Birmingham

Katsu Kitchen, Moseley

I can list as many reasons as I like for starting this blog, but there was only ever one: to gain the respect of chefs. I’ve long had an obsession with the industry, the skill of the knifework, the craft in being able to construct dishes, almagamating flavours into one cohesive dish that balances acidity and sweet, as well as understanding viscosity and texture. Part of me wishes I could have been a chef – I’m a good amateur – and it could have been so different. When I was fifteen I was due to do two weeks work experience at the UCB, only to fall off a bike the afternoon prior and tear up my hand in such a manner that they sent me straight home without passing reception. Maybe this blog is a continuation of the fifteen year old Simon, minus the acne and the obsession with my English teacher, Miss Pope. I’ve said for a while that as soon as I felt like I’ve gained the respect of the industry I’ll call time on this and find a new hobby. If I haven’t got there yet, I am certainly very close to that position. The end is nigh.

A few weeks ago a friend of mine within the industry let me see the other side of the counter. Yes, some idiot really did entrust me with serving customers for his business. I didn’t cook – he’s not that stupid – but I did put bits of meat on breads and fold and roll and ask if they needed sauces and chips. I had a great time working 18 hours over a two day period, drinking more gin than I probably should have and wearing inappropiate footwear. It’s tough work, let me tell you that. I left with tremendous admiration for anyone who could do this full time, promising myself that I would remember how hard it is everytime I was about to say something not nice about someone else’s cooking.

This brings me to Katsu Kitchen, a new restaurant in Moseley that I desperately want to be really nice about but can’t. As great an idea it is to specialise in breaded cutlets of meat, it has to be better than this for me to say otherwise. And that has to start with the raw produce. What they presently have is a small list of things priced mostly under a tenner. Those things are delivered with mostly a good level of skill, but the end product is lack lustre because the proteins they start with are of such poor quality.

We order a chicken katsu, a tonkatsu (the breaded pork from where this movement originated) donburi, and a side of chicken dippers served with a mug of katsu sauce. Despite being fried the chicken has a spongyness to the texture and doesn’t really taste of much, whilst the katsu sauce has a deep flavour with slight burnt notes on the finish. For your £9.90 you get this, rice, an egg which I don’t eat because its from a caged bird, and some lovely pickles. For a fiver less you can have five pieces of the chicken and the mug of sauce that is more of the same. The pork on the donburi is not good: stringy, fatty, and grey. Like Sam Alladyce. I try one piece and decide that rice is the way to go. The rest of the dish is a curryless katsu, though credit to the service who get us more of the brown sauce which is loaded with umami. The front of house are great throughout.

The above and an orange juice clock in at just over £25.00, an affordable amount but one that I won’t be running back to anytime soon. Throughout the meal we were trying to find positives, yet the biggest we could come to is that it is walking distance from our home. For me, there is no comparison to be had with the rice bowl at Tiger Bites Pig which is less money than this, and those looking for katsu will have a better time at Yakinori or even Wagamama. These are the hard facts. You want the best food, start with the best possible ingredients. It’s that simple. The kitchen are working with cheap meats and unforgivable eggs at present, and it’s showing in the finished product. There might be a decent restaurant in here with time if these things change. Maybe.

5/10

You don’t need to walk to a restaurant, not when A2B can take you there

Rebel Chicken, 2019

The first year of trading for a business is the hardest. It is the Litmus test for the projections and spreadsheets, the qualifiers for how well you really do understand the users. For restaurants it is the process of getting the diners to hear about you, getting them through the door, and then keeping them coming back. It is the gradual process of the right levels of stock and staff, tweaking the dishes and the prices, the right opening hours, deals, suppliers, and drinks, accumulating (hopefully) the media column inches and the queues out of the door. It is a hard, unforgiving industry. Many fail, sometimes deservedly so, sometimes because of bad luck or location. I had my concerns for Rebel Chicken; the food was always good enough to return and they had one of the best beer gardens in the city, but would just rotisserie chicken be enough to convince people to walk down a side street in the Jewellery Quarter? They’ve adapted, adding far more to the menu, and transforming that big open plan garden into something that East London would be proud of. This is now a year-round area, complete with sliding roof and foliage. It is unique to anywhere else in the city and deserves credit for that alone.

