Pigs, Pints and Prawns

Earlier this summer (yes, it is still summer) the Ewing and I finally threw out the mouldering remains of the tent that would have been best off being abandoned on the Isle of Wight after a particularly waterlogged Bestival and got serious about spending some more civilised time under canvas.

Soon we had acquired a fancy new three man number (plenty of room for me, her and her shoe collection) and a set of poles for the porch that seemed to contain 50% more pieces than were actually needed but, unhelpfully, no instructions. Add a few cans of beer, burgers and a disposable bbq and we were ready to head up the M40 for the weekend.

Our destination was the Pig Place, a small holding by the Oxford canal (where the owners live on their boat) featuring a farm shop; a catering van serving cooked breakfasts, lunches and cake; and a menagerie of animals including runner ducks, geese, sheep, chickens, dogs, and the eponymous pigs, including saddlebacks, oxford sandy and blacks and British lops.

The site is also off the mains, so there's no showers or running water (there is a stand pipe from their borehole for drinking water) and just one Portaloo on site. So bring the baby wipes.

Another disadvantage of camp life are those early morning, bleary-eyed stumbles to the loo; complete with pyjama legs trailing across the wet grass. Balanced against the pains of attempting to get up off an inflatable mattress at such an ungodly hour, you may get to see a morning like this. With the rising mist in the field beyond, the swallows serenely resting on the telegraph poles and the light shining on the canal there was no where else I would have rather been. Yes, that is a sofa and chairs by the fire pit and an upright piano behind the hay bales.

Camping or not, sunrise is far too early (or late) to be up - although I did feel inordinately smug to be awake before our resident cockerel - and so we retired back under canvas for some extra shut eye. Next thing I knew the smell of strong coffee was floating on the breeze and we had wriggled out of our sleeping bags to put in our orders for fry ups and caffeine.

Breakfast include freshly baked pastries and rolls, things on toast and the crowning glory, the full english, freshly cooked to order using the farm's own duck eggs, sausages and bacon (which all taste amazing - TE). If you think eating pork products in the shadow of their previous porcine relations is hard, just try and do it with Sid the cat eyeing up your sausage, so to speak. But even the Ewing, certified softy, wasn't prepared to give up a morsel of her superior spread. A first class breakfast.

After a very hot day of pig tickling, sun bathing and losing pretty much every drop of my moisture in my body after falling asleep in the porch of the tent, it was time to rehydrate. Thankfully, the Great Western Arms is but a country mile down the very pretty canal path that runs adjacent to the campsite.

After bagging a spot in their pretty courtyard garden in time for dinner, we opened with cold pints of Stowford Press. Particularly apt as they also sponsor the England cricket team, who had wrapped up the Ashes that morning with a stonking performance at Trent Bridge, ergo helping save my phone battery so I could take more fuzzy pictures of maurading snouts in the trough (and some pictures of the pigs, too).

A menu full of nice things; 'anchovies debatable' (anchovies are never debatable). Being a Hook Norton pub, we also had to have a pint of the local ale, this being Hooky, Old Hooky's lighter younger brother.

Continuing with the holiday theme I plumped, unusually, for the shell on tiger prawns. As much as I love crustaceans it's a dish I normally save for foreign climes - preferably with my feet in the sand and a glass of chilled vino blanco in hand - with my natural greed often disappointed by the sparing numbers served on these shores, often with the flavour and texture of fishy cotton wool.

No such worries here, as a skewer stuffed with them arrived tableside, dripping their sweet, garlicky juices onto a plate of superior chips below. There was also a suitably garlicky home made mayo, with a luscious wobble (not unlike me on our walk home) and a suggestion of side salad to counteract the butter and fried potatoes.

It may be premature to say it but, influenced by sun and cider, it's already gone in as a strong contender for dish of the year. The simple sort of cooking, well executed and with bold flavours that you wish every pub could effortlessly bang out. Not bad value (if not cheap) at sixteen and a half quid, either.

