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CHANNEL YOUR INNER RAGE
The Rage Room is probably the most cathartic space in existence — luxury spas explicitly included. Your sole aim is to destroy everything placed in front of you, using a worrying selection of crowbars and baseball bats. Small items for the destruction, like glassware and crockery, are included in all packages, while you can bolt on heavy duty hardware like full office printers, if you've got A LOT of stress to out. We particularly excelled at the extermination of computer keyboards (put them on an angle, strike centrally). The dress code is Slipknot (and provided) so all you need to do is bring your musical selection — we tested out soundtracks from Rage Against The Machine, to Handel, to Bewitched with a 100% success rate. From £20, it's just up from the Chinese Pagoda. Click the pic for a video, then join the rest of Birmingham in booking here.
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FROM KOREA TO THE LEBANON, VIA DIGBETH
Kimchi wasn't exactly top of the "must purchase" list for us at food markets, until we met fermenting bosses, Barrel & Bone, who somehow make sauerkraut look good. Find them at the spring seasonal market this Saturday at The Bond, where you're invited — probably not for the first time in your life — to give money in exchange for foodstuffs. If salted Korean cabbage isn't your bag (Dad) The Kebab Cartel are making their first appearance, and bringing with them a grass fed lamb's leg with charred halloumi and jumbo peppers, served on Lebanese flatbread. Starting from 12pm, you'll also find plenty of artists, designers and at least one Routemaster bus bar. Entry will set you back £2.
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FILM PICK: THE BELKO EXPERIMENT
Guardians of the Galaxy director James Gunn has a past in darker fare than the Marvel machine. He wrote the script for this uncompromisingly nasty film, but handed directing reins to Aussie Greg McLean, who was behind the similarly brutal Wolf Creek. The employees at an American company’s Colombian office are gathered and told they must all fight to the death, or explosives in their ‘tracking devices’ will explode their heads; all hell, naturally, breaks loose. Yes, it’s a straight-up Battle Royale knock-off, and the second half peters out rather than ratchets up the madness, but there’s a pleasing commitment to brutality that will satisfy horror-heads. Be warned though, this is strong stuff.
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Venue: Zindiya, 21 Woodbridge Road, Moseley, B13 8EH; website
Choice: Samosa chaat (£4) Chooser: Waiter
Moseley's got a sweetheart. And if you still haven't been, you're 100% right to put Zindiya into the upper echelons of your hit list. Not in a shooty way — that's illegal — but whether you're on date night or going with group of friends, you're going to like it. Settle in with a cocktail list that's got infinitely more game than its equivalents, coming from the cranium of Smultronställe founder, Rob Wood. If you're into heat, LIME2 is a pretty vodka-based, Madras-inspired creation with piquanty pickle being the predominant flavour. On food, get a big ol' mix of the small plates (£3 to £4) to start things off, and make sure that includes the samosa chaat — crispy layers of pastry filled with spicy chickpeas, tamarind and a zippy mint coriander chutney. Despite our wild predisposition towards lamb chops (which devour, we did) it really was the veggie start that had us violently footsie-ing our co-reviewer for final bite rights. Menu; drinks
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BOOKMARK THIS
Birmingham Literature Festival's got a spring thing happening this weekend. Lionel Shriver, author of We Need to Talk About Kevin, is the big ticket deal, with her latest novel The Mandibles at the library on Sunday evening. Imagining a scenario where that wall is built, but this one is constructed by Mexico to keep Americans out, it pretty much just gets more unsettling from there. Full programme
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FREE OYSTERS
Opus, harbingers of some of the best and freshest sea meat in this whole damn town, have a deal that you need to know about. Every Friday and Saturday from April 21 and throughout summer they'll serve a complimentary dozen Carlingford rock oysters with every bottle of Champagne purchased. Call 0121 200 2323 immediately. Or leave it until a bit later. Either's good.
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BE A TODDLER AGAIN
Second city wannabees Manchester are sending the UK's largest adults only ball pit to Millennium Point, May 5 to 7. And if this isn't some sort of Trojan Horse plot to pinch one of our Michelin stars, then we should all go along and play nice. There's 200,000 coloured balls and inflatables to fool about in, in exchange for eight of your Brummie pounds. That's the equivalent of about 500 Mancunian pounds. Book
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