.

The highlights were the coal potatoes with chorizo dip that echoed the river pebbles at Mugaritz, the cheese and pineapple that remains one of my favourite dishes in Birmingham, the cod with satay, and a couple of really excellent desserts; a chocolate and mint number that worked on a multi-sensory level, and that brilliantly iconic 10/10/10 egg custard. Service was exemplary from start to finish, the chosen wines from Sonal for each course perfectly judged. It was all very, very good. I just wish I was a little less ashamed of it.

So Thank You to Sonal for looking after us so well, to Glynn and to Luke for popping out the kitchen and saying hello. Claire had an incredible birthday and the two hours at Purnell’s were a huge part of that. If you’ll have me, we’ll come back and I’ll stay sober this time. Purnell’s deserves far more than the above pictures and a few words.

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All Greek, Birmingham

When you strip it all back, the foods that nations are built on can easily be joined together dot-to-dot. A Lancashire hotpot isn’t really all that different to the tagines of North Africa, and whether that dough of egg and flour is pasta or noodles really comes down to the continent on which you were born. The notion of coating fowl in starch and then deep frying might be karaage in one country, chikin in another, or just plain KFC in the U S of A. As much as we cling on the idealism of certain foods being owned by countries, it is much like religion; a singular narrative that has become jumbled, bastardised, reimagined and re-homed over centuries.

I was thinking about this in All Greek. I was chowing down on the most Greek of dishes; souvlaki, gift wrapped in a bouncy pitta bread that contained tomatoes, raw onion, mustard, ketchup, a feta based cheese sauce with plenty of heat, and chips (chips!), amongst lots of meat. Ignoring the protein for a second, the sauces had amalgamated into something familiar, there was the bite of salad, cheesy notes, salty fries, and bread that worked as the perfect mode of transportation to the mouth. The Greeks are going to hate me for saying this, but this is their Big Mac and fries, albeit a much more healthy version. It turns out they have much more in common with the yanks than Brad Pitt playing Achilles. Either way I quite enjoyed it all, with the exception of the bag-to-fryer fries.

Claire had a similar one of chicken souvlaki that skipped out the mustard, ketchup and the chips, instead choosing to focus on the ‘cleaner’ elements of the wrap with the addition of a spritely tzatiki. She loved it. No complaints. I wish I was that wrap.

I wasn’t planning on writing this, but there is an honesty to the offering here that warrants it. Everything is fresh bar those chips, the service is charming, and, with every wrap nudging the fiver mark, it is cheap. Get those sauces, kick back with a glass of something and enjoy real Greek food, whatever the roots of that may be.

7/10

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Birmingham’s Top 5 Cocktails

I went and saw my doctor the other day. He asked me how much I’ve been drinking, to which I glanced away nervously into the sterile corner of the room and shook internally, incurring further damage to the organs which I am worried about. I reluctantly told him the truth. He wanted more detail on the type of booze; I said the expensive stuff, mostly blended into expertly crafted drinks. My doctor leans forward, the smell of stale coffee filling the decreasing void between his face and mine. “Sounds fucking fantastic” he says, “You must utilise your multi-award winning blog to write about these, because I need to try them pronto. But heed this warning, young Simon: do not get caught-up in the in the grandeur of awards; even Adolf Hitler won Time Magazine Man of The Year in 1938”. What a wise doctor he is, even if he is the last remaining man alive to use the word ‘pronto’.

So here is a list of the best Birmingham drinks, which, after multiple trips to some place called Londium, really do stand-up to anything in the country. We’re so blessed with what we have here in Brum, which is a small group of hugely talented people bringing the best out of one another. No Pornstar Martinis have been harmed in the making of this list. Give them a go and tell them Ol’ Meaty from the Interweb sent you. You’ll get nothing, but I might get a free drink out of it somewhere down the line.

5) FKD, £7, Nocturnal Animals

The name might be a giveaway, but this is a witty take on teenage boys’ favourite fingering juice. It’s neon blue in colour, bloody lovely in flavour, and rather brilliantly poured on draft straight out of the tap. Nocturnal Animals is too new for me to remotely consider myself an expert on their drinks program, but this is already a highlight for a venue not afraid to take the piss out of fickle aspects of modern life.

4) Negroni, £10, Legna

Ordering a Negroni is like watching Babestation drunk; rarely satisfying. Everywhere in Birmingham has them, very few do them well. For me the best is at Legna where the gin has been steeped in parmesan to give the drink added length and umami. It is up there with the negroni at Bar Termini, which, if drinks is your thang, is the ultimate in Negroni-based compliments.

3) Champion Cobbler, £12, 40 St Pauls

All hail the greatest gin bar in the universe. I’m not making that up, they really are. Right now I’d say get down there for the salted caramel gin hot chocolate, but otherwise take the Gin Cobbler; a fruity little number that comes in a trophy. Because you, Dear Reader, are a deserving champion.