We come on a Saturday when the sun is beating down and decide to make a day of it. They have a brunch menu that appears to be very popular, supplied under the banner of Ocho – their sister tapas venue next door that I have a lot of love for. It makes sense: they already have morcilla and merguez, they put pulses in tomato sauces and stuff on bread; they already have the basis for a breakfast. The breakfast board for one served as a nice size for two, swiftly removed from the wooden boards they arrive on and on to plates, like any sensible man would. It’s a bloody good breakfast, a perfectly poached egg with bright yolk, toast, beans in the same tomato sauce that normally gets served with the meatballs, mushroom, and three bits of minced animal in natural casing. That’s sausages to you, stupid. Of those three I get happy memories from the densely spiced merguez, and give kudos to the morcilla, which everyone knows to be a far superior black pudding. The most recognisable of them is a pork sausage. A British breakfast banger. It tastes of pork, mace, and a little black pepper. It’s a very nice sausage on a very nice breakfast. At nine quid it’s an absolute steal.

Late morning quickly spilled to afternoon and I’ll use this point to declare my drink of the summer. They do a drink here called Damm Lemon, a light, lemon flavoured beer found on the backstreets of Barcelona by the Geordie manager of this establishment. More refreshing than a cold shower, less alchoholic than a Glaswegians breath; it’s the kind of drink you could, and should, lean on to get you through a summer’s day without looking like a twat. And this is coming from someone who specialises in looking like a twat.

Back to the food. We make the most of the day by seeing how far the food has progressed in a year at Rebel Chicken. Back then it was rotisserie chicken and not much else – now it is only true to its name if the chicken’s way of rebelling is to identify as a cow. There is chicken everyway you can think of — roasted, fried, coated, pulled — but there is also a big section of beef burgers, and stuff like halloumi and falafel just incase the rebel chicken wants to disappoint his father by becoming a vegetarian. We try two burgers, one more conventional, the other a bastardisation of all the bits I want to try in a bun. The food has improved, absolutely no doubt about that. The Yard Bird burger has a chunk of poultry in a buttermilk batter which is brittle and well made. The other burger has (wait for it) beef patty, pulled chicken, halloumi, jalepenos, and caramelised red onion. I wasn’t sure I’d like the beef but it’s good stuff; carefully cooked to a consumer friendly light pink, with good quality meat and a nice fat ratio. The pulled chicken comes from the tasty part of the bird, possibly dressed in too much BBQ sauce, though that’s me being difficult for the sake of it. The rest of it works. Don’t ask me how it tastes as a whole because I have no idea. I’m no animal, despite what you’ll read elsewhere. They have chips, which have improved since the last visit. We don’t finish them, mostly become some idiot made a burger with everything on it.

I guess what I am trying to say is it has improved since the last time I was here, fairly substantially in parts. The wider menu has allowed them more freedom to be expressive and it shows; the dishes have a certain swagger to them that matches the decor. Rebel Chicken have not only survived that first year, but have come out in a far better position than when they started it.

I used A2B to get me from A to B

Poli, Kings Heath

In lieu of another pizza place garnering significant exposure by handing out a week’s worth of free pizza to every blogger, Instagrammer, and grammar poor journalist, I’d almost forgot that Poli was opening last weekend. I am reminded by my girlfriend who is keen to try it out on account of her love for the sister venue, Grace + James. Expectations are set to high: Grace + James is an annoyingly perfect neighbourhood wine bar, where every bottle, decoration, and cheese is tailored into the most considered of rooms. It is a place where we spend a lot of time and money, a place where every visit is a lesson on natural wines. They’ve become very good at knowing what wine I will and won’t like, which is equal parts scary and impressive for a business that has only been open a year.

Poli is two doors down, unmissable given the teal painted frontage and pink logo. Inside it is a wash of baby pinks and soft blues, the walls bearing 80’s style prints, neon signs, and some terracotta plant pots that start a twenty minute conversation of admiration. It’s beautiful. The negroni I start with is the only thing I don’t like, as we plough into the menu: pickled grapes, a couple of small plates, two pizzas. Pickled grapes are the future, I know, I’ve tasted them.

Let’s start with the filth.  Potatoes roasted in lamb fat with a little mint. Sunday roast without the overcooked meat. All blistered skins and deep ovine flavour. I’m sad that it’s taken 36 years on the planet to eat these. Three dense meat balls with the backnotes of fennel, on a ragu of tomatoes thick with chunks of onion, homemade ricotta, and chive oil. It’s a big old portion for not much money. We fight over the rights to the last one, and then fight again to work the last of the ricotta out of the sides of the plate with the crusts of the pizza.