For desert the Ewing had the majestic chocolate torte, a great hunk of loveliness (although not quite up to Delia's ameretti biscuit version) that came adorned in all that extra shizzle - orange slices, sugar wafers, raspberry sauce, strawberries, whipped cream and ice cream - that has sadly been lost in the trend for simple plating. When it comes to pudding, more is definitely more.

I don't get food envy very often - having usually trailed the internet days in advance to pour over menus and gaze at blurry phone pictures with too much flash on Trip Advisor - but on this occasion my mudcake (with chocolate ice cream swapped out for banana) looked, despite the adornment, decidedly ordinary.

But they say the proof of the pudding is in the eating, and that was certainly true in this case, with the cake being wonderfully sticky and claggy, lubricated by the hot fudge sauce and whipped cream. Another course that transcended my string of superlatives.

After a half of Old Rosie for the road (take a torch if your going to be walking after dark; the path is narrow and the water's deep), we stumbled merrily homeward. All the while safe in the knowledge that, with it's double garlic hit, we had both chosen the prawns for dinner; hence there could be no recrimination at our ability to repel vampires from fifty feet on getting back to the  confines of the tent. Ah, the romance of the great outdoors....

Brum Fun

I think I've had what writer's call 'block'. I ate and I ate, then I ate some more, but still the words wouldn't form (I did get a touch of indigestion, though). Slowly, as the idea of posting became more onerous, I begun to stop taking pictures of my lunch and went back to the same places to eat, so I wouldn't have to blog about them later. Was Pies and Fries finally stale and soggy?

Ultimately though, while it was nice to just sit back and smell the coffee (without trying to snap an arty picture) I kinda missed it; So grab the Rennies and let's get stuck in.

This particular adventure take us back to the Second City, or more precisely Snow Hill, the terminus of the Chiltern line. Strangely, in the fifteen or so years I've been coming to Brum, I'd never alighted here until earlier this year; now I've visited three times since March. While it misses the architectural majesty and convenience of Moor Street, it's in a much more interesting part of town. But more of that later.

First stop after ditching our bags was Brewdog, where, when faced with the comprehensive menu board above, I followed their sound recommendation and ordered a beer flight. After all, why have one beer when you can have four (not cheap though, a flight for both of us weighing in at twenty-two of your English pounds).

Pick of the bunch was Hymir, a brett fermented pale from Worcestershire's Urban Huntsman; the Ballast Point Dorado, a resinous imperial IPA; and the Dog D, a imperial stout with coffee and naga chillies from Brewdog. Whilst the latter two were belters ABV wise and we probably could have done with a breather, neither the Ewing or I could face the third of Brewdog's alcohol free Nanny State. Sometime's more is more.

Sufficiently lubricated we made our way to the inaugural Food Feast-ival at the, ominous-sounding, Coffin Works in the Jewellery Quarter. Just like it says on the tin, this was previously the site of the Newman Brothers 'producers of some of the world’s finest coffin furniture, including the fittings for the funerals of Joseph Chamberlain, Winston Churchill and the Queen Mother'.

Whilst they've recreated the ambiance of the firm's 60s heyday - complete with restored machinery and costumed guided tours - we were here for the food and drinks, all served up in the picturesque cobbled courtyard.

The disadvantage of being in such an enclosed space, as beautiful as it was, was that the smoke from the oven - mounted in an old Mini Cooper - at the Baked in Brick pizza stand meant that I ended up smelling like a teenager's kit bag after sitting around the campfire at Reading Festival (my mother would attest, that's not a good thing).

Things looked up when we actually swapped some dough for some dough, opting to share a calzone stuffed with beef shin ragu and mozzarella. All very tasty if a little pallid on top for my tastes. Any chance of getting bored waiting for our pizza to cook was also dispelled when we (for 'we' read my darling wife), befriended Tina and Rich, two very friendly locals who regaled us with stories of sewing clubs, library cuts and the local birds (of the ornithological variety), that can be spotted in the Jewellery Quarter.

Refreshments came in the form of a couple of poky cocktails from the the Little Gin Company - a Cotswold Dry with pink grapefruit for me and Monkey 47 Gin with tonic and orange for the Ewing. Gin and grapefruit's a very good thing and the measures were pleasingly generous making the 80's soul records they were spinning even more welcome.

Most mortals may have called it a night after the second cocktail, especially seeing as we were just around the corner from our hotel. But who can resist Birmingham's small, but perfectly formed, Chinatown; especially when pissed.

This time we headed for Peach Garden, an insalubrious little gaff with endearingly gruff service tucked off Ladywell Walk, where the main deal is the roast meat that you can see hanging in the steamy front window. Here it's served three ways; roast duck, char sui and roast pork (and a fourth on a Monday and Tuesday, when they crack out the suckling pig).

A plate of crispy, fatty, salty roast meat on a bed of fluffy white rice and a few chinese cabbage leaves thrown in to prevent scurvy, is one of my favourite things to eat. Add a good dose of fiery chilli oil and endless cups of jasmine tea (here served in smoked glass beakers, from a giant metal pot) and there is no better way to soak up a surfeit of gin.

The Ewing equally relished her bowl of won ton soup, a lagoon of porky parcels swimming in a rich meat stock augmented with Chinese veg and egg noodles. We also shared a side dish of crunchy water chestnut slices and crisp bamboo shoots, scooped up with obligatory handfuls of prawn crackers that, eaten in my usual haste, left me with those little scratches at the corner of my mouth the following morning that mean I always vow to give up prawn crackers, or to improve my table manners, but alas I do neither (that's a shame there would be more for me - TE). 

Breakfast was a peerless selection of cheap cereal (who could resist faux Coco Pops with lashings of cold milk (me-TE)), watered down orange juice, endless cups of strong tea and piles of hot toast with butter and strawberry jam. It was glorious. Truly.

There was also a pretty decent view across the chimney tops from the breakfast room, just a shame most of it had been enveloped by a thick fog, leaving even the sparkly new Birmingham Library as merely a gentle golden glow. 'Oh the rain falls hard on a humdrum town, this town has dragged you down', as Steven Patrick might say.

Wet weather meant the perfect chance to visit Six Eight Kafe, sit back with a book (or, as as the modern way, stare at your smart phone screen for a bit) and watch the world wade down a sodden Temple Row. A Chemex for two, brewed with bright Costa Rican beans, and a slice of freshly baked chocolate mocha cake also hit the spot.

Next was a dose of (well-read) anarchy when we joined in briefly, with the Friends of Birmingham protest march in Victoria Square, followed by a dose of culture at the Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery. There's a very good Pre-Raphaelite gallery if, like my wife, you're into that thing. And there's a very good gift shop if, like me, you're not. We also got to see the Floozie in the Jacuzzi, Brum's first lady. 

Final stop was a full circle to the Hen and Chickens, an unprepossessing pub in Hockley, just down the road from Snow Hill Station. Sky Sports, check. Pool table, check. Pints of fizzy piss, check. Loos with fag burns on the cistern, no loo roll and no locks, check. Best Indian food I've eaten for a long while, check....

Let's be honest, you're not going to come here for the ambiance, but get a cold Cobra in your hand and order a mixed grill (this is the 'small'), a piping hot dish piled high with crisp smoky kofte kebabs, chicken and fish pakora served on a bed of charred onions, and you can see why people make the trek.

The curries were equally strong; we sampled a sag paneer that was earthy and fragrant and a summery pumpkin curry with onion and tomato that was fresh and light. Hot rounds of peshwari and garlic naans proved the perfect way to scoop them from plate to mouth.

They'll even box up your leftovers (and you will have leftovers) that made me very happy when I saw them in the fridge the next morning. For our fellow commuters on the train home, possibly less so.

And so back to Snow Hill to begin our journey back South. Aptly, there's a statue of a bowler hatted commuter, brolly and briefcase in hand, to wave us off as we depart for another week at the grindstone. 

As the sun goes down on a broken town
And the fingers bleed in the factories
Come on out tonight, come and see the side
Of the ones you love and the ones in love
And you

Oxford Blues

Following on from the first of my countdown to working Mondays blog posts, which saw me eating pork pies in drizzly Birmingham, my antepenultimate Monday off meant dragging the Ewing up the M40 to bask in the Oxford sunshine.

