Harbone Kitchen, November 2019

I can’t be bothered to trawl through older posts for evidence, but I’m pretty sure that at some point in the past I referred to Harborne Kitchen as the perfect neighbourhood restaurant. And it is. So perfect that we have decided to make it our neighbourhood restuarant and chose to spend our first night as Harbornite’s eating there when we really should be unpacking cookbooks and feeding ourselves. In short, the meal was everything we hoped it would be; sharp, precise, and nuanced. The flavour profiles gently layered up, proving that few chefs understand the finer details of ingredients than Jamie Desogue.

We opt for the ‘choice’ menu and supplement it with the onion course, because it’s the onion course and I’m not leaving here without it. We get the nibbles and the bread course, and I order the liver parfait from the tasting menu to start because I’m a gigantic pain in the derriere. This seasons offering is the unconventional pairing of brambles, macadamia nuts, and white chocolate, that really works. The white chocolate creates a fatty layer at the roof of the mouth that holds in the liver flavour, the nuts a contrast, and the brambles the acidity to cut through it all. It’s all very clever. Claire has a mushroom and egg yolk thingy that is gone too quickly for me to try, but she would like you all to know that she very much enjoyed it. The onion course is every bit as good as I remember. I would say you all have to try it, but they’ve since taken it off the menu. The Bastards.

Mains show a different side to Harborne Kitchen, one that cements the choice in moving to this area. A fat fillet of cod has one of those pearlescant centres only acheivable with the correct amount of heat judged over the correct amount of time. The charred hispi cabbage the ideal bridge for a romesco sauce that is light and rife with metaliic, acidic, and garlicky notes. I have a cube of pork belly with head fritter, plums and swede. I’ve eaten elements of this dish in various guises and this is the best yet. The fritter has improved, now looking like a posh fish finger and less dense in texture.  The overall seasoning of the dish about as perfect as it gets. It’s the food that you want to eat after a tough day in the office.

Desserts include an upgraded version of the honey parfait that I’ve been eating since the first visit almost three years ago, and carrot cake with carrot ice cream and coffeee zabablione which I imagine is great at mantaining great eye sight. It was a seriously good dessert, and that is coming from someone who firmly believes that vegetables should be kept out of the sweet courses in a meal.

The kitchen is clearly on form, maybe more than ever, but there is something I want to mention before I finish this up and work on the cover letter for a job I want. The front of house here is a team that not only rivals the best in the city, but is one of the strongest I have seen anywhere in the last year. They all know their respective roles, ducking in and out when needed. And they have incorporated one of the great steals in a wine book that has small number batches of great wine marked-up at levels not seen enough in this industry, encouraging the diner to spend more on better wine. As an example the £90 wine we drank would be in excess of £150 elsewhere thanks to the set margin placed on top. It’s just another reason to visit one of the very best restaurants in a city crammed with immense talent.

I guess I won’t need A2B to get me here anymore, but that shouldn’t stop you from doing the same.

Sugo Pasta Kitchen, Manchester

We were a little tipsy by the time we reached Sugo Pasta Kitchen. I know this because my bank statement tells me so. That one drink we intended to have in Wolf At The Door turned into five apiece, and we sauntered down to the road to Ancoats via a plant shop for a hanging plant we don’t need and a record shop for vinyl to be played on a record player we don’t yet own. This isn’t a bad thing; morning drinking is great fun at the best of times. It happens to be even better when you’re in the best bar in the Northern Quarter, requesting off-menu equal pours of strawberry daiquiri and pina colada to make a Miami Vice – the world’s second greatest drink. Ordering the first – the Negroni, of course – is the first thing I do when I get to Sugo.

So forgive me if the details of this lunch are glazed, or if I approach this with an air of reminiscence that adds a saccharine taste over my usual bitterness. Sugo had been on our radar for an age, and it pretty much ticked the boxes in the flesh. We get sat on a communal table with a young couple and their baby, a scenerio that we are far happier about than they are. We could have ordered starters, but when you call yourself a pasta kitchen it’s important to test the fundamentals out. We order three pasta dishes between two, an order which was at least one and a half bowls of pasta too many.

The food is comforting and rustic and basically everything that you want from a bowl of pasta. There is orrechiettie with a loose ragu of beef, pork, and ‘nduja that nestles in the pasta indentations, and it’s longer sibling, strascinati, with sausage that pops with anise, porcini, and thyme. Two huge bowls of pasta that work because the flavours coming off them are as big as the bowl they rest in. The only time it slips is their take on the classic pomodoro. The tomato and basil sauce gets watered down by the cream heavy burratta. It’s nice, but the choice if cheese is misplaced: often burrata is a welcome upgrade to mozzarella. Not here.

Service is swift and we’re in and out within 45 minutes £70 lighter than when we arrived. I appreciate that from your perspective it would have been nice to have read what the starters are like, or how boozy the tiramasu is, but frankly we came here to eat pasta and that we did. It’s no great secret that Birmingham is short of great pasta options; Laghi’s and Legna aside there is nowhere else that I could reccomend. Sugo seems a perfect fit to a burgeoning Brum restaurant scene. I would love to see them here.

8/10

The Village, Moseley

I’ve lived next to The Village pub in Moseley for five years without ever writing about it. I guess I felt the same way as I did with the other places I drank in, which has something to do with the old saying involving doorsteps and turds and the golden advice which goes with it. I don’t want to upset the pub I live next to, in the same way I don’t particularly want them fawning up next to me whilst I’m trying to have a quiet pint because I said something nice.

But I’ve moved as of a week ago, back to Harborne where all the bitter food writers go to rot away. I can say what I want about The Village now and nobody can stop me. Nobody. Well except my girlfriend who proof reads everything before I post it. You know what? I liked it. I liked the refurb they’ve just finished with the low hanging lights, monochrome palette and clean lines. I like that the staff are drilled at checking whether you’re enjoying the food once you’ve actually started eating it and know not to harass you every single minute. I like that they’ve looked at the small detail and worked at making it all better.

After a well-made negroni we start with lamb kofta, tightly packed, almost like a merguez on a stick, a plate squiggle of something simultaneously spicy and cooling, and a properly-dressed salad. Simple things, but simple things done well. Then gently cooked prawns under a dusting of parsely and chilli, rolled about in plenty of garlic and a little ginger. There is bread on the side to pile it on to should you wish, or you could do the right thing and use it to soak up the juices from the bottom of the cast iron pan. I know what I did.

The main course is defined by the quality of the battered halloumi that replaces the more coventional fish. The chips need a bit of work, and the mushy peas need salt, but that halloumi is worth the niggly details. Soft and moreish, the cheese is essentially steamed within a batter that cracks and shatters in the right places. A more than competent tartare is all the acidity it needs. It’s oddly priced at 50p more than the pescetarian equivalent which means they either need to look at their suppliers, or revisit pricing.

Courses are on the large side and we have no room for dessert, though plenty of room for more wine. As the evening rolls out the bar fills up; first with suits, then with those who dip into Moseley for weekend drinks. The old village hall deserves to be a focal point of the community, and with the recent refit they are once again on the right path. I spent five years of my life looking at this building with only the ocasional desire to wandering inside. I won’t make the same mistake now that I’ve moved out of the area.

7/10

I’ll need an A2B to get here in future

Jazz Roast @ 1000 Trades

The point of arrival was the precise moment my head went from sceptic to believer for the Sunday roast at 1000 Trades. I’ve become bored of the gentrification of the roast, with the smears and the clean lines; the plate with too many empty voids between the two slices of meat, the lonely potato and its inflated Yorkshire pal, backed up the endless stream of side dishes and part-players, rolled-out like a Pierre Gagnierre course. Right in front of our eyes the roast has done a Paul Potts: we fell in love with its wobbly silhouette and imperfections only to be given a new slender version that hums the same tune through pearly white veneers. But not here. This is a roast that your mother and her mother would be proud of, layered up like a winter outfit and crammed in tight like a replacement bus service. This is how a roast should be done.