2) Hit The Rum Jack, £12, The Edgbaston

Simply my favourite place in the city. Indulgent, luxurious, with perfect service, it is everything the bar of a luxury boutique hotel should be. Settle in for the night and work towards this drink; a short, boozy, and complex rum based drink that works on nutty flavours. The truth is you’ll be hard pushed here to find a drink that you didn’t like.

1) Amber Nectar, £10, 18/81

Honestly, the reason I knocked this list up. I was a bit taken aback when I recently tried it; it’s not just one of the best drinks I’ve had in Birmingham, but one of the best drinks I can remember ever having. For what is essentially a double measure of a single malt whisky, they have managed to add a dashes of maple, pecan, and tonka bean to draw out the flavour profile of the whisky. A world class drink that converted Claire to the joys of the fire water.

Don’t drink and drive, kids. Take an A2B Radio Car like I do.

 

 

 

 

Buonissimo, Harborne

With all the new openings, burger bars, street kitchens, and trendy Asian joints, it is easy to forget about those neighbourhood restaurants that have seemingly kept areas full on food forever. I’m guilty of this more than most: my diary is an endless list of tasting menus, of baos and ramen, masala chaat, and burrata, all in the name of telling you what is good and what is Deolali. I had almost forgotten that Buonissimo existed, despite the fact that I lived in Harborne for six years, with a proportion of those a twenty second walk away from this quaint spot just off the high street. Before this blog I used to eat there relatively frequently; I’ve spent Valentines evenings there, I’d gone for the cheaper evening meals, and memorably on one evening watched a drunk man topple backwards down the stairs whilst I grazed on a whole baked garlic and sipped on a just warm glass of Appassimento. He lived. I think.

It hasn’t changed much in the two or so years since I last visited. It’s still warm and homely; almost affectionate in service. The heavy wooden tables and chairs more comfortable than they look, with only plants disturbing the blue and white colour scheme. The menu is still concise and changes with the seasons, whilst they still proudly list their suppliers on the reverse. And what a list of suppliers. Meat from my favourite butcher, Roger Brown, bread from Peel and Stone. We work through the bread whilst taking in our options; it is all very good, more so with the peppery olive oil and almost sweet balsamic vinegar.

We take two pasta dishes for starters. Orecchiette has mortadella sausage, peas, and pistachio for company, with the little indentations of the pasta catching the silky tomato sauce enriched with lots of cream. It is elegant and seriously tasty. A ravioli of ‘nduja and pecorino takes the opposite approach, boasting lots of chilli and garlic in amongst the olive oil dressing. This is rustic and big-hitting. Both are winners for which we will return for larger sized portions.

Mains stay on that rustic route. This is Italian home cooking, a kind of meat and two veg (which would make a fantastic name for a foodblog) approach that fills the plate to all edges and dares you to try and finish. There is nothing pretty about either dish, but the flavour is there. I have a duck leg that has been confited and then blasted over heat so that the skin breaks into crisp shards, with a sticky and rich sauce dotted with prunes. Opposite me is chicken breast wearing a winter jacket of courgette and melted cheese. The quality of the meat is obvious, as is the skill in handling the protein. The cavalo nero is nice, as are the garlic potatoes served with the duck, though we’ll gloss over the wedges with the chicken that suspiciously look and taste like they have come from a bag.

By now we’re full. Super full. We have no room for dessert but the menu leads us into first agreeing to share one, before ordering two. It’s the right move. A crepe containing stewed apple and mascapone is good, though is overshadowed by an excellent take on bread and butter pudding using panetone that should come accessorised with a pillow and duvet. We wash it down with a chocolate hazelnut liquor and leave very happy.

Stay away from the fillet steak here and nothing will break the bank. Starters are all under ten, mains around £15, and wine that starts late teens. Exactly how a neighbourhood restaurant should be. There is nothing finessed about Bounissmo, it channels a completely different type of restaurant built around the principals of family cooking. By the time we’ve drank up on the wine we feel almost sad about leaving. The world needs more places like this; we won’t be leaving it so long next time.

8/10

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Burger Theory at Kongs, Birmingham

One of my pet peeves when reading other blogs is the endless comparisons. Apart from being very rude, it also isn’t particularly helpful. There are so many variables it is almost impossible to do fairly: were the dishes identical? Are they the same price? Did said bloggers pay for both meals? (the last one is unlikely). I don’t see what anyone gains from saying ‘this is better than this…’ other than undermining the establishment you are supposed to be concentrating on. But, and this is a but bigger than my rapidly increasing butt, it is going to be nigh on impossible to get through the next five hundred words without comparing Burger Theory to the big guns of this city. We do burgers very well in this town, so you’ll need to do something remarkable to step into the (bull)ring. I offer no apologies for that appalling regional pun.

