Review: Simpsons, in Edgbaston
Simpsons
Highfield Road, Edgbaston. 0121 454 3434
Unarguably fine food and an Albanian named Tony defuse a potentially explosive McComb family dinner.
Moving house, getting divorced or being fired are cited as the most stressful events in life.
Yet these upheavals barely constitute ripples in the ocean of human anguish compared with the tsunami whipped up by that most dreaded of ritual encounters: the family lunch.
Anything can happen once relatives get round the table. Introduce parents or in-laws – particularly my parents – into the equation and anything will happen.
Like most families, we reserve our worst excesses for domestic dining. It can go off at any moment, from queries about the paucity of gravy supplies – Father: “Are we having gravy? Are we? You never make enough” – to admonishments over plate temperatures – Father: “How can you possibly serve hot food on cold plates?” – to incredulity about cooking times – Father: “It’s raw, I tell you. Raw. Stark raving raw.”
You may have noticed a common theme. It’s Father. He’s like Gordon Ramsay but older, without the hair, the amyl nitrate or the three Michelin stars. In a controlled environment, like our home, we have found ways to manage him, typically by keeping him out of the kitchen and ensuring his glass is topped up to meniscus proportions.
In fairness, Father tends to behave when dining out, although I have noticed he channels his gastronomy rage (a similar condition to car rage but with cutlery) via a little-known food-lover’s condition: Wrong Dish Syndrome.
It’s a genetic curse. Father inherited it from his mother and I fear I am a carrier. My daughters are doomed. Wrong Dish Syndrome manifests itself in determining to choose the dish you most fancy before inexplicably changing your mind at the very moment where the waiter says: “And sir would like ...?” At this point, the sufferer picks the dish they are least likely to enjoy before plunging into a fog of denial.
Dear Granny would order Dover sole and when it arrived she would stare nonplussed at the plate of succulent white flesh, saying: “I didn’t think it would involve Dover sole. Ooo, no, no. Not Dover sole. I’d never order that. Could I have the Steak Diane instead?”
Father has exhibited signs of this condition in recent years, ordering oxtail when he really fancied poached turbot. So we were on tenterhooks when we arrived at Simpsons in Edgbaston. Would he blurt out salmon tartare when he meant suckling pig? Any fears were quickly assuaged by the friendly, calm efficiency of our star waiter, Albanian Tony. He’s an Albanian (that’s what he says) working in a French-inspired restaurant, in Birmingham, who speaks English with a French accent. Is he really Albanian, or is he French? Is he really a waiter, or is he a spy? Frankly, I don’t care because Tony knows how to handle Father. Every restaurant should have an Albanian Tony.
