Waiter... there's a hair in my pud!

I really should let the hubby write this review, he's been ranting on about this restaurant since Tuesday night when we subjected ourselves to it, so I'm going write my bit and see if he wants to add anything.

Still in an eating out mood, but then again when aren't we?, we decided to give what used to be an old favourite of ours another go, as it had been over two years since our last disastrous visit. Previously, Chez Jules had been a reliable, friendly and value for money French bistro type restaurant in the city centre, but then a few years ago it appeared they lost their chef and most of the staff, the food went down hill and we gave up going.

On Tueday night we ventured back in, it was a special offer, three course meal with half a bottle of house wine per person for £15, so we thought we would risk it. We entered the restaurant and were greeted by most of the staff (which we thought was a positive start) we were shown to our table which was a wooden table that was considerably worn out and had been painted brown, it was laid with two paper napkins and cutlery that would not have looked out of place at a school canteen (and a very down market one at that!), no wine glasses, side plates, bread knieves, candles; previously the table used to be laid with a red and white checked cloth and an old wine bottle with a candle in it. The set menu was brief but had some choice on it, I decided to order the salad niciose and hubby went for the chicken liver and bacon salad, for main course we both ordered the pork cutlet with blue cheese sauce, with potato dauphinois and an additional side dish of vegetables. After taking our orders the waitress bought over a basket of bread, and a bottle of the house wine which was strangley served in glass beakers, rather then a wine glass, and again the beakers looked like they had just been stolen from a local school canteen. We had obviously scoffed our basket of bread before the starters arrived and we were asked whether we would like some more so we said yes, the starters arrived hubby was pleasantly surprised the chicken livers were cooked so they were just pink and the bacon worked well with it, my started had obviously been prepared well in advance, it was fridge cold, the salad had gone slimey from the dressing and it was made with tinned tuna. About quarter of the way through our starters, the manager came over to ask if... you've guessed it... was everything okay with the food, whilst we were eating(!) he then went on to tell us about what fantastic restaurants he normally ate in, which was a touch biazzare, when he finally left us alone hubby's starter had started to go cold and mine had finally started to warm up.

Again, we had finished the bread with the starters and the waitress again offered a top up of bread, hubby decided that he would like some more so she duly bought another basket over. The main courses arrived and we were a bit disturbed that the pork was served with a steak knife, the chop was swamped in a white sauce and was served with two braised shallots, the potato dauphinois was served in a frying pan and the selection of vegetables were sliced carrots and undercooked cauliflower. The pork was so dry and tough we needed the steak knife to get through it and worryingly the white sauce which claimed to contain blue cheese, seemed to be decidedly lacking in blue cheese but still managed to overpower the pork, the potato dauphinois was made with powdery potatos, no seasoning and the cheese was tasteless.

After enduring the main course we decided the puddings could not get worse, oh how wrong we were. I ordered the cheese board working on the theory that they can not screw up slices of cheese and crackers, and surprisingly they did not, three average slices of cheese, so uninspired crackers and the dollop of what appeared to be a runny homemade chutney with very hard 'bits' in it, kept us entertained trying to work out the ingredients. Hubby's chose the sticky toffee pudding with toffee sauce, it came piping hot, so hot that it must have been microwaved and it actually burnt the roof of his mouth, after leaving it to cool down slightly he did start to enjoy it but commented that would have been better with ice cream rather then toffee sauce, however, his enjoyment was rather short lived as halfway through the cake he bit straight into a long black human hair. When the waitress came over we pointed out the human hair and mentioned that it had put hubby of the pud, she must have told the manager who came straight over to us and started apologising, and offering us the chance to have a look around the kitchen and then mentioned that he was really upset about this as it was the first time in ten days (we did not like to ask what it was the first time for in ten days, hair in the food?, a complaint?) - if you have ever seen the Monty Python dirty knife sketch it was almost like that! He did, however, take some money off the bill so the whole tortious affair cost about £32, which included charges for the bread which were not mentioned on the menu or by the waitress when we kept accepting the refills but by this stage we just wanted to get out of the restaurant so we didn't quibble about the bread. After leaving we both agreed that we will not be giving it another go!

hiatus!

Due to a impending weekend away in Shrewsbury things have been a bit quiet on the eating out front, although the weekend promises to defintely make up for it. Planning on visiting as many as the 69 real ale pubs that Shrewsbury allegedly homes, so the other half will definitely be in his liquid heaven.