Burger Theory operate to one side of Kongs, in the building that used to be Chameleon. That place was awful; a mating pen to the sound of commercial house, where wedding rings would be stowed in trouser pockets in the vague hope that two pissed people may horizontally align between the hours of midnight and 3am. Gone is the shiny wood, replaced with sparse seating, neon lights, and concrete. They have managed to erase the smell of regret that used to haunt the dancefloor and replace that area with wiff-waff tables, whilst vintage arcade games line the walls. I like what they have done with the place, mostly because it is no longer Chameleon.

I’ve been twice now because I want to give it a fair crack. The first time was a fleeting solo visit on a weekday night. It was empty. I have a korean chicken burger and a pint of Gamma Ray. The burger is served on paper napkins so that the leaking sweet chilli sauce is a irretrievable bed of red squelch that infuriates me. The burger itself is pretty good; high on salt, crispy batter and chicken that has survived the frying with some of its juices. It works, even if I hanker for a drink after every mouthful. I finish my pint, waste six quid on Donkey Kong and leave.

The second time saw me taking a severe beating at the car game they have before ordering a more substantial meal. Beef this time; on two burgers and one loaded fries. Those fries are not good: supposedly a chilli, the beef is tough and stringy, the promised sauces nowhere near enough in quantity to stop it all being too dry. The burgers are good, maybe not good enough to choose over OPM or Meatshack, but certainly good enough to eat should we happen to be playing wiff-waff in Kongs. The meat is good quality, accurately seared and cooked. The Down and Dirty is better than the one with blue cheese because the latter is out of proportion and only tastes of cheese. As far as burgers go, these would stand up to most competition. Most.

And then there is the issue of the size of the room. On that Saturday lunch there is maybe 60 in Kongs and it still feels empty. Maybe it will be different in the evening when they have a DJ, though they are going to need to put a lot more through the door to make this a viable business. Have they bitten off more than they can chew? Possibly. Still, Burger Theory bring more good food to the city, which can only be a positive.

7/10

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The Greenhouse, Sutton Coldfield

Sutton Coldfield has never struck me as an area to get excited about. I know it exists, like third world poverty and Mrs Brown’s Boys, but I have little desire to seek it out and experience it for myself.  On the rare occasion I do venture north of the wall it nearly always disappoints; there is good stuff happening beyond here, like the excellent The Boat in Lichfield, but Sutton feels timid in comparasion. It’s too genteel, too middle class to have anything edgy going on. It is the land of the company car and fillet steak, which seems perfectly fine for its inhabitants.

My mate Jacob gets excited about Sutton, mostly as he was born there. A car journey with Jacob around the area is a rapid verbal account of very colourful teenage years. It is great fun; kissed a girl here; ran away from the police in that place; had a scrap with a man thirty years my senior in there. I never realised Sutton could be so fun. Anyway, he’s a drinks rep now and he told me about a pub near his parents home that has had a refurbishment that looks great. So we do what thirty-somethings do and arrange to go on a double dinner date which stays civilised until we pick him and his fiancé up and see that they have a small bottle of whisky with them for the car journey.

The pub is smart; tables are spaced far enough apart for the young team to buzz around and handle every table in a warm and professional manner. It is a big menu, one that takes up both sides of an A4 sheet of paper. From the starters the lamb koftas go down well in a kind of DIY flatbread, as does a doorstop wedge of brie crumbed and then deepfried to a gooey consistency. Chicken karage is good when dunked into a katsu sauce that tastes remarkably like the curry sauce from my local chippy. The Asian inspired salad it comes with needs work; nothing tastes of anything.

Out of the four mains we have there is one dud: a dried-out chicken breast stuffed with a little chorizo, in an alleged buttermilk batter that has caught and burnt in parts. That aside, the rest is pretty good gastro-grub. Battered halloumi is precisely cooked with decent chips, mushy peas, and a very good tartare sauce, whilst a rib-eye is correctly cooked, if a little under-rested. Best is the fillet steak, with a little shallot tatin topped with cheese. Again the meat is cooked well, but it’s the accompaniment that makes it shine; adding umami and depth to the lump of cow.

Dessert is a melting chocolate bomb that is super sweet but also super good. Okay, I’ve been eating melting bombs for over a decade, but it’s great to see it somewhere more accessible than starred restaurants. And it works; the salted caramel sauce melts the chocolate and leaves a puddle of happiness around the revealed sticky toffee pudding.

We drink two bottles of decent Rioja and leave replete for the journey back to southern Brum. Is The Greenhouse good enough for me to make a frequent trek back to Sutton? Probably not. Though I do have a sister who lives nearby and I could certainly see myself having a bite to eat with her here. There is a lot to like about The Greenhouse, which delivers good quality food at a fair price.

7/10

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