That pizza is good, in Birmingham’s top three at present and quite possibly the best in a very competitive market. It won’t be to everyone’s taste; the centre of both of ours are loose and soupy, the kind of pizza that would find the plate with ease should it be tilted. The rest is textbook. The crust is blistered, the dough pleasingly sour, with the same tomato sauce returning from the meatballs. One with guanciale, pecorino, and egg riffs on the flavours of carborna, whilst the other with chorizo, ‘nduja, and honey is a sweet meaty treat. The quality of the ingredients stands out with every bite. We plunge the crusts into an aioli coloured with squid ink that I don’t care for, and a fermented chilli sauce that I demand is bottled and sold. It’s complex and hot, which also happens to be my Tinder bio.

We don’t have dessert, though fear not, we are not alone and our company do. In a move never seen before on this singular-minded rampage of ego which is my food blog, I am now about to hand over the reigns to drink maestro, Jacob Clarke, who will talk you through his his strawberry, marshmallow, and jam shortbread sandwich from Happy Endings.

I’m getting a lot of strawberry, but also marshmallow and jam, too.

Wise words, Jacob. Wise words.

The bill hits £120 between four with a lot of booze, and we retire to the sanctuary of Grace and James to drink more wine. In all honestly, I was a little deflated when I heard the plans for yet another pizza place, and then it clicked: I’ve been eating Sophie and Henrys food for years, way before the cheese boards at Grace + James when they made their own chorizo and put them on tacos with the street food business they brought to Birmingham. In Poli they have created much more than a pizzeria; it has great craft beers and wines and a killer play list of indie classics. It has great food at a fair price and with impeccable taste. It is, without question, my favourite opening of the year so far.

9/10

Can’t walk to Kings Heath? A2B love that journey

Franco Manca, Birmingham

The first Franco Manca I had was also my first great pizza experience. Let me take you back. It was the Summer of 2010, way before any idea of this blog occurred, when I was lean and with a full head of hair. I was in London with my mate Barry to see Kings of Leon, a band who were once good, despite what their last three albums will argue. We had lunch at Gauthier, beers in Camden, the gig, and then back to Camden. In the morning we hopped on to the blue line for what seemed like an eternity, stopping at Brixton for pizza at the original Franco Manca. I’d done my research; I got the joke about Frank being missing; I knew the queue would be big and the menu short. We went and it was incredible. In my head it is one of the best meals I’ve eaten – nonsense of course, but still a testament to how thrilling some cooked dough and a few ingredients can be. Franco Manca is the primary reason we have Neopolitan style pizza in the UK: they gave this style to the masses with thirty-six sites in London, and another eleven further afield, including a new shiny Birmingham site.

Now cutting to the crux (or should that be crust?), do they still provide a great pizza experience? No. And I don’t think they have for years in all honesty. I recall a really average pizza at Broadway market three years back, and likewise at Kings Cross a year or so after that. Maybe they were never as good as I think they were, or maybe the competition that they created have surpassed them with ease. It’s a good pizza, but good pizza isnt going to pass muster when we have some excellent pizza already established in this city. It starts well enough; a starter of lamb sausage with potato and spicy tomato sauce is comforting and big on flavour. Better is the aubergine parmigiana, that is firm and meaty. I’d say this is the nicest rendition of this dish I’ve had had it not caught in parts and taken on burnt notes.

Well then the generator overheated, granite spewed on to Bennett’s Hill, and they had a full on meltdown. It became quickly clear that some parts of the dining room were making full use of that oven which blasts pizzas in about a minute, turning tables quickly. We were not in that part of the room. It took one hour to get our pizza and that was only after raising it with a manager. They turn up, one five minutes before the other, the two looking visibly like they’d been given five minutes difference in cooking time. The pizza is okay: it’s clearly not a true sourdough base, one seems a little underdone, the other is heavily scorched. The toppings are unevenly distributed, a minor detail, but one that others seem to get right. I don’t enjoy the No.7, which surprises me, because almost all of the ingredients appeared successfully over the two starters. The one with chorizo is better, but only because that cured meat is superb in quality. Claire notes that the pizza she had for lunch the day before was way better, a worrying thought for inconsistencies across sticking some dough in an oven.

