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Wild and Game, the not for profit business that aims to turn the UK into a nation of game eaters, has launched a new range of high quality ready meals. The idea behind the new range is to take familiar favourites and make them into ready meals using game as the meat ingredient.  The hope is that people will realise how easy it is to enjoy game in the place of more widely used meats, such as beef and chicken. The ready meals include grouse with mushroom and peppercorn sauce; pheasant breasts with pancetta, mushroom and cider sauce; pheasant breasts Florentine; and pheasant tikka masala.

“These are dishes people would probably love to cook at home, but many people are not confident cooking with game, so we came up with this range of high quality ready meals to make life easier,” says Wild and Game’s co-founder Steven Frampton.

I tried out the Pheasant Tikka Masala.  It was a nice generous portion size, although it is advertised as for two people, and it actually provided a very hearty meal for one and if I’d been less hungry there might have been some leftovers.  Whilst the dish is made for you, this isn’t the sort of meal you can put in the microwave for a few minutes and then sit down to eat.  It needs 80-90 minutes and that needs to be in the oven. So that requires a bit of planning and forethought.  Also, you’ll need to provide rice or naan bread or whatever you fancy as an accompaniment yourself. That said, you will get a meal that is full of flavour and does taste like you have lovingly cooked it for several hours.  I think you could get away with serving this up at a dinner party as your own dish as long as you served up some rice with it. In fact, I’m tempted to do that as it would certainly cut down on the stress and my guests would be getting a very decent meal.

Now I’m a bit of a game fan, but I was surprised how well pheasant suited the subtle, yet distinctive flavours of tikka masala.  The pheasant added a richness and depth of flavour that you certainly don’t get with a blander meat like chicken.  I’d go as far as saying that pheasant is a much better bird to use with the dish and I’d certainly be happy to eat this dish again.

The other week we (me, my parents and my son H) went to the Park Regis, Broad Street, Birmingham (near Five Ways roundabout) to try out their Sunday Carvery offering.  The decor is very plush and you certainly feel like this is a special occasion venue when you step inside.  The 1565 Restaurant is upstairs near the bar and there is a balcony with views out over the city.

The carvery starts at 1pm and last seating is at 2.30pm and there are three courses available.  I love that three courses are included because that seems like much more of a treat than a one course offering and at £14.95 each it seems like a good value option. Most of the starters and desserts are included within the £14.95 price, but a few special items do attract a supplement, but this is clearly stated on the menu.

There were a number of freshly prepared and appetizing salads available from a self-service buffet and a soup was also on offer if preferred.  I really enjoyed my selection of salads and you can help yourself to what you want.

On the day we visited there were three meats to choose from: roast beef, gammon and turkey.  Now I like my beef a little pink, but my Dad’s not so keen, so we did differ in our opinion of the beef.  I also had some turkey and that was nicely cooked, without being too dry.

There was a good selection of vegetables and the restaurant has taken quite a few measures to keep them warm.  They are in lidded containers to keep the heat in. The vegetables were nicely cooked and seemed to please the whole party on that score.  I think though that the Yorkshire puddings and the stuffing had been a bit overdone though and they were a bit on the dry side.  There’s plenty of gravy available though to help with that and you can serve yourself to that.

Whilst we were pretty full after our first two courses, we did venture to try some desserts.

I had the profiteroles and they were lovely.  The portion size was quite small, but I think it needed to be after two courses where you were able to help yourself to as much salad or vegetables as you wanted.  My parents had the chocolate mousse and they really enjoyed that.

Throughout the meal the staff were really attentive and were ready to help.  Looking around the restaurant, there were quite a few families eating there and they were quickly provided with high chairs and the like, so it’s a truly family friendly restaurant.  I certainly recommend the carvery if you are looking for a good Sunday carvery which feels like a bit of a treat.

Last night I went along to The Stable, John Bright Street, in Birmingham as I’d been invited to try their spring/summer menu.  The Stable, the pizza, pie and cider group, now has 17 locations across the UK and the Birmingham one is in a great location in the heart of the city. There’s plenty of seating (bench style so you may have to share your table), both inside and out and on a summer’s evening there’s a lovely relaxed vibe.

We started out with a cider tasting board with 5 ciders. The Birmingham cider master came over to talk us through the selections and it was great to learn more about what we were tasting from someone who was clearly an expert and an enthusiast. I found the Lilley’s Mango and the Green Valley Strawby a bit sweet and fruity for my taste.  My preference was for the drier, still Andsome Bay, followed by the Sheppy’s.  Thankfully,  my drinking (and eating) companion had a sweeter tooth than me, so it all worked well.

We took the edge off our hunger with some Stix & Dips.  The bread was very yummy and moreish. I was very taken with the butternut blitz dip and made short work of that – it was smoothy and had a lovely squashy flavour.  My friend seemed to prefer the mushroom & olive tapenade, but the beetroot hummus was tasty too.  All in all a big hit and I’ll certainly be ordering Stix & Dips again.

For starters we had The Dorset Spread and Sladesdown Duck.  The Dorset Spread wasn’t our favourite dish of the night as the pickled cucumber seemed just too harsh and vinegary.  I really loved the Sladesdown Duck and regretted not ordering the main course version instead of a pizza because it was so very good.  The blood orange and the pomegranate were the perfect combination with the duck and this dish was the star of the evening’s food for me.

