Walking. Gossip. Travel.

Tag: Birmingham

  • Birmingham – Purecraft Bar and Kitchen

    Excuse the poor quality photo, it was raining when I left the pub…. One thought about this bar is that I wouldn’t have visited it based on the exterior because the whole set-up gave the impression of a food orientated venue. The only reason that I did go in was because of their entry into the Good Beer Guide and in retrospect I’m pleased that it had that mention.

    This set me thinking as to where I had heard of the name before, and it was on my visit to Nottingham in 2017. And, I didn’t go in the pub then because I thought it was food orientated and not just suitable for a quick drink. Unfortunately, this second location from the company closed down shortly after I hadn’t visited it (I don’t link the two events).

    The industrial looking interior was on-trend and also surprisingly quiet for a Saturday night.

    Bright and cheerful, there was a surprising amount of seating downstairs as well. I didn’t order food as we were already booked in elsewhere, but looking at the menu later on I was quite impressed, there were some intriguing options. I might come again for the food, which is slightly ironic given that I nearly didn’t come in here because I thought it was food orientated.

    But, this is the main event of the pub as far as I’m concerned, the beer selection. I couldn’t read this board when I ordered because the bar was busy, but one of the team members was knowledgeable and gave me three recommendations based on my preference for dark beers. There are some really interesting options on these boards, although the ordering of the beers seemed a little random. Not that that matters…..

    I opted for the oatmeal stout from Fourpure brewery, which is based in Bermondsey in London. I’m not sure that I’d have tasted the strength of the 5.1% ABV that the stout had as it was quite drinkable and smooth, with quite a chocolatey taste to it. All very drinkable and the beer was also well kept, although just a little colder than I’d have ideally liked.

    The sign on the toilets, with the male toilets being on the left and the females on the right. Fortunately for those who don’t want puzzles and games when trying to visit the toilets, there were also more conventional signs on the doors as well.

    All in all, this was a pub almost in the style of Brewdog, although I doubt that they’d like that comparison. But, the customer service was friendly, the surroundings were industrial, the beer choice was interesting and everything felt informal and comfortable.

  • Birmingham – Wellington Pub

    Before walking the Birmingham Canal Canter, it was necessary to visit a few pubs mentioned in the Good Beer Guide. This was one of the pubs en route, the Wellington, which is seemingly well known locally for its range of beers, ciders and whiskies.

    Above is the ‘beer board’ which changes regularly depending on which beers are available, with this list also being available on-line. This is perfect and if I ever become King (I admit that this isn’t likely), every pub should have to install something like this. The beer name is clear, the type of beer is clear and the pricing is clear. Marvellous.

    I didn’t order the Piffle Snonker from the local Froth Blowers brewery, but I very much liked the beer name.

    I went for the Créme Bearlee from Beartown Brewery who are based in Congleton. This sweet and milky stout did have the taste of the dessert it was named after, with flavours of coffee and caramel, but it was also smooth and very drinkable. The taste wasn’t too harsh and was more of an afternote, I thought that this was a really decent beer.

    The interior wasn’t exactly modern, but there was a contemporary feel to the running of the establishment. There was another bar upstairs which was card only, with an external seating area which offers some views over the local, well, street. Unfortunately it started to pour with rain when we were there, but the surroundings were clean and comfortable with a laid-back and informal atmosphere.

    One negative. The web-site says that they sell snuff and Bev marched straight to the bar to acquire some. Unfortunately (or fortunately for everyone else) they don’t sell snuff any more. However, it’s clear why this is one of the best rated pubs in Birmingham, it’s excellent.

  • Birmingham Canal Canter Challenge Walk 2019 – Heart of England LDWA

    After a weekend in Birmingham, it was time for three of us (glamorous Susanna, Bev and myself) to take part in the Birmingham Canal Canter 26-mile walk operated by the Heart of England LDWA.

    We had a short twenty minute drive from the upmarket delights of the Ibis Budget in Birmingham city centre, and we were ready to roll (not literally). I won’t dwell on food so early on in this post, but I did make time for a very large breakfast at the Ibis Budget in the morning, making a substantial dent in their cheese stocks…..

    The signing-in process was efficient and well managed and the tally card was all ready for me, with a number that I couldn’t quite read. I was full of confidence at this stage, planning how I could take part in next year’s 100. Fortunately, reality always soon bites on these walks.

    We’re off!

    This isn’t a great photo as it doesn’t really show much, other than the first checkpoint had toast, jams, marmite and porridge available. I didn’t bother with all that rubbish and had half a pack of biscuits instead, which were far more nutritious. It’s a very generous spread for a first checkpoint though, so my first impressions of the food were positive.