Now we know they’ve had a bad day, and so do they. The manager reappears, apologises and wipes the bill. He also does the same for the table next to us who’ve had a similar experience. He asks that we come back and give them another go, a fair request given how well it is handled, and one that we will do when they’ve settled in over to months to come. The previous night we went to another pizza place that opened on the same day here. The difference was huge; they were operating like clockwork and turning out some of the best pizza we’ve had in Birmingham. Part of me thinks that Franco Manca believe they can walk into a central spot and live off their reputation. They can’t. For now it appears that they’ve cut off too large a slice to swallow.

6/10

Thankfully the wait times for the A2B that took us there and back were much shorter.

Steamhouse Bagels, Birmingham

I went into town to meet Claire for lunch recently. I was early, so I softened her up with a present from a shop she loves, went for an espresso in one coffee shop by her work, and then the same in another. We hadn’t decided where to go for lunch; I had in my head a grander feed; one that weighs heavy on the stomach for some time, washed down with a glass or six of crushed grapes. Claire wanted a bagel from the fairly new place around the corner from her office. A text debate ensued whereupon I made the case for various restaurants and she said she wanted a bagel. We compromised in the way that young lovers do and go for a bagel. It was busy and inexpensive. I wore my blogger cap to lunch (it is a cap that says ‘blogger’ just in case anyone is unsure), preceding to dissect the bread and its filling in a way that only us attention seeking twats do. Claire pointed out that it’s a fiver or so, and that had she not worked for a generous business that supplies lunch for its staff for free, she would be here all the time. It rendered my opions invalid and is probably all you need to know about Steamhouse Bagels.

So you can close down the browser now and move on with your life if that’s what you really want, or you can hang around for my verdict and score. It’s pretty good there; not ground breaking, but functional and affordable. The bagels are pleasingly dense and chewy, baked on site and fresh for the busy lunch that has them queueing out of the door. The fillings are nice, if a little bland. A chicken bagel lacks promised heat but has a generous amount of mozzerlla, whilst the one with falafel and other healthy-ish ingredients is quickly destroyed by the girl who so desperately wanted to eat here. They do cakes which look great which we don’t have room for, though probably should have for greater longevity of this post. Given that my office has only the world’s worst Subway for company, anyone who is able to walk here from their work has it lucky. Chaps, should your girlfriend ever tell you that she don’t mind where you go for food, she’s lying. She knows exactly what she wants, and the liklihood is that it is a far better choice than yours.

7/10

A2B love a bagel, I think. They also like getting me from A to B.

Calum Franklin vs Brad Carter, Carters of Moseley

Brad Carter has a cookbook coming out in a couple of weeks. I say cookbook loosely; the recipes are of the staff meals they cook in between shifts, intermittently placed between pages of Brad’s friends, his inspirations, and his producers. I’ve had a quick look and it really is unlike any cookbook I’ve seen before; it’s going to look great on my coffee table. The pages that matter to me are around halfway through, jet black and with ‘Birmingham’ emblazed across the widest points. It is everything you need to know about Brad in a one-word synopsis.

Part of that love for Birmingham extends to the occasional Sunday evening collaborations with friends of his. There have been recent voyages into Chinese and Thai cuisine which I cant tell you about because I never went, and this one with Calum Franklin which I was given no choice about. Mr Franklin of Holborn Dining Room is well known for his pastry skills, a food type that is effectively heroin to my Northern girlfriend. I’m not saying that she was determined to go, but I was sent a calender event for when booking opened, and we had two alarms, three phones and a laptop ready. She may have lost her shit a bit when it wouldnt let us on to the booking screen, and she was elated when we secured a table. Want Claire anywhere? Promise her things that remind her of home like pie, rain, and the decline of the coal industry. Gin also works, but gravy works better.

What follows is three hours of food that I’m still trying to walk off two weeks later and Claire would describe as the most enjoyable night she’s had in a Birmingham restaurant. The first course is listed as a tart, but is really a vol-au-vent of puff pastry filled with the components of lobster thermidore. The luxurious touches come in the form of a breaded claw, rising proudly from the pastry, and a little Exmoor caviar for salinity. It is cheesy, yet with a whack of the ocean. If seventies dinner parties tasted this good I’d gladly wear flares and grow my pubes to travel back in time.