The fundamentals are here. A billowy Yorkshire pudding, chunks of potato that have been boiled, then allowed to steam, dry out, tussled, and then roasted until the edges sharpen. There are thick batons of parsnip and carrot, a coiffured scoop of mash potato, tenderstem broccoli, a celeriac puree, red cabbage, and a puddle of gravy that demands donning wellington boots and jumping into. Those ordering protein are rewarded with generosity and pretty much perfect cooking, whether that be the chicken supreme with delicate flesh, or the cannon of sirloin cooked to a spot-on medium rare. The latter might look strong at £17 on paper, but there are restaurants in this city (I’m looking at you, Gaucho) charging almost double that for a lone cut of cow nowhere near this good. Toss a coin between this and a place in Digbeth for bragging rights as to the title of Best Sunday Roast in Brum.

With this we get cauliflower cheese, that turns out to be an entire cauliflower bathing in molten cheddar whilst wearing a shower cap of breadcrumbs and thus completely defeats us. Bloody tasty though. And prior we have a sharing board to start; with smoked chicken, smoked salmon, smoked duck breast and was the mackerel smoked? It must have been. It’s the nicotine replacement service for the gentile; a plume of delicate proteins each with their own acidic accompaniment. Eating this will dent your chances of finishing the roast, but don’t let that stop you from ordering it. Like everything else we ate it was pretty much faultless.

They had a tarte tatin which had my name on it (not literally, though this is a wonderful idea that I would gladly endorse), but I was too replete and margainly too hungover to entertain it. Instead I pay the bill and head back home for a deserved snooze. I should probably take this moment to point out that 1000 Trades recently won big in The Guardian’s annual OFM awards. It’s a testament that every detail is looked at, analysed, and then perfected, from the rotating kitchen to the ever-changing beers, the natural wines, the upstairs cocktail bar, and this, Birmingham’s most wholesome Sunday lunch.

If there were an award for best taxi, A2B would have it in the bag

Gino D’Acampo My Restaurant, Birmingham

Convicted burglar Gino D’Acampo has opened a restaurant in Birmingham. He is so keen on you knowing this that he has not only stuck his name above the door, but also emphasised that it is his restaurant, just on the off-chance you think his name might be used to endorse another restaurant that he also won’t be cooking in. The ego doesn’t stop there; inside is a shrine to D’Acampo, with pictures of him posing with various celebs gracing the decor that is presumably based on his favourite airport departure lounge, right down to the padded stools at the bar knocking out the most acerbic of Prosecco. Just in case you need reminding of his credentials outside of chewing on a kangaroo bollock live on TV, the menu is there to remind you at all times. Dishes are gathered from Gino’s TV shows and cook books, and those cook books are of course available to purchase in the restaurant. Everything has it’s own soundbite description from Gino just on the off-chance that you forget you are in his restaurant, eating food cooked by a chef who has probably never met him. It’s like they decided that the primary reason to visit is to experience the pastiche life of the chef, rather than to actually eat food. A notion they have successfully carried over onto the plate.

The food itself goes from good, to lacklustre, to downright awful. To their credit, the front-of-house remove the plates that haven’t been eaten from the bill without being asked, which softens the experience just enough for me to say that if you were ever in the area and Oyster Club, The Ivy, Fumo, San Carlo, Adams, Pint Shop, Pure Craft, Pieminister, Gusto, Rudy’s, Indian Streatery, Chung Ying Central, and Hotel du Vin were all shut I could probably recommend a dish to eat here. That dish is the bruschetta, the first and best thing I ate all afternoon. The tomatoes are carefully dressed with a lick of vinegar, I think a touch of sugar, and lots of salt. It’s simple and effective. I just wish I could say the same about the rest.

