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2018 was an incredibly difficult year for me on a personal level.  I don’t want to go into all the doom and gloom here, but I think it’s fair to say that it’s the worst year I’ve ever experienced and there have been some other contenders for that in recent years.   The tail end of the year was the worst part of it and I haven’t really felt in the mood to share some great news with you all until now.

So it’s lovely to have some really good news to celebrate.  I’ve only gone and won an award: Food Blogger of the Year 2018 – UK.  It’s one of the awards given by LUXlife magazine and it’s great to see the name of my blog up there with so many great blogs and websites.  It’s a real honour.  Sometimes in this job you can feel you are working away alone and no one really appreciates your work, so awards like this do provide a very welcome boost. You can read about the other winners in my category : The Food & Drinks Awards here.  Looking through there are so many great hotels and restaurants I now want to visit and so many wonderful food and drink producers that I now want to sample.  There’s plenty there to keep me occupied for a long time to come.

Here’s a link to the announcement of my win. Many many thanks once again to LUXlife magazine.  I’m so thrilled to be included in your list of award winners.

After the indulgences of the Christmas and New Year season, it can feel good to cut back on a rich foods and take a step away from heavy dishes with lots of meat in and take on a lighter diet.  That doesn’t need to be boring though.  Lots of people have been doing Veganuary this year and even though we haven’t gone that far, we have been trying to incorporate more vegetarian and vegan food into our diets and cut back on meat, fish and dairy a little. So when Comptoir Libanais got in touch and asked me to try out their Veganuary menu, I was really interested to try it out their vegan feast at the Birmingham branch in Grand Central.

Comptoir Libanais are celebrating have launched a special Lebanese Vegan Feast menu offering a variety of colourful and tasty vegan dishes.  The menu will be available throughout January at all Comptoir Libanais restaurants for a very reasonable £12.95.  We started off by nibbling away at some tasty Marinated Damascus Olives and a Selection of Pickles whilst we took in the colourful, atmospheric decor which certainly makes you feel like you are somewhere exotic.  There are fez hats on the walls and some wonderful tiles, you can even buy a range of goods which have that Middle-Eastern vibe.

We moved onto the mezze selection of Red Pepper Hommos, a smooth chickpea puree with tahina and red peppers, virgin olive oil, served with pita bread and a Quinoa Tabbouleh, which is made from chopped parsley, quinoa, tomatoes, mint and onions with a lemon and olive oil dressing. The red pepper hummus was delicious and moreish, plus the flatbreads were perfect to mop it up. The quinoa tabbouleh was the perfect foil to it with its fresh, citrusy zing.

I really enjoyed the delicious Couscous Salad with grilled peppers, roasted squash and mixed nuts.  It was very tasty.  The other choice of main was the Aubergine Tagine which sadly wasn’t available on our visit due to supply problems.

For dessert there is a Coconut Mouhalabia and Mixed Dried Fruit.  It’s a traditional Lebanese milk pudding made using coconut milk and topped with toasted pistachios.  The coconut mouhalbia which was like a panacotta with a smooth texture and a lightly sweet flavour. We loved the sweet fruits on the top and the sweet honey syrup that was poured on top.

For liquid refreshment between us we tried a couple of beers: Almaza and Casablanca (Casablanca was the better of the two) and Leymona, which was a really tasty and thirst-quenching lemonade with flavours of lemon and lime.

The service was excellent: attentive and friendly.  The staff were knowledgeable about the food on the menu and we were very well looked after.

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.