The showpiece was up next, paraded by Brad throughout the dining room like he was in a beauty pageant for bearded men in shorts. A patè en croute bearing the words ‘Carters vs HDR’ the along the length, which when sliced contained a centrepiece of the acid house smiley face – a tattoo that Carter has on the inside of his bicep. To me, this was the strongest course; the filling of rabbit, pork, and pistachio distinct, lightened by the turmeric coloured chicken mousseline that makes up the face. The pastry is rich, though not as rich as the decadent rabbit jelly that has been fed into it all day. On the side are fermented mushrooms cooked in butter, and mustard seeds sweetened with local honey. The acidity is gentle, leaving the pastry as the king. It is the complete dish. Last year we tried a world championship winning patè en croute at Daniel et Denise in Lyon: this was better.

And without wishing to sound like a press release, the fun didnt stop there. A scotch egg was executed perfectly, the filling of white pudding and pork highly seasoned, the bright yolk oozy and luscious. What we really love is the buttermilk and wild garlic sauce that is sharp and has the astrigency of white garlic thanks to last years pickled garlic buds. A pithivier of mutton finishes off the savoury courses, with the suprise of a top-half of layered spuds on entry. It is, as the table next to us point out, essentially a cottage pie encased in puff pastry, and if the sound of that doesn’t turn you please take those eyes of yours elsewhere because we don’t want you here. The asparagus spears cooked in lamb fat are just plain naughty, too. Shout out to my girlfriend who shows the dining room just how Northern she is by filling one half of the pastry shell with gravy. Her mother would be so proud.

Dessert is a Paris Brest – 2019’s most on trend pastry – filled with raspberry creme pattiserie lightly scented with rose. It would have been easy to kill this with floral notes, but they hold on to the essence of those lovely raspberries and choux pastry. I have no idea how I fit it in, but I do. It’s been a long night.

The menu ticks in at £75 a head and we add a considerable amount more tucking into far much pink wine and then red wine and then more pink wine and a little more red wine. It’s not a cheap Sunday evening, nor should it be. Birmingham needs nights like this; chefs of Calum Franklins ability showing us something entirely unique – we’re booking in to Holborn Dining Room to try more of his work as a result, so it’s worked from that perspective. It was a fantastic night, one that makes me smile thinking about it even now. Brad Carter lives and breathes this city. We should all be very thankful for that.

A2B love Birmingham almost as much as Brad and ferried my fat arse around as ever.

Independent Birmingham Festival, 2019

I think this Independent Birmingham Festival was my favourite so far. It may have been the excellent company we kept, the stream of friends we bumped into continually throughout the day, or the fact that I was very tipsy by 1pm on the Saturday, but they really nailed it. Here is a super quick post on what we ate and drank at this celebration of the wonderful independents in this great city.

Buddha Belly. <

I’m mentioning this first because the sight of Momma Buddha Belly cooking with Sai melted this cold heart. A slightly different menu this time which we dived straight in to. The more familiar Southern Thai curry was ordered with salmon fish cakes and an outrageous beef noodle broth not dissimilar to a pho. Seriously classy Thai food. It’s impossible to not love Buddha Belly, even when I'm on strict instructions to not swear.

Baked in Brick.

Lee decided to spit roast an entire lamb for this event, which took me back almost twenty years to when we used to party together. We had a hybrid dish of the lamb meat with mac’n’cheese, salsa verde, crispy potatoes cooked in lamb fat, a Yorkshire pudding and gravy. The salsa verde was insane, as was the quality of the meat. Claire drank gravy from the Yorkshire pudding because that’s what Northeners do. Mental.

 18/81.

Because we have very good taste. Claire’s was a profanity laden one that tasted of pumpkin spice, I had the off-menu Dead Rabbit Irish Coffee. I lie. I had three of them. Because we have very good taste.

Loki.

A delicious fizzy pink wine which tasted of tip-tops. Drank two bottles so must have been good.

Zindiya.

You may be aware that I live very close to these guys. I may have had a Deliveroo from them the night before. Still never stopped me eating a chicken tikka kati roll and samosa chaat. Huge amounts of flavour in everything they do.

El Borracho de Oro. </

They had a very attractive looking paella on the go, though it wasn’t ready so we changed tactics and went with patatas bravas and ham croquettes. It was a good choice. Both were crazy good.

Original Patty Men.

I have mad love for the burgers from these gents. The one I had with chorizo was as good as burgers get.

Waylands Yard.

Eggy crumpets. Halloumi. Chilli sauce. Call the fire brigade; this is absolute flames.