The recipe for the paté can be found on page 18 of ‘A Taste of The Sun’ which I implore you never disgrace your kitchen shelves with. It should never have left the kitchen. Freezer cold, the butter on top had to be cracked apart with a knife. The paté underneath grey and granular from overcooked livers, whilst the promised addition of masala is replaced with a backnote of iodine. When asked what he thought of the dish my dining companion noted to staff that ‘the ratio of bread to paté was good’, which is more barbaric than anything I have to say.

From main courses we get seabass that is a little overcooked, but at least servicable, with lentils that are undercooked and tragically underseasoned. A bowl of cavolo nero and tuscan cabbage might look like the remains of a heavy night on the booze but at least has decent flavour. The last dish is pasta and ragu – the acid test for any Italian restaurant worth its salt, and this was once again lacking salt. The pasta is fettucine; the thicker, more clumbersome Roman sibling of the tagliatelle, which was passable despite not being my personal choice to sit with the watery ragu that has the blunt metallic notes of concentrated tomato that hasn’t been cooked out long enough. It’s twelve pounds of misery, enough to make the staunchest of remainers vote to leave the EU. This isn’t Italian food. The accent is faked, the gesticulations purely for show. I’ll leave you to work out where I’m heading with this.

We have the sense not to order dessert, though if you do you could be treated to tiramisu, or rum baba, or chocolate torte; all lovingly made by Gino on TV and then recreated by his kitchen using the recipes from his cookbooks. As previously mentioned our bill wasn’t much because the excellent front-of-house removed the bad bits, but does that make it acceptable? Absolutely not. We ordered four dishes, two of which were sent back. I ate that very afternoon to put some food in my stomach. With its city centre location and celebrity association no doubt punters will flock here to see what it’s about. To make them come back is a entirely different scenerio and they are going to have to be much better. Fantastico it is not.

4/10

Wanna know what is fantastico? A2B Radio Cars

The Backyard Cafe, October 2019

At the turn of this year I creamed my pants about The Backyard Café. It was, I said, the best place for breakfast / brunch / lunch in Birmingham, despite not actually being in Birmingham. I stand by that statement. It is worth the detour, the Saturday morning hop on the bus to Kingswinford, or the lazy Sunday morning drive. It is worth arriving famished so that you can eat multiple plates, and cancelling the afternoon and evening meals to enjoy the cakes you’ll inevitably take away. The Backyard Café do it better than everyone else.

I insist we go this time to eat The McYard; their take on the ubiquitous breakfast bap from everyone’s favourite child fattening multi-national. It is familiar in structure and flavour profile, but that is where the comparison ends; this is a McMuffin on steroids, the Backyard’s Hulk to their David Banner. The sausage patty is robustly seasoned and light in texture, with a glazed rarebit (utter filth), fried egg (total filth) and crispy onions (not filthy enough), sandwiched between a halved muffin because that’s how Hamburglar demands it. It’s too much and yet never enough as I mourn it’s demise whilst wondering how I’ll waddle to the car to get home. They even get the Full English right; good quality bangers, bacon with crisp fat, creamy scrambled eggs, a kind of leftover veg hash, beans, black pudding, roast tomatoes and mushroom, toast. It’s £7.75. I’m sure someone, somewhere, thinks that is expensive but lets be real; I’ve paid three times that for a lot worse. I don’t come here enough so we also get the confit duck leg with mac and cheese. At first I thought the citrus glaze on the bird clashed with the cheesey pasta though it grew on me like the mole I should really see the doctor about. By the time we finished it I wanted more.

I know what you’re thinking. What you’re thinking is “get me off this rollercoaster of food excitement. I can’t take anymore”, but no, hold on, because we’ve got one last run left. We take home two cakes; a textbook custart tart with a light dusting of nutmeg, and a toffee, rum, and chocolate donut. I will repeat. A toffee, rum, and chocolate donut. I eat it whilst watching Landscape Artist of The Year, the boozy filling dribbling down my chin and onto my t-shirt. It is here, from the sanctuary of my sofa, I decide that we need to live much closer to The Backyard Cafe.

I probably should have got an A2B here