|
|
|
|
|
R.I.P SUNDAY ROAST
In a move that's bolder than Goldfinger's ploy to kill Bond with a painfully slow laser beam while out of the bloody room, we're declaring the English Sunday roast DEAD. But in a slightly more cowardly move we're doing it for just one day. Event three in the incessantly-selling-out Colmore BID Food Festival Fringe sees Chung Ying Central serve their take on a Sunday Roast. For £17.50 (plus booking fee) get dim sum and starters including king prawn parcels, the easily skippable steamed ducks tongue and char siu buns. Then out comes the clincher - roast piglet with rice stuffed in lotus leaves, noodles and pak choi. There's even dessert in the form of steamed liquid gold buns plus your choice of beer, wine or a Shanghai Rose cocktail. May 29 from 12pm. Because it would be pretty weird to have lunch at the other 12. Tickets
|
|
GIN TO YOUR OFFICE
Gin tastings have gone mobile. So mobile, in fact, that you can get generous measures including Opihr, William Chase GB and Whitley Neill all the way to a meeting room near you. Because all team events go better when you add juniper. From the people behind Cellar Door, book in with The Gin Tasting Group for a minimum of ten before the end of June and mention us to get your mitts on a free gin gift pack (usually £29.95). There's a carefully selected programme of six drops, which offer stonking range, and the team are also happy to discuss bespoke selections for the experienced gin palate. Expect some great garnish chat. Don't work in an office or no wish to spend any more time in it? Hit the Old Joint Stock, on June 11, for a 7pm tutorship with The Gin Tasting Group, including six independent producers. Tickets (at £25) right here.
|
|
|
NEW EXHIBITION: BUTTONS AND BOWS
We're not sure whether to laugh, cry or just ask the next person we happen to walk past for a hug. Part of a wonderfully maniacal seven-part tale of Kurt Cobain and Courtney Lo... sorry Mickey and Minnie's meeting and imagined parting, Birmingham-based Joe Buck's refreshingly original series of digital works have to be seen in order, and at full scale, to be given the innings they are deserving of. And while Buck focuses on the darker, broken, hidden side of society his use of colour and—we're just going to say it—fun—makes this storyboard of prints something to enjoy as well as something to ponder at quieter moments. Yours from £375 to £440, you can also catch the artist's entirely different acrylics at St Paul's Gallery, until June 7. Times & location
|
|
FILM PICK: EVERYBODY WANTS SOME!!
Texan auteur Richard Linklater has followed up his award-magnet Boyhood with this goofy college comedy. Yes, it’s in the same genre as Animal House, but there’s Linklater’s usual loose, amiable examination of big ideas, here underlying the high jinks. And what high jinks they are: we follow a baseball team on the first weekend of the 1980 academic year as they pile on superhuman quantities of beer and try to get laid in as many ways and with as many women as possible. It may sound boorish, but these are smart, sensitive guys, and there’s the exquisitely nostalgic feeling that, for them, this is their peak. Times & trailer
|
|
|
MAKE WAY IKEA, WE'VE GOT MID-CENTURY TEAK
Since its production began in 1950, the Wishbone Chair has been made with the same 14 parts which require 100 separate processes. That's a lot of processes. And while we'd struggle to inform you about even a one of them, Brum's Just Be Retro is in the habit of sourcing, tailoring, restoring and refinishing British and Scandinavian mid-century furniture, bringing it back to its halcyon days, or, giving it the sort of twist that makes every one of your house guests covet it. Be a covetee.
|
|
|
|
Venue: The Restaurant, Harvey Nichols, The Mailbox, B1 1RE; website
Choice: Roasted rump of spring lamb (£17) Chooser: Assistant Manager
The good chaps and chapesses over at Harvey Nics have been having some spring-inspired DMCs with their all-day menu. And the results are light, fresh and herbaceous, whilst maintaining a strong selection of main event meat dishes with a twist of sunshine. Sourced from Aberdeenshire's Donald Russell, the velvety lamb is sous-vide and cooked for one hour in a water bath, at 56°C. The gloriously pink rump is then seared and given the briefest of rests before making nice with something akin to a pea cassoulet. Bordering on an obsession of head chef, Mark Walsh, the warm salad starts the night before, when green split peas begin their soaking. Cooked in chicken stock, fresh peas, broad beans, fine beans and a carefully balanced mix of herbs are added to the soft split peas. The result is the definition of springtime. Truffle mac'n'cheese is an obligatory side. Rather than simply sprinkling the top of the pasta with the good stuff, the kitchen stirs it through, ensuring every bite is as rich and as right as the last.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