There were also custard tarts from Salcooks, plenty of gin at Jekyl and Hyde, and cakes from Bake. There were dogs, more dogs, live music, the best in local businesses, and more dogs. I think that someone complimented me on my coat, but I was pissed by then so they could have been calling me something far less polite. Most of all it was full of Brummies celebrating the best of Brum; sticking two fingers up to anyone who says otherwise. I had the best weekend there. I can’t wait for the next one.

In keeping with the Best of Brum, A2B got us there and back.

Palmyra, Moseley

One of the things about this blog that I find tricky is how to address the decline in standards. I eat out three, maybe four times a week, frequently in the same places. I don’t write about all these meals because a) I can’t arsed, and b) it would be incredibly boring for you to hear about my 176th meal in a place that never changes its menu. It would be naive of me to think that any place keeps to the same level week-in-week-out for years on end, yet my words on a restaurant are merely a singular snapshot of one meal that I’ve had. This I’m extremely aware of. There are presently places – iconic places at that – in Birmingham city centre that I would avoid because I don’t think they are as good as they should be, and likewise there are a few which are marginally better than when I first went. It is a balancing act to know when to steam in on these places, when to praise them, or when to just leave them alone. It is a balancing act that I am yet to master, mostly because I am really shit at balancing. I can tell you that the last pizza we had at Otto was the best we’ve eaten from there, that Bonehead has hit a consistent stride just in time for the head chef to leave, and that my patience with Lewis’s has pretty much ran out.

Damascena is one of those places. It’s probably ill practice for me to mention the competition for a similar restaurant that I am about to rave about, but the truth is Damascena is not as good as it used to be. We used to eat from there once a week. Then once a fortnite. Now hardly ever. The standard has dropped, and I have no problem mentioning this because I wrote to them to tell them some time ago. They wrote back with an answer that was refreshingly honest and infuriatingly blood boiling in equal parts.

But fear not, Dear Readers. Both of you. We have a new kid in town and hopefully this one won’t be tripe in two years time. Palmyra, I gather, comes from a previous employee of Damascena, and is located about 40m away from said establishment. It is absolutely-no-doubt-at-all better than the place over the road: the only questions are whether it is better than Damascena ever was, and if it is the best of its kind in the entire city, to which I say yes on both fronts. The decor is loud and boisterious, with more gold than a rappers mouth and the subtlety of a footballer’s wardrobe. I settle on the soft furnishings by the window and subsequently get told off for not ordering at the counter. I order a mezza for one and strike a deal to add meat to the hummus for an extra quid. I also add barrata harrah and a drink, taking my bill up to the heady heights of £17.09. Please keep that figure in mind.

From that mezza is a tahini heavy hummus, possibly a little overworked, topped with chicken shwarma that has crisp fat and delicate meat. It has a fattoush salad, sharp and spicy, with those addictive shards of pastry that add bite. There is a bowl of fuul with lingering heat, full of ripe tomato notes and thickened with blitzed up fava bean. It is topped with chopped tomatoes and plenty of fresh herbs, and I take pride in pressing the flat breads against the edge of the bowl and not leaving a scrap. That fuul is remarkable, as is the falafel which is the best I’ve eaten anywhere. The coating has been fried to a crisp, the inside soft and dissipating in the mouth. It is how I imagine falafel should tastes but never does. I plough through the two slices of salty halloumi, leaving the olives and salad to be boxed for later. Its a lot of food for what is normally (meat free) £9. It could easily feed two people. The barrata harrah is completely unnecessary but so good. A huge portion of spicy potatoes with flavours that refuse to sit still. Again, as good as I’ve eaten anywhere.

It doesn’t take a genius to realise that I enjoyed Palmyra a lot, so much so that I attempt to personally thank the chef whilst paying. He doesn’t see me; he’s too busy dancing in the kitchen. It’s probably for the best. I’ve found somewhere that I love again: a little place down the road from me that serves the most incredible middle-eastern food full of vibrancy and flavour. I really hope that in two years time I’m not moaning about them too, though for now I’ll just take having them around.

9/10

Moseley a little tricky to get to? Let A2B do the hard work

Alicia’s Micro Bakehouse, Stirchley

Getting to Alicia’s has been unusually tricky. Upon the initial glowing praise we first tried the takeaway route which took two hours longer than planned to arrive and — when it did arrive — was lukewarm and not particularly memorable. We decided to give them time to settle, trying again on a Saturday lunchtime when we were plant shopping in Stirchley, except at this point they never opened on a Saturday afternoon. We phoned for a table a few months after and were told there were none available until 9.30pm. On the Tuesday we finally do bag a table it almost never happens because first they tell us they ‘might’ have a table for two at 7pm, leaving us dangling on the phone before confirming they can fit us in. I’ve had more fun at 9am in the morning listening to the Le Gavroche hold music for forty minutes trying to book a table for exactly three months time.