I’ve been continuing my quest to try out more small, independent restaurants and cafes around Birmingham (or anywhere else I happen to be visiting).  The other week I went to the Old Dresser in Bearwood after reading lots of rave reviews.  The Old Dresser is a blend of a restaurant and a cafe I would say as its opening hours are usually 12 noon-10pm (but check to be sure) and it starts the day by serving breakfasts, drinks, etc.  and then later in the day it is more of a restaurant serving full meals.

The Old Dresser has a slightly off the beaten track location a fair way down the Bearwood Road.  From the outside it has a traditional terraced frontage and looks very traditional.  As you can see inside it has a more electic look, but I love the traditional tea ware which is a collection of different pieces and styles.  I arrived as it opened and waited a little while for a friend.  I was made to feel very welcome and was comfortable waiting in there on my own.  Before too long though quite a few other customers joined us, most of whom seemed to have come along for lunch.

That’s exactly what we did too.  I opted for the Big Bear’s Breakfast without the baked beans and with the soda bread.  The sausage wasn’t what I was used to – I think because it was pork and chicken, rather than just pork – they were very tasty though. The Scottish Black Pudding was more like haggis than the English Black Pudding that I am used to, but I do enjoy haggis so that was good for me.  As you can see the food is beautifully presented and the ingredients are of a good quality.  I’d certainly be tempted by the breakfast on a return visit, but there are a lot of other dishes I’d like to explore.

My companion had the ODC hash (ODC stands for Old Dresser Cafe).  She loved it and it was perfect in size for her as she was planning another meal out that evening and didn’t want to overdo things. The hash is a mixture of hash browns, tomatoes, onion, mushrooms and sausage with an egg cooked to her specification and the homemade soda bread that I had too.

The owners are friendly and helpful, so ask for recommendations like we did.  We also had some gardening advice thrown in when we asked about the herbs they grow on the window sill.

I’m keen to try out the evening menu which seems to have an Eastern European theme and has a number of dishes that I haven’t tried before.

Rola Wala is new to the Selfridges Food Hall in Birmingham.  Like the other concessions in the Food Hall, it’s a place to grab some food while you take the weight off your feet before getting back to some more shopping. It’s not the sort of place you’d go for a romantic meal or a leisurely meal with friends as the decor and furniture are a touch industrial in style. This is the fourth Rola Wala location to open, as there are already venues in Oxford, Leeds and Spitalfields in London. Rola Wala’s prides itself on its ‘Twisted Indian Street Food’, and Indian street food is just the thing when you are having a busy day shopping.  I was invited along to try out the menu last week as Rola Wala’s guest.

So to begin with you have to decide between a naan roll or a spice bowl.  The spice bowl was an easy choice for me as I would always choose rice over naan anyway, but I also thought it would look better in my pictures (ever the blogger). The Spice bowls are based on a red rice imported from Sri Lanka, which is apparently even better for you than brown rice. The alternative is the soft sourdough naan roll  which I thought looked very nice too. Now you need to choose from six toppings: three vegetarian and three non-vegetarian plus there’s an optional range of sides available if you pay a bit more. You can pay extra to double up on the toppings too, but to be honest I don’t think you need to as I found a bowl and two sides was very filling. Then you get to pick from five different chutneys, which run the whole spice range from a mild spice to too hot for me.  The mildest is pear & tamarind, with the scorpion being too hot for me, but I can’t cope with very spicy food.  I was torn between the mango, lime & ginger and the mint, lime & pineapple which were medium spicy.

There’s quite a range of drinks available with both alcoholic and non-alcoholic options available.  Lager is a natural match for a curry and there were some beers available, but I opted for the soft option in the Karma Soda which tasted quite like the diet version of a well-known cola brand and I really liked it. 

You order at the counter and your meal is brought to your table.  The service was very fast as you’d expect with street food I think. For my spice bowl I chose the Bengali Beef, which is a very tender shredded beef brisket. There’s plenty of flavour and it’s mildly spicy, but the meat doesn’t overpower the dish, in fact there isn’t a huge amount of it.  I don’t like a meal to be too heavy on the meat, so that suited me nicely. The other meat based options are charred Chicken Tikka and Nagaland Lamb which has been slow-cooked.  I enjoyed the red rice that came with the spice bowl.  It has a flavour that is different to brown rice, not so nutty, but it certainly has more flavour than the average bowl of white rice.

For my sides I picked the String Fries (I can never resist fries) and the Avo Chaat Salad.  The fries were nice and had a slightly spicy seasoning, but they didn’t stand out for me.  The Avo Chaat Salad was truly delicious though and I’d be ordering that every time. It’s a mango salad with avocado and pomegranate too: very fresh, slightly fruity and very tasty.  Sally, a fellow blogger, who ate with me, had some different options that I got to try too like the Kashmiri Cauliflower Popcorn – not a fan, a bit beige tasting for me. Like me though she picked out and loved the Avo Chaat Salad, which was so nice I would happily have ordered that as a main course.  I did enjoy the food at Rola Wala and I think I could be making a return visit before too long.