    Another entrant at the event told us that we’d be likely to see numerous herons along the route, and this transpired to be the case. We were also fortunate to see a heron flying above the river and Bev told us that this was a sign. She didn’t know a sign of what, so I wasn’t sure that this was the sensationally exciting omen that we might have wanted.

    Bob Holness and Blockbusters…..

    Checkpoint two was under Spaghetti Junction, but the barren surroundings added somewhat to the whole atmosphere. There was fruit here such as nectarines, pineapples and bananas, although I tried not to fill up on these as there were also jelly babies. And in addition, there were also bottles of Lucozade available. I know that these aren’t quite the glucose treat that walkers need since the sugar tax has made them take out the good tasting bit, but I found them useful and I think it’s a marvellous idea from the Heart of England group.

    I took a lot of photos during the day, more I think than on any other challenge walk that I’ve taken part in. I’ve only uploaded a fraction of them here, but the very nature of the walk means that there were a lot of canal photos. I never really got bored of walking along the canal as the scenery changed so much, it proved to be an interesting day.

    There were a lot of runners taking part in the event and they always made their presence known, because otherwise we’d have been in danger of stepping sideways and knocking them into the canal by mistake. When Bev got a bit emotional she also discovered that running along shouting “runner, make way, runner, move along” was effective at getting people out of the way. Until she remembered she can’t run.

    This was though my favourite canal scene of the day, nicely atmospheric.

    One of the highlights of the day for me (other than the food) was the section when we walked through Birmingham city centre, which was primarily between checkpoints three and four, although there had been a little between checkpoints two and three.

     

    A train crossing a bridge just before checkpoint three. We found the stretch between checkpoints two and three to be interesting terrain, but the time seemed to drag just a little. Perhaps it was slight tiredness, but also perhaps it was the excitement of arriving at the next checkpoint for lunch.

    Checkpoint three and this is the lunch stop, which had a BBQ. This is no insignificant turn of events, this is inspired thinking from the Heart of England LDWA, and it certainly set me thinking of what little BBQ arrangement Norfolk & Suffolk group could come up with…… By “set me thinking”, I really mean browsing hundreds of on-line shops looking at BBQs.

    I must admit that I feared that the quality of the sausages and burgers might be a little on the low side, because this was not an expensive event to enter. Fortunately, I shouldn’t have had any concerns, the professional of the Heart of England showed through and the quality was just fine.

    It was at this point that we then retraced our route for around 1.5 miles, which was a deliberate part of the route and wasn’t any bad planning on our behalf. But this meant we were able to see how many people were behind us on the course. We soon discovered that there were nearly no people behind us….. But, such is life.

    This is checkpoint four and the cake competition, with the carrot cake being my favourite. I liked the jelly babies as well, but they unfortunately weren’t included in the voting for the cake competition.

    I had a niggling issue with the heel of my foot which was slowly developing a blister, something which I rarely get now. In a bid to head that off I put a blister plaster on, although unfortunately I didn’t do a great job as it fell off thirty minutes later. This required an ad hoc stop by the canal to bandage around my entire foot. I was very brave and frankly it’s clear that I’m a loss to medical science given just how professional my bandaging was.

    I wondered why I kept thinking about chocolate….

    Checkpoint five was the final stopping point on the walk and was a collection of tables located by the canal, meaning we didn’t have to go off route. There were jelly babies, crisps, peanuts and all manner of other healthy products available here, as well as Lucozade. I was also very impressed at the marshal’s taste in food and drink, since there was a Greggs cup on the table….

    A final stretch of woodland before the end. As usual, by this stage of the walk I’m just glad to get back as 26 miles of walking felt sufficient for the day. The weather during the day was pretty good and wasn’t too hot, although it did rain for short periods. Overall, I was entirely happy with the temperature though, especially as there was often a breeze by the canal.

    At this stage I started to speed up a little bit, managing to overtake a few other walkers. My intention wasn’t to deliberately overtake walkers, but just to get back to the hall so that I could start on my final meal. By final meal, I mean of the event, not ever, as my foot wasn’t that bad.

    And the end of the walk…… This the hall and most of the other entrants had finished and gone home by the time that we got there. However, it’s not about the time taken, it’s about the journey and the experience. Although perhaps one day it’d be nice to have a faster journey and experience, but for the moment, just finishing is good enough.

    The finish food, which was a healthy bowl of jelly babies, a chocolate dessert, a bowl of chorizo & bean stew and some tiger bread. And half a banana, although I was full and decided to put that back. There were also jacket potatoes and other toppings, but I was more than content with the stew and this was of an excellent quality.

