Credit Crunch Lunch - Hotel du Vin

Jan 30 2009 by Richard McComb, Birmingham Post

Place: Hotel du Vin, Church Street, Birmingham. Tel: 0121 200 0600.
Why go? Discretion means it’s one of the few places left to drink Champagne without feeling guilty. Simon Cowell’s crash pad.
Price Current deal (to the end of March) includes two courses, a bottle of wine and coffee for £29 for two. Or go a la carte. We did.
The Meal: There was a good selection of reasonably priced, wholesome starters – chicken liver parfait (£6.95), lamb kidneys and wild mushrooms (£4.95) and crayfish and haddock fishcake (£6.75), the latter a “club” favourite with a colleague whose nose is more regularly in the trough than my own.
Rating: * * * *

However, time was against us, or, more accurately, time was against my guest. She’s yet to learn there is no point fighting time. It’s a no-win situation. Far better to let it wash over you, especially when lunch is concerned.

“Shouldn’t we be timing how long this takes?” she said. “It would be good for your review. People lead busy lives, not like you, they want to know how long lunch takes. So watch the clock.”

I knew she was right, but I can’t dine out like a BBC sports correspondent, clocking the split times as Waiter One hands the bread basket to Waiter Two. “And here comes the sommelier. Just look at that wrist action. He’s all over the place ... ”

And I knew, I just knew, there was no one in Hong Kong waiting on me for a 2pm telephone conference.

So I didn’t watch the clock. But take it from me: if service is slow, or poor, aggressive or lewd (I’ve had all three), I’ll flag it up in this column. The service at Hotel du Vin was just fine.

As I didn’t fancy getting punched by my guest I agreed to forego a starter. Muttering ‘If I thought we were only going to have half a lunch I wouldn’t have invited you,’ my spirits were lifted by a delightful plate of Worcestershire whole roast partridge, game chips and bread sauce. The flesh was beautiful and sucking the heat-softened bones of small birds is terrific, tasty fun.

The dish cost £17.95, sans veg. A portion of buttered Savoy cabbage cost another £2.95. The brassica was brill but I think customers are going to get tetchy about extras in the slump. I know this has been going on for years, and I appreciate margins are being squeezed and wages have to be paid, but I am a great believer in a fully-costed, slightly more expensive veg-inclusive dish. Plus, my mother beat me if I asked for anything extra.

My guest had a good bowl of tagliatelle with wild mushrooms, artichoke, sun-blushed tomato and pine nuts. It looked great and she said it was jolly good. She took 7 minutes 43 seconds.

Desserts are usually top drawer and £6.75 for a well-prepared posh pud is good going. My lemon and strawberry posset, with great just-like-your-granny-made shortbread, was a fruity joy and reminder of summer. Mrs Busy had the prune and Armagnac tart, milk ice cream and spiced prune compote. We had a glass of wine – house chardonnay (her), Rousillon red (me).

All very agreeable. If you are ever stuck for a wine suggestion, just ask head sommelier Francois Bourde.