Whilst it may have a reputation for bucolic British beauty Oxford also has its share of ugly urban sprawl, and none more so than the Eastern side of the city. Previously this was the site of the outer ramparts of the castle, now it's home to humdrum expanses of grey concrete. It's not all doom and gloom in this part of town however. For here, incongruously tucked under the Bridge nightclub on Hyth Bridge Street, you'll find lauded szechuan restaurant, Sojo.

As well as szechuan dishes there is also a roll call of standard Cantonese and Shanghainese staples  - think sweet and sour chicken, spicy yellow bean chicken and, err, 'mouth watery' chicken - alongside a good looking lunchtime dim sum selection, but what's the point of going somewhere with 'SSS = Mind Blowing Spicy' dishes on the menu and not trying one. In this case the triple rated Szechaun pork for me and the beef and aubergine for the Ewing.

After such a menacing warning - the waiter even bought us glasses of iced water, unbidden, with our meals - the food wasn't too spicy - and no, I don't say that in the surreptitiously squinting, sweat breaking out on the brow manner of a lager-filled masochist trying to impress his mates on a Friday night. 

What is was, however, was delicious, the shreds of pork and crunchy strips of veg possessing just the right amount of tongue tingling from the fresh chillies and lip numbing from the szechuan pepper to provoke a pleasing glow. The Ewing's dish, with it's slippery curls of soy drenched aubergine and chunks of sweet beef, may have been even better (this is unheard of! - TE).

After cranking the heat up it was time to cool down again, and where better than one of my favourite ice cream parlours, G&D. As we were on the wrong side of town it was the perfect chance to try out the mini-chain's original branch, George and Davis, having previously frequented George and Danver on St Algates and the seasonal ice cream cart that appears on the street in the summer.

I had what I originally thought was the Oxford Blue (blueberry)but  was actually probably the Black and Blue (blackberry and blueberry). Soft fruit semantics aside, it was completely awesome. Whilst not normally a fruity ice cream fan, this balanced the sweet dairy and sharp berries perfectly. The Ewing got her buzz on with a cone of Kenyan AA, a coffee flavored ice that was demolished too quickly to capture (Too slow, Roscoe - TE).

It's pretty impossible to come to Oxford without imbibing a pint in one of their historied hostelries, and this time we headed off to the Turf Tavern, hidden down a narrow winding alley between Holywell Street and New College Lane.

The Turf Tavern is crammed (there isn't much room in here) with history. Not only has it had a role call of famous guests, including Richard Burton, Elizabeth Taylor, CS Lewis and Margaret Thatcher. but it was also the the site of former Australian Prime Minister Bob Hawke's Guinness World Record, where he sculled a yard glass of ale in 11 seconds. Legend also has it that the the Turf is where former U.S. president Bill Clinton, while attending Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar, infamously 'did not inhale' on a herbal cigarette. There's even a plaque attesting to it, so it must be true. 

It's also, most excitingly for me, it was one of Inspector Morse's favourite locals. Hoping to inherit some of his curmogeonly intelligence by the osmosis of my surroundings (I'm pretty sure I'm already halfway there - I concur -TE) I tried the Turf Tavern's Landlord's Choice, 'an education in intoxication' and a fair enough pint to sup on a Monday afternoon.

The Ewing went with the topical Richard the III ale, Blue Boar, from Everards. 'An amber ale brewed with medieval taste of honey and mead with delicate spice and citric notes'. Scientists have recently revealed that King Richard III regularly drank around three litres of beer and wine a day, and liked to snack on the occasional swan. Which is probably how he ended up in a Leicester car park.

The skies may have been darkening ominously but of course there still had to be a library in there somewhere and nowhere seemed more fitting than a walk around the Radcliffe Camera, the neo-classical home of the Radcliffe Science Library and now part of the bibliophile's dream, the Bodleian.

