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Restaurant Review: The Chef's Dozen, Longbarn Village, Alcester, Warwickshire B49 5JJ

*****

BEING a grizzled old grump, there are few occasions on which my heart excitedly skips a beat.Read

Restaurant Review: Chao Baby, 6 Spiceal Street, Bull Ring, Birmingham B5 4BH. 0121 643 2424.

*

LET’S find something positive to say about Chaobaby. Here goes. The staff eventually brought the right dishes to our table.Read

Restaurant Review: Saffron, 126 Colmore Row, Birmingham B3 3AP. Tel: 0121 212 0599.

***

THERE are some things that simply have no place together.Read

Restaurant Review: Marco Pierre White Steakhouse, Bar and Grill, The Cube, Birmingham B1 1PR. 0121 634 3433.

****

SIMPLE holds its own delights... unless, of course, it comes in a school report about your child.Read

Restaurant Review: The Asquith, 11 Newhall Street, Birmingham B3 3NY. 0121 200 1588.

*****

THE link between a childhood holiday in Great Yarmouth back in the early 1960s and fine dining in 21st century Birmingham may not seem obvious.Read

Food Review: Peels - Birmingham

***

PEEL’S is a restaurant of some ambition, boasting a talented chef and a menu that reflects his impressive pedigree.Read

Restaurant Review: Kababish, 29 Wooodbridge Road, Moseley, B13 8EH. 0121 449 5556.

****

THERE can be few Brummies who don’t have a favourite curry house – a place that offers a warm welcome, good food at a fair price and is within walking distance so that those pints of Cobra can be consumed without worrying about the drink-driving laws.Read

Restaurant Review: Brasserie at Malmaison, The Mailbox, Birmingham B1 1RD. 0121 246 5000.

LOCAL has come to mean ‘good’ in the restaurant world, probably because what was once exotic fare from far away has now become rather familiar and therefore dull.Read

Restaurant Review: Sanskrit, 1122 Stratford Road, Hall Green B28 8AE. 0121 702 2244.

MY FAULT for not properly reading the menu, perhaps.Read

Restaurant Review: Blue Piano, 24-26 Harborne Road, Birmingham B15 3AA.

***

THE tentacles of that creative powerhouse that is Moseley and Kings Heath appear to be spreading into less advantaged parts of the city.Read

Restuarant Review: Sabai Sabai, 268 High Street, Harborne, Birmingham. 0121 426 2688.

THE urge towards vegetarianism does not engulf me often for I am a man who scorns the prissiness of those who get dewy-eyed about animals, which, every sensible person knows, were put on Earth simply to provide me with chunks of meat and offal.Read

Restaurant Review: Purnell's, 55 Cornwall Street, Birmingham B3 2DH. 0121 212 9799.

IN THESE cash-strapped times, it’s probably insensitive to describe a £120 lunch for two as a “bargain”.Read

Restaurant Review: Metro Bar And Grill, 680-684 Warwick Road, Solihull, B91 3DX. 0121 705 9495.

CURSE the council that imposes evening parking charges in a shopping and entertainment area at a time when businesses are struggling.Read

Restaurant Review: Rainbow, 59 High Street, Kings Heath B14 7BH. 0121 444 4195.

ONE of the gravest embarrassments of a restaurant reviewer’s life is to be urged to visit someone’s favourite place only to discover that it isn’t very good.Read

Restaurant Review: Aria, Hyatt Regency Hotel, 2 Bridge Street, Birmingham B1 2JZ. 0121 643 1234.

EATING out at lunchtime is a pleasant way to wile away the hours, especially if work doesn’t demand your return after a last hurried mouthful.Read

The Spice Room

Restaurant Review: The Spice Room, The Bird-In-The-Hand, Birmingham Road, Henley-In-Arden B95 5QR. 01564 792 689.

OUR good old-fashioned British boozers – the premises, not those of us known for their enthusiastic and reckless consumption of alcohol – have been having a tough time over recent years.Read

City Cafe

Restaurant Review: City Cafe, Mint Hotel, Brindleyplace, Birmingham

THE similarities between Scotland and Japan are not obvious.Read

Restaurant Review: Shiraz, 167 Hagley Road , Edgbaston B16 8UQ. Tel: 0121 4545 9911.

LEAVING a restaurant with regrets can be a good thing. So long, of course, that those regrets don’t involve extreme inebriation, violence or physical acts of a grotesque and revolting kind.Read

Restaurant Review: La Banca, 1896 Pershore Road, Cotteridge, B30 3AS.

THE chef shuffled over to tell me that the dish I was so enjoying was based on one of his mother’s recipes.Read

Restaurant Review: Tin Tin, 9F Water's Edge, Brindleyplace, Birmingham B1 2hl. Tel: 0121 633 0888.

ON a summer evening when the sun is shining and a band is performing an outdoor concert, Tin Tin’s position above Brindleyplace isn’t the most appealing of the restaurants in the area.Read