I struggle to love Birmingham. It’s handsome in parts, ugly in others, and sits in that uneasy size bracket where a city is too large to be friendly but too small to be metropolitan. Someone give me a list of reasons to love Birmingham and I’ll check them all out next time I visit, promise. …
Category Archive: Restaurant Reviews
Restaurant reviews
Review: Old Hall Persian, Dorrington
Persian is one of the three “grand cuisines”, along with French and Chinese. For me it conjures up images of delicate meats cooked with perfumed spices and exotic fruits. Yet it isn’t something you see a lot of in provincial towns and cities (well, unless you want to count doner kebabs as cuisine). So to …
Review: The Unicorn, Ludlow
I’m sometimes tempted to make allowances for duff food on the grounds that at least it was cheap. But that’s daft. I’m a half-decent home cook, no Delia but no bad either. So I can confidently state that it doesn’t cost more money to cook crunchy chips, it just requires that you cook them right. …
Review: Churchill Arms, Gloucestershire
Is it fair to review a restaurant that you visited on a “special” day? In this case, New Years Day for lunch. My friend Tim was quite prescient in saying “we shouldn’t expect too much, the staff will be tired after last night.” But surely a restaurant should only open its doors if it is …
Review: Cambio de Tercio
This bastion of Spanish cuisine in London has been around for a few years and has a great reputation. It doesn’t really need reviewing by me, as every major critic has sung its praises at some point. So let’s call this a check-up, just to make sure they’re still dishing up the goods. I came, …