And looking at all the Shrewsbury websites they're not particularly short on restaurants, due to budget constraints we can't go for the super fantastic sounding ones, but planning on eating at The Golden Cross Hotel http://www.goldencrosshotel.co.uk/ which is all medieval and a bit gothic, and have a monthly changing menu from local ingredients, so it promising a fantastic early anniversary dinner - fingers crossed.

However, in the mean time we've been eating budget venues this week, mainly called home, but one is called Big Wok, it's a basic chinese buffet chain http://www.bigwok.co.uk/birmingham.htm that does a lunch for £4.99. This restaurant is in Birmingham's Chinese quarter which might be why it delivers so much more then a standard chinese buffet does. It has the ubiquitous english/chinese dishes - spare ribs, battered chicken, prawn toast, chicken wings, fried rice etc - but it also has steamed dumplings, fried won tons, steamed pak choi, chinese special of the day (which is only every stated in chinese, so it's a bit of a guessing game to try it) chinese soups (again only labelled in chinese) congee, and fish ball noodle soup. It's these chinese specials that make us visit on a regular basis at a lunch time, i feel the fish ball noodle soup is worth the £4.99 by itselft, everything else is a perk!

But is for the evening meal that it really perks up, then if offers a fresh teppanyaki section with tonnes of fresh ingredients to choose from before watching the team of chefs stir fry it in front of you; which you can follow with a selection of fresh sushi, or pay a £1 supplement for a selection of fresh sashimi, not including extended daily chinese specials; for all this extra this price rises to £8.99, but with the house wine at £8.90, it is a bargain night out. But beware it is not romantic, it is fundamentally a big canteen, but for the dedicated people watchers it is fantastic as you are normally right in the thick of tables filled with a wide range of people from the Chavs to the middle class, and every type of ethnic origin possible, a great big melting pot.

Imagine.........

Although this review is kind of retrospective, it's the reason that i'm still sweet talking my liver. The lovely other half took me out to celebrate on Saturday night to a local Japanese cafe, it's run by a bunch on Japanese students who take over the local greasy spoon every Wednesday to Saturday evening after six pm. It is incredibly make-shift, but it is reasonable, bring-your-own and very friendly.

As it's a bring-your-own set up we always make sure that we take plenty of wine with us, always seems that you can drink much more when you're not paying over inflated restaurant prices; so we went armed with just three bottles between the two of us and extraordinarily big bellies!

The place is set up in a kind of tapas style menu, with lots of small dishes available to share or to have as starters and they also do a selection of main course size dishes. Because we hadn't been for such a long time we felt that we should sample the new dishes on the menu as well as few old favourites. To nibble on whilst we decided what to order we had delicious pork dumplings (gyoso - i think?) that were really light in flavour but very moreish as well as some ebi prawns (king prawns in bread crumbs) and some classic tempura king prawns, all served with a chilli dipping sauce and a miso based sauce for the tempura prawns - which is nice enough to drink on its own. Starters we decided to have a prawn bowl, more fantastic prawns in tempura batter with mixed salad leaves and a soy sauce based dressing, and for main course we shared Kimchi Udon Noodles, thick noodles with pickled and spiced cabbage and prawns (can't tell we really like our seafood?) and terriyaki salmon, wich was cooked to perfection. All of this was washed down with our own wine, and the entire bill came to just £55, including corkage.

It was a fantastic laid back evening, and if anyone is ever starving in Harborne I would recommend that they check this place out. Friendly staff and delicious food, what else can you ask for?

After a rather over the top weekend, celebrating passing my first year at university, I'm at home trying to sweet talk my liver into carrying on working for me, at least for a bit longer! It was over a restorative salad that my other-half declared that I should set up a live-space page; however, I don't seem to be able to get the hang of their systems, so decided i may just as well set up a blog...

Deciding on the name was a difficult bit, but food and feet seems to sum up my life at the moment - I have been a life long foody and have just started a degree in Podiatry (chiropody), so between the two that tends to be all I have time for.

So let me just set the scene, I'm based here in Birmingham, which is not generally known for its cuisine apart from Baltis; however, there are some gems out there in the great building site that Birmingham is; and I intend to detail, review and just gibber on about the restaurants and cafes I visit, and when the student loan runs out it may well be a rant about the food the food that I'm cooking!