Life's a Peach

Having previously enjoyed nearly a decade of Not Working Monday, I can report that it’s a day many other workers, especially in the hospitality industries, also enjoy off. So while I would enjoy my very own Bank Holiday weekend every other week, it also meant many of the places I wanted to visit when I wasn’t working were shut. 

So, exciting news for anyone still in the Monday Club, you’re in luck. Not only is Peach Garden - tucked away in Ladywell Walk in Birmingham's Chinatown - open, it also offers a special of roast piglet on the first two days of the week. Something that would surely even entice Garfield from his post-weekend torpor, especially when you see the good, in all their glory, hanging in the steamy window.

It's a basic, no frills kind of place (the best kind of place) where, even at a little past eleven the morning, nearly every table was taken. As the only white faces on our visit, we were also the only ones given forks with our chopsticks. A badge I wore with a certain pride sense of pride while trying to demonstrate my best pincer technique.

Strong chinese tea comes in teacups that wouldn't have looked out of place at my Nan's, but be wary if you like yours with added sweetener, as the sugar bowl is filled with a fearsome chilli oil that glows with latent menace.

While the three roast meat and rice is the most lauded dish on the menu (a choice between pork belly, char sui, roast duck and soya chicken) I was firmly focussed on the special. Alongside solo piglet, (as a potion for the table or on top of rice) you can also throw in a choice of another meat, so I added a duck leg for good measure.

What quickly followed was attainment of some kind of porcine nirvana. Slices of meat with, surprisingly, rich porky flavour, edged with a little creamy fat and topped with strips of paper-thin, burnished crackling. The duck may have been even better, the subcutaneous fat almost rendered into the tender flesh, contrasted against the crunch of the sticky lacquered skin.

Alongside the saucer of sticky sauce that’s served with the meat (which tastes a lot like hoi sin, although someone more enlightened may know better) and a slug of fiery, crunchy chilli oil, I can’t think of many more glorious plates of food. A wonderful balance of textures and flavours that even gets me excited about white rice (near the bottom of the pile of best carbs), being the perfect foil for the layers of crunch and fat and heat that sit upon it. A dish that is so brilliantly simple, yet masterful at the same time and always makes me feel a bit little in awe (and a little bit fatter) each time I eat it.

The Ewing went with the soya chicken, something that I have never given much thought to try with all the pig and duck on offer - but, apart from being rather cold, was very well received. Sweet and yielding, it’s also a little leaner than the other options and makes a nice change of pace (words spoken as a firm Wife of Jack Spratt).

Following Giles Coren's sage advice in 'How to Eat Out' - not a sentence I'm often troubled to write - I also ordered a dish of gai lan, stir fried with garlic. Despite the price (still very good value at just over eight quid) it was, as always, a good call. The crisp, ferric greens making a welcome break from the salt, fat and carbs, which at least provided an illusion of healthiness.

As it was the Ewing and I's wedding anniversary later that week, it was fortuitous that we found this 'lover biscuit' - more commonly known as a wife cake, stuffed with winter melon, almond paste, and sesame - at the China Court Bakery, opposite the restaurant.

While not a huge fan of the above (something I should have learnt after trying them before on several occasions), they also had excellent, fluffy double pineapple char sui buns, (that contain NO pineapple, imagine that - TE) that were buy two get one free on our visit. One half-bun for each pork-permeated year we've been married. Pretty perfect for a pair of piglets. (love you babe x - TE)

Backs to the window - Xi'an Impression

Following the ‘bad news first’ rule, I’m going to get the negatives about our lunch at Xi’an Impression out the way – namely the view across the street. Now I appreciate that one man’s meat is another man’s poison, so perhaps looking at Emirates would be welcome for some patrons. But, as a supporter of North London's first team, I made sure to resolutely keep my back to the window (let's get this straight, I went to the toilet and came back to find 'we' had moved tables to make sure HER back was to Emirates - TE).

Thankfully, things markedly improved from this point onwards when the waiter, shortly after taking our order, re-approached the table to ask if we had eaten there before. After, cautiously, responding in the negative, he enthusiastically congratulated us for ordering all the right things. Not particularly difficult choices -  I had read a few reviews and blogs beforehand, plus the recommended dishes have a Facebook style ‘like’ symbol on the menu - but it still made me feel secretly smug.

Xi’an, located in the Shaanxi Province, is the end of the Silk Road, home to the terracotta Army (yes, I have been on Wikipedia) and, due to its cold climate, has a cuisine based on wheat instead of rice. Happily, this means a proliferation of noodle dishes, one of the most famous being ‘cold skin noodle with gluten’.  The dish is made by soaking a salt and flour dough in water and retaining the cloudy liquid before allowing it to settle overnight and then steaming the sediment in shallow trays, slicing into thin strips and serving cold.

While it doesn’t perhaps sound the most attractive of propositions on paper, it’s a pretty little dish, finished with a julienne of cucumber and a slick of (not very spicy) oil. Apply caution (or wear a dark shirt), these suckers are slippery.

The boneless chicken in ginger sauce was another beguiling plate - the strips of buttery poached meat built up in a dome over slices of pickled cucumber and served with a sauce spiked with strips of fiery ginger – and tasted just as good. This was possibly my dish of the day; delicate and clean with a little kick at the end and the antithesis to most boring breast dishes.

The Ewing wanted dumplings and chose the delicate pot stickers, stuffed with pork and seaweed, over the heftier boiled variety. These are served open-ended, with a crispy frill from being pan fried, and were juicy and hot - just as you want your dumpling action to be. The waiter also kindly offered to bring us the traditional Xi'an dipping sauce traditionally served with the boiled dumplings, a black vinegar and spring onion flecked number which I happily flung over everything on the table, plus myself.

Biang, biang mian – wide wheat noodles, so called for the onomatopoeic slapping sound they make on the table when they are being pulled – reminded me of the wonderful big belt noodles served at Silk Road in Camberwell. Here we tried them with beef, instead of the more familiar chicken, and were rewarded with an Eastern twist on Italian pappardelle with ragu - a rich and fragrant rib-sticker of a dish with bouncy noodles that had a pleasing elastic chew and a background heat that built from the pool of fragrant chilli oil.  

As well as tasting great, fact fans may also be interested to know that biang is also, apparently, the Chinese character comprised of the most brushstrokes - 58 strokes in its traditional form. The character for "biáng" cannot be entered into computers, hence why you will always see it written in a truncated form, or using the roman alphabet, on menus.

While I don’t have any pointless trivia about the beef ‘burger’ - the final item that emerged from the kitchen, as the first batch were still being prepared - I can report it was worth the wait. Comprised of a shallow, dense bun, a little like an English muffin, split and stuffed with shredded beef that was laced with liberal amounts of cumin and chilli (the hottest thing we ate), it was just missing a rustling pile of chips.

I jest about the fried potatoes; even the Ewing and I were struggling to clear our plates at this point. Of course, we still managed it though, leading to the second compliment of the meal when our waiter applauded us for finishing every dish, after originally thinking we had over-ordered. I assured him it was more of a testament to the quality of the food rather than our gluttonous nature, but didn’t quite know whether to feel smug or ask for my wafer thin mint and roll myself out the door.

While there’s no booze (you can bring your own), barely any room and the neighbourhood is questionable (certainly for a Lilywhite), the service is lovely, the food fantastic and, if you don’t look out the window, you’ll be more than alright.