Buffet or Hot Pot?

A new chinese buffet restaurant has opened in Birmingham by the law courts. Birmingham is full of chinese buffets but this one caught our attention as it also offers a Japanese hotpot - shabu shabu, it is called MinZu http://minzu.co.uk/default.aspx. We thought we would have a look in and see what it was like, we decided before trying the hotpot we would give the buffet a go.

The restaurant is in an old victorian building by the old law courts in the town centre, it had what looked like original plaster work on the ceiling and some funky modern chandeliers creating a great environment. We wandered in off the street and were greeted by a friendly waiter who was convinced we had met before (we don't think we have!) he showed is to a nicely laid table, and bought over the menu, he explained that to prevent spoiling and wastage of the food it was an order to the table buffet and that they could cook us half portions of any dish we wanted to try. The wine list was reasonable and we ordered a nice Chenin Blanc for £12.50; the menu offered a selection of soups, starters, mains and side dishes. We tried many of the dishes so I won't list them all separately but just to mention the chilli and salt mussels to start - mussels in their shells coated with chilli and salt and fried, they were delicous; the prawn toast came as a selection of normal toast and some which i believe to be crab stick toast, and hubby reckons was king prawn toast - whichever it was still lovely. Jill Gem King Prawns (i think i've spelt that right!) were wonderful shell off king prawns with a fantastic light but tasty coating which even the waitress agreed were her favourite! Although stuffed right at the end of the meal we ordered one last dish of vegetable satay skewers, these were a revelation, the chunks of vegetables had been dipped in a tempura like batter before being cooked and topped with a fantastic satay sauce. The entire meal came to just under £40 and was definitely worth it, we are already planning on taking the parents there and also going back to try the hotpot.

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.