Restaurant Review: Pushkar, Broad Street, Birmingham
Pushkar ****
245 Broad Street, Birmingham. T: 0121 643 7978
Richard McComb holds a student reunion at the latest arrival in the city’s thriving ‘new Indian’ cuisine scene.
I don’t usually think about which music to play before I go out for dinner.
If I’m pushed, I might give Led Zeppelin a belt, to ramp up the adrenaline. But this night was different. Black Dog was all wrong. I was meeting Kylie and Jason, two old, and ageing, friends from university and I wanted to recreate the intoxicating magic of 1985.
(Actually, when I say Kylie and Jason were “two” of my friends, they were pretty much my only friends. If you know me now, and think I’m selective, you should have seen me then.)
So what would I turn to to re-ignite the glory days of wild mid-80s debauched student abandon? Some classic rock perhaps? A medley of indie anthems? Dark Side Of The Moon or Meat Is Murder? What did I play back in the day?
I did have an album by The The and they were indisputably cool. But you were more likely to have caught me in my digs in Hull, spraying on the aftershave and spiking my hair, to the pulsating throb of, hmmm, Luther Vandross, Alexander O’Neal and Teddy “Love TKO” Pendergrass.
Sadly, the day after I dined with Kylie and Jason, the death of dear old Teddy was announced. There’s a symmetry there somewhere.
The three of us last got together five years ago. Jason lives in Australia and is worse at keeping in touch than me and I’m appalling. Kylie, a Northerner, happens to live in Sutton Coldfield these days, but we don’t meet, talk or text. For half a decade we are strangers, then we meet up, get giddy and disappear again.
Being neurotic, I quickly worked out that Jason, a barrister, and Kylie, an education executive, earn far more than I do. This is rubbish because I worked far harder than both of them at uni. Kylie failed her degree first time round, having spent most of her three-year course in bed. When she tearfully broke the news that she’d flunked, she claims I comforted her, which I find hard to believe. Jason was always more erudite and told the howling girl: “It’s not a surprise. You haven’t done any work.”
Calculations swiftly confirmed my ill-educated old muckers were out-earning me by £100,000-ish. Dear Kylie kindly pointed out that as I was the youngest – she’s 43, Rumpole’s 45, which is nearly 50 – this was fine. The youngest member of the family was just finding his feet, she said. Ahh. What a great mate, even if won’t see her until 2015.
Kylie and Jason were shocked to learn I am a food critic. This is the reaction I get from most people, especially those in the catering business who often say: “Jumped up twerp.” My two amigos fancied a curry so I took them to Pushkar in Broad Street. I hadn’t been before but had heard good reports, so presumed it was awful.