    And, evidence that I finished…. The J White seemed a little unusual, but perhaps they got bored of writing first names on the certificates. Personally I’m fortunate that Norfolk & Suffolk type them, it means less writing for me…. Anyway, Susanna and Bev also finished and were equally, well, worn out.

    Leaving the rugby club the weather took a turn for the worse and I felt sorry for the walkers still on the course. Although I then remembered that there weren’t any left out there, so I felt less concerned for them….

    This event cost me £10 to enter, and that proved to be something of a bargain and a reminder (not that I need one) of what good value the LDWA is. Given all of the food and drink provided, I more than felt that I get my £10 worth of value from the event. All of the marshals along the route were well humoured and friendly, so I’d like to think that everyone enjoyed themselves on the event.

    All told, this was a really professionally run challenge event and everything seemed to go to plan. Or at least, if it didn’t go to plan then I didn’t notice anything. The feedback for the event from others that I’ve seen also seems to have been really positive, so perhaps I’ll be back another year to walk the route again….

  • Birmingham – Rudy’s

    I hadn’t heard of this small chain of pizza restaurants before and we found it by chance on a Saturday night in Birmingham as other restaurants we tried were full. It has only recently opened but it seemed a popular location given by how busy it was.

    Rudy’s don’t take advance bookings of any kind, which means they’re prepared and experienced in how to deal with waiting diners. We gave a phone number and a text was sent around ten minutes before our table was free. This gave us time to pop to another Good Beer Guide pub, so win-win.

    I think that this pizza looks reasonably good, but it tasted even better. A soft crust, but sufficiently crispy base, gave contrasting textures. The sausage was spicy and full of flavour, the tomato base was sweet and the cheese wasn’t too strong. All rather lovely.

    The tiramisu, which was well presented and light in texture with a suitably rich taste of coffee.

    The pricing here is off the scale, but in a good way. Pizzas were reasonably priced at under £10 each, side salads were £2 and desserts under £5. The quality was far better than the prices might have otherwise suggested.

    The service was excellent as it was efficient, engaging and knowledgeable. We were never left waiting for service at any time, with the pizzas being brought over promptly. There were also some pizza and dessert specials to add to the fixed menu, with plenty of interesting choices. There is also an open kitchen, so you can watch the pizza being prepared. Well, you could if you didn’t have your back to the kitchen, but it’s a good concept.

    The storage set up reminded a little of Five Guys and how they stack their potatoes up in the restaurant. And everything about this restaurant felt on-trend and fun, without being too artisan or overdone. The pricing makes this particularly good value and I’d certainly return here again, and also to other outlets in the chain. How lovely.

  • Birmingham – Turtle Bay

    I visited the Turtle Bay in the centre of Birmingham as I had a complete set of rewards stamps which got me a free starter, side and main. I’d add, as a background, Turtle Bay was my favourite chain of restaurants as it was quirky, innovative, reasonably priced and the staff were engaging and welcoming.

    The chain mildly irritated me by scrapping their loyalty scheme and replacing it with an inferior one a few months ago. They did send push notifications out to those with the app, but I checked at the time and they decided against mentioning it on social media. I have to admit to wondering whether their decision was financial, but it was sufficient for me to temporarily abandon going to Turtle Bay.

    The loyalty scheme did though rollover my rewards so I kept three free dishes, and I’ve wanted to pay a visit to Turtle Bay as I’ve been disappointed hearing three people in different locations telling me that the standards have fallen substantially in recent months. I didn’t quite believe them, so that’s the back story of why I visited this well reviewed branch of the chain.

    There’s also one other reason, which is that I had poor food in the Peterborough branch last year and I felt guilty that I wrote up a negative review of it (especially when I saw the access numbers for that post), and have yet to post about my many positive experiences from the chain. So, I was hoping for lots of positivity on this visit.

    The interior was large and bright, with the normal quirky and fun decoration. The service was fine, with a prompt welcome and I was taken to a table without any delay. And, being positive here, the service was actually very good as it was attentive, thoughtful and pro-active. The staff member also made an effort to engage with me, making conversation and I felt that she did a good job at trying to build up a rapport with me. Obviously being British there’s a limit to how much engagement I want with anyone, but this was well measured.

    I’d also add, before my comments about the food, that everything was brought out after a reasonable amount of time. My drinks were at the appropriate temperature and tasted fine, with plates also cleared away promptly. So, in terms of technical service, everything was fine.

    The menu has changed since my last visit, and my first impressions were that it didn’t feel as exciting or as on-trend. There seems to have been a slip back to generic menu items and a rather complex menu structure that has moved away from the previous much simpler one.