'And that sweet city with her dreaming spires. She needs not June for beauty's heightening'

Matthew Arnold

Second City Scenes

After nearly a decade of starting my week on a Tuesday, I now have to prepare myself to face the greatest horror of the working man – Monday mornings. A few weeks to go before the start of my new job I was determined not to waste any remaining vestiges of Monday freedom and so decided on an impromptu visit to the Second City for beer and pork pies.

I have a strange attachment to Birmingham, it being the scene of many rendezvous with Stealth when she was at uni, and a frequent stopping point (for gigs at the Glee club and post-booze food at the, sadly now defunct, Urban Pie) on trips to see Pavematt’s family in Wolverhampton.

In all my many visits I have never alighted at Birmingham Snow Hill, so I decided to throw caution to the wind and ride right to the end of the line, lured by the prospect of the recently opened York Espresso Bar directly in front of the station’s exit.

Well, it would have been if I had taken the same exit as everyone else. As it was I quickly became hopelessly lost, although whilst huddling under the cold and wet railway arches trying to right myself I did get to see some pretty cool pasted paper graffiti on the side of an old building down by the canal.

Finding the younger sibling to the original Yorks Cafe proved worth the effort, and I was soon ensconced in a window seat enjoying a Caravan pour over and a compost cookie whilst watching the commuters hurry past in the rain.

They area also the first place in the UK to serve cold brew coffee on tap. Here it is dispensed with nitrogen from a beer style ‘kegorator’ on the bar. Apparently many US offices now have one of these dispensing liquid caffeinated joy next to the water cooler; sadly I’m still making do with PG Tips in a cracked mug (well it got smashed this morning, so you won't have to put up with that any longer - TE).

Fully caffeinated and with the sun over the yardarm, I moved on to Pure Bar and Kitchen - an ever so trendy, and slightly odd sounding, mash-up between Birmingham's Michelin Starred Simpsons and Purity Brewing Co, based in near by Warwickshire.

Inside the incongruity continued; unsure whether to wait to be seated at the 'posher' tables to the rear, or to go and order straight from the bar (already looking retro with its exposed pipes, concrete and bare wood), I opted to head straight for the beer pumps and retreated across to the communal bench area with my drink and bar snacks. 

The last time I was in Brum I had enjoyed a pint of Purity's Pure Ubu, a traditional amber ale. This time I tried a pint of the new Longhorn IPA, their attempt to emulate the footsteps of the 'craft' keg pack leaders. An unfiltered golden ale that's triple hopped with big pine, peach and tropical fruit flavours, Longhorn is a big tasting, and very enjoyable, beer at a small 5% ABV. My accompanying pork pie, served with home made piccalilli, was even better. The very best of the West Mids.

After enduring the horrors of the Bull Ring shopping centre, I retreated to Five Guys for a well deserved treat. This rapidly expanding Stateside burger chain has become known for their impossibly huge portions of peanut oil fried cajun fries and fancy drinks machines that churn out literally hundred of different flavour combos of soda or milkshakes (melon and grape Coke or malted bacon shakes anyone?). 

Following my simple burger rule (either salad with mayo, or pickles with ketchup) I chose the cheeseburger with raw onion, extra pickles, jalapenos, ketchup and mustard. As a fast food burger I've got some time for Five Guys. Yes, it's pretty greasy and the patties are more on the grey side than pink, but the beef always seems nicely charred and well seasoned, the cheesy suitably cheap and gluey and they don't skimp on the fillings.

The one criticism that is often levelled at FG is the price. Eight quid just for the cheeseburger isn't cheap, no matter how many handfuls of fried potatoes they throw in the bag to distract you; and it's hard - if you're in the Big Smoke at any rate - not to think of P&B, Shake Shack MEATliquor et al at a similar price point. But, although contributors to the Guardian comments section may disagree, there is life outside London, and often Five Guys may well be your best provincial beef-based option.

With the sun finally putting his hat on, I had to take one of my last busman's holidays to the magnificent Library of Birmingham, where I thought of local lad and sci-fi author John Wyndham's words “And we danced, on the brink of an unknown future, to an echo from a vanished past.”