Curry in Brum

"For the curry!" was the official line we had when people asked why we made a quick stopover in Birmingham before we headed back home after spending a week in London. While it's not entirely accurate, but we did want to check out the Indian restaurant scene while we were there, given the reputation of the town being the "Curry Capital of UK".

Lunch 'Til Dusk

Making a reservation at eat at The Greenhouse was perhaps one of the best decisions I made for our recent London trip. I followed my chef friend D’s recommendation to plan for a lunch there while we were in town (after hearing him raving all about it and its chef Alex Dilling’s cooking a few weeks ago).

Sunday at Frenchie

My wife gave me a strange look when we (with our nephew) walked into Frenchie at Covent Garden on a Sunday afternoon with absolutely no one inside. I have been raving about my solo dinner at the Frenchie Wine Bar, one of its sister restaurants in Paris, a few years back, so it seems odd that the place was empty when every restaurant on the block was filling with weekend brunch crowd in the busy neighborhood of Covent Garden.

Feel Like New

It does feel like a whole new restaurant when Man Ho at JW Marriott went through months of refurbishments and re-opened a couple of months ago. And a new Chinese name too, more for the practical reason of differentiating with another restaurant under the Marriott banner miles away.

The brief break also gave Chef Jayson an opportunity to re-work the menu at his restaurant, which I was able to try when we went for a casual family dinner a few weeks ago. The dinner went off an interesting start with the introduction of an amuse-bouche dish, which was a chunk of pickled papaya garnished with lime zest. More Thai style than Chinese, but it was refreshing.

Pre-Christmas Lunch

I thought we would pay Chef Guillaume's team a visit at Caprice before they got swarmed during the Christmas week. Well, special “festive menu” may not be our thing, but given my last meal here was already 3 months ago, I am interested in checking out some of their new seasonal dishes.