    This is the chilli squid, which was well presented and the portion size was reasonable. The squid was over-cooked and so rubbery, but it was evenly battered and the coating had a pleasant taste. The jerk mayo added some extra flavour, although I’m not sure why they’ve put so much mayo and mole on top of the squid, as this just made the coating soft instead of crisp.

    This is the new jerk chicken and it was possibly the worst attempt at a main course that I’ve experienced in my last few hundred restaurant visits. The quality of the chicken itself was exceptionally poor, it oozed out water and was entirely flavourless. There was clearly no attempt to marinate this chicken in anything, it’s just been briefly cooked in the sauce. I would say in the restaurant’s defence that it was entirely cooked through, but I can’t recall such watery chicken.

    I don’t know what the jerk gravy was, it tasted like water and just made the chicken wet. In terms of flavouring, these was absolutely nothing here, with no evidence of any jerk seasoning at all. One reason I liked Turtle Bay is that they have some interesting sauces, so the only way to try and bring any flavour to this dish was to pour on sauce myself. Although that succeeded in me just eating poor quality food in a sauce….

    The presence of the watermelon was ridiculous, there were no flavours for it to try and moderate and its presence is perhaps a little pointless at the best of times. This is seemingly a new innovation from the restaurant, but I’d rather they just served chicken which has flavour. I’m not sure why they’re removed the side which they once gave with the jerk chicken, but I was disappointed given that this was once my favourite dish. I didn’t bother to finish much of the chicken, it was a waste of calories.

    The spiced fries which I ordered as a side were entirely devoid of any spicing, they just tasted like cheap and generic oven chips. Luckily I had put lots of sauce on the equally bland chicken, so that meant at least I could add some taste to the fries.

    In terms of the service, there was nothing wrong here. But, unfortunately, the news I’ve received from others about the decline of Turtle Bay certainly seems to have been borne out here as well. Normally I would have queried the dishes with the staff, but I felt that the decision to serve this quality of food was deliberate from the company and so I was content in just leaving Turtle Bay as quickly as possible.

    Personally, I found this quite dreadful, but I’m conscious that other on-line reviews don’t seem to be universally negative, so perhaps this was an entire aberration and my experience was a one-off. I’d already stopped organising group meals here, but I suspect that this is the end of my Turtle Bay visits until I start hearing positive things once again…..

  • Birmingham – Barber Institute of Fine Arts (The Blue Bower by Dante Gabriel Rossetti)

    The word ‘bower’ in this painting’s title refers to the private apartment of a medieval lady, with the subject of this artwork being the artist’s mistress. It was painted by Rossetti in 1865 and the mistress was Fanny Cornforth who had worked as a servant and found it a difficult transition to associate with some of the friends of Rossetti.

    What was interesting to me is that the Rossetti Archive have listed the prices which have been paid for this work over time. It was purchased in 1865 for £120 (around £7,000 in today’s money) and was later sold to a Mr. Agnew for £500 and then eventually sold to the Barber Institute for £1,900 (around £40,000 in today’s money) in April 1959.

    The same archive site also lists that the work was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1883, at the Manchester Royal Jubilee Exhibition in 1887, at the Wembley British Empire Exhibition in 1924, in Newcastle in 1971 and at the Tate in 1984. I think it’s intriguing to think of people who came to these locations over the last 150 years and spent time looking at this artwork.

  • Birmingham – Barber Institute of Fine Arts (A Portrait of Bartolomeo Savona by André Derain)

    This painting was purchased by the Barber Institute in 1997, with funding from the Heritage Lottery Fund and the National Art Collections Fund. The notes located by the artwork suggest that this was painted in 1906 and it’s of Bartolomeo Savona, who was a Sicilian student staying in the same guest house as Derain when he was visiting London. In return for acting as a translator during a visit to the dentist, Derain painted the student in three sittings of twenty minutes. A very nice gift….

    Derain was in London during 1906 as he was painting a series of artworks of the city, but he had a quite different style to previous painters. He created 30 artworks during his time in London, of which 29 of them are still in existence. Ambroise Vollard was the art dealer who suggested that Derain go to London, with the artist being 25 years of age at the time.

    The artwork remained in the family of the sitter until it was sold in the 1990s and brought to Birmingham. There was a detailed article written about this painting in 1997 by Richard Verdi and he noted that the family were keen for the artwork to remain in the UK. It was also discovered during cleaning that there were traces of pink under sitter’s lapel, suggesting the Savona at first sat for the painting whilst in shirtsleeves.

    I like the boldness of this artwork, it feels as though the painter had much sympathy for Savona and wanted to portray him in a youthful and positive light. It’s a colourful artwork and it’s the first that Derain is thought to have painted in London.