Hurrah, it's the Birmingham ....
Posted: 14 Aug 2013, 16:39..... International Food Festival fortnight !!!
So we visited today, lots of booths set up around Centenary Square in front of the Town Hall. I boycotted the gourmet ostrich burgers as I don't hold with cannerbolism, and also the Spanish paella stalls as a protest over Gibraltar.
It's all very well having lots of booths, but the choice was perhaps too great, there wasn't a lot of places to sit down and eat, and you had to fight a temptation not to finish up at McDonalds !!
Actually, it was interesting to see the ethnicities at work .... by 11:30, the German bratwurst booth was in full flow, at the French Provencale booth I was initially met with a Gallic shrug and "not cooked yet, come back later" and the Spanish paella people had only just got their woks out !!
So we settled on a plain bratwurst each, £4 a throw
, which was .... well, pretty plain, really, 5/10. Reasonable size and charcoal grilled, but at the end of the day, just a hot-dog.
By that time, the French had got their act together, so I had a Provençale Creamy Chicken (£5) with a hint of mustard and garlic potatoes in a sort of peppercorn sauce, which was quite tasty, but the chicken was perhaps a tad gristly, 6.5/10. Mrs O wandered off to an English Ice Cream stall and had a small tub of tiramisu flavoured ice cream (£2) that you wouldn't really have known was tiramisu unless you were told, 5/10.
To take home, Mrs O bought venison sausages and a herb-stuffed boneless chicken breast from a stall where we gathered they (a Derbyshire firm) have a deal with the National Trust to cull excess deer on their land, and the O visited the Medieval Pye Shop where they were selling Crow Pyes.
"Are those really crow pies, then?"
"Oh yes!"
"Good grief, what do you do, shoot them?"
"No, we trap them humanely .... "
They were also doing Squirrel Pyes .... a bridge too far for me, though, I settled on a couple of Medieval Squealers, (sausage rolls), one was the Lancastrian Rose Squealer (pork and black puddin'), the other the Henry VIII Squealer (pork, venison, and pear, I think) .... £1.99 each. They're now in the fridge !
Altogether, a good day out !
So we visited today, lots of booths set up around Centenary Square in front of the Town Hall. I boycotted the gourmet ostrich burgers as I don't hold with cannerbolism, and also the Spanish paella stalls as a protest over Gibraltar.
It's all very well having lots of booths, but the choice was perhaps too great, there wasn't a lot of places to sit down and eat, and you had to fight a temptation not to finish up at McDonalds !!
Actually, it was interesting to see the ethnicities at work .... by 11:30, the German bratwurst booth was in full flow, at the French Provencale booth I was initially met with a Gallic shrug and "not cooked yet, come back later" and the Spanish paella people had only just got their woks out !!
So we settled on a plain bratwurst each, £4 a throw
, which was .... well, pretty plain, really, 5/10. Reasonable size and charcoal grilled, but at the end of the day, just a hot-dog.By that time, the French had got their act together, so I had a Provençale Creamy Chicken (£5) with a hint of mustard and garlic potatoes in a sort of peppercorn sauce, which was quite tasty, but the chicken was perhaps a tad gristly, 6.5/10. Mrs O wandered off to an English Ice Cream stall and had a small tub of tiramisu flavoured ice cream (£2) that you wouldn't really have known was tiramisu unless you were told, 5/10.
To take home, Mrs O bought venison sausages and a herb-stuffed boneless chicken breast from a stall where we gathered they (a Derbyshire firm) have a deal with the National Trust to cull excess deer on their land, and the O visited the Medieval Pye Shop where they were selling Crow Pyes.
"Are those really crow pies, then?"
"Oh yes!"
"Good grief, what do you do, shoot them?"
"No, we trap them humanely .... "
They were also doing Squirrel Pyes .... a bridge too far for me, though, I settled on a couple of Medieval Squealers, (sausage rolls), one was the Lancastrian Rose Squealer (pork and black puddin'), the other the Henry VIII Squealer (pork, venison, and pear, I think) .... £1.99 each. They're now in the fridge !
Altogether, a good day out !