Inside it is equally haphazardous, albeit in a joyful, scatty, way. There should probably be a ‘Men at Work’ sign, and hardhats should be worn. It is very busy: tables are frantically being turned; pizzas are whizzed through the narrow passageways and are occasionally lowered at incorrect tables; there may be a lengthy wait whilst they locate the only bottle of chilli oil. You may also have to point out where the affogato option can be found on the menu. This kind of behaviour would normally reduce me to tears, though I found myself sucked into the chaotic atmosphere. Everyone wears smiles here: the chefs, the front of house, the paying customers in the adjoining dining areas. Given that it has taken six months or so to get here, the forty-five minutes we spend inside passes in a blur.

The menu is a list of stuff on dough, supplemented by a few things that could be served on dough but aren’t. We forgo the starters and aim straight for the pizza. The important bits are there; a sourdough-hybrid base as good as anywhere in Brum right now, a tomato sauce the right side of sweet, and a good blister on the crust. It is a little too soupy in the middle, and I personally would have liked a little more generosity with the toppings, but it is good pizza. In addition to the usual ingredients mine had fennel sausage and gorgonzola supplemented with a little ‘nudja, whilst Claires went all out on the vegetables. Those pizzas are around a tenner each, the affogato a couple of quid more. The bill hits fifteen quid a head with a couple of soft drinks.

It is incredible to think that three years ago it was impossible to get great pizza in Birmingham, yet here I am about to dissect the competition. Alicia’s is good. I’ve said the base is great, but realistically does it have the quality of meat sourcing as somewhere like Otto, or a star dish up its sleeve like the calzone at Baked in Brick? I’m not sure it does. And then there is the small matter of the big guns of Rudy’s Pizza and Franco Manca hitting town (the latter armed with a true sourdough base) anytime now. Luckily none of this will impact Alicia’s who have joined a burgeoning Stirchley High Street full of independents. They don’t need my endorsement to pack out the resturant every night, they’re doing a good enough job of that themselves.

7/10

When the moon hits your eyes like a big pizza pie, ride A2B

Herman Ze German, Grand Central, Birmingham

I’ll never forget the first time I went to Herman Ze German. I was in Soho, my favourite spot in London. Soho has a wonderful atmosphere; it’s the melting pot of the capital, the part that is always first to be okay about the things that might not be okay elsewhere. It is the square mile of joyfulness and diversity, where the arts walk gayly down the streets with one another. Nothing suprises me in Soho. It’s maybe why I thought that signage for Herman ze German was just another sex shop. From a distance that cartoonish image of a bratwurst with a handlebar moustache looks like an erect penis. Yes, you just read that correctly. Google it, but please try not to get turned on, it is a tasty sausage, though maybe not the one you hoped it would be. Anyway, I popped inside and popped a lovely bit of meat inside my mouth. Soho converted me.

I’m personally very happy that they have come to Birmingham. You know what you’re getting with Herman, it’s consistent and affordable. For under a tenner you’ll get some bratwurst and some bockwurst under a spritely curry sauce, some fries, and maybe a little extra depending on how much you’ve chosen to spend. That sausage has skin that snaps, having been steamed and then grilled (I’m guessing, they don’t like to disclose the cooking technique). The bratwurst has veal in amongst the pork and is more gentle in flavour compared to the brockwurst, which is all smokey porky goodness.  These are good sausages. The curry sauce starts off like a funky tomato ketchup before the paprika, vinegar, and chilli kicks in. It is a good curry sauce. The fries have bite and colour and are about as good as fries from a bag can be. Overall it is good work. Consistent good work in a part of Birmingham that needs something like this.

In another branded box is chicken schnitzel; crispy outside, moist chicken inside, just how it should be. It’s a very accurate bit of frying. We have it with more of those fries, this time with curry sauce, mayo, and crispy onions. Wash them down with a german lager, or one of the various flavours of Fritz’s soft drinks they offer. Herman is in town and we should be proud that this is his first outside of London. It’s only right you pay him a visit.

7/10

Is there a better combination in life than sausage and A2B Radio Cars? I’m not sure there is