"You Choose" — Zen Metro

Venue: Zen Metro, 73 Cornwall Street, B3 2DF; website 
Choice: King's Platter, (£79.50) Chooser: Signature dish

There are two kinds of people in this world; those who enjoy sharing platters and those who — for reasons best explored in therapy — would rather eat the crockery than divvy-up a dish. If you fall into the latter category then the following might give you seismic jitters. How about ordering a sharing starter platter, as a main? No main course safety net to yourself. Just the above and, as a side dish, a bowl of Thai green chicken curry — also to share. What you're looking at is whole lobster, (six out of ten) pork ribs (eight out of ten), smoked duck (nine out of ten), chicken stir fry (six out of ten) and grilled jumbo prawns (eight out of ten) and split four ways it'll cost just under £20 a head. And with that bowl of chick-chick it saw off four grown men, without breaking a sweat. Unlike the men. Is it the best quality lobster we've ever had? No, no it's not. But it sure was a hefty crustacean surrounded by equally plump, charred prawns and pick of the platter, a thunderously spicy but handled-with-care, juicy pink duck. This isn't the best dish in Birmingham, not by a distance. It's not event the best Thai dish in Birmingham, but it'll bring smiles to faces, and there's plenty of room for that in this world. Menu