New Entry: Lalehzar

Yesterday, I published a review of Lalehzar, Persian restaurant in Hockley, Birmingham.

http://wonderbirmingham.co.uk/birmingham/lalehzar_en.html

As I have already announced in the previous entry, this is a BAD review. So, read it. Bad reviews are always more entertaining than good ones! Well, at least I enjoy more when I read bad ones.

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By the way, today I went to Jojolapa in city centre for lunch. I won't be able to write the review until the weekend at the earliest, so a sneak preview.

Two course meal for £9 or £10 (I am not sure here), and you get a generous quantity of delicious food. If you make it for weekday lunch, it is a good deal. I do recommend

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It is really cold tonight, but the heater seems to be broken. Have to call the landlord tomorrow, again. Grrrrrr.

Bad Meal

Yesterday, I went to a Persian restaurant in Hockley called Lalehzar.



It was a memorably bad meal. Maybe it was the worst, or the second worst I have had during five years in Birmingham.

I have read many good reviews on this place: great food, great service, and great price. In my experience, only the last was true. But, when the food isn't good, I cannot say it was cheap. It would have been cheaper eating at home, or at a fast food joint just around the corner.

In recent months, I have had nothing but good meal. I immensely liked Turners, Ananda Bhavan, and Red 'N Hot. I had a bad meal in Portugal in October, but all the rest was from good to superb, as far as I can recall. If you are a regular reader of my restaurant reviews, you should be wondering if I can score less than 7/10, like Mr. Paul Fulford of Birmingham Mail who seems to have good experience in every restaurant in Birmingham (which, actually, isn't so strange when virtually all the restaurateurs in town know he is a restaurant critique).

Actually I can. I am terribly critical when I have to. Just, honestly, I have not had bad meals, partly because I have been lucky, partly because of a matter of course. Different from professional food critiques who are sent to certain restaurants for specific reasons, I just go to the restaurants I want to go after having carefully studied reviews and menus. As I have to pay from my wallet, I do all I can to avoid the places where I might have bad meal.

I hate to write a bad review of a privately run restaurant. But I will. There are too many good reviews on this place and I need to redress the balance.

New Entry: Turners of Harborne

Yes, finally, I went to Turner's.

http://www.wonderbirmingham.co.uk/birmingham/turners_en.html



I am afraid I cannot afford £40 a la carte (not because it does not worth it, but just because I don't earn enough!), so I went for lunch. £17.50 for 3 is a good price, but with a coffee and petits fours, it got more expensive than the lunch at Edmund's. Read the review for the detail.

As I liked the food so much, I had already made another reservation. I hope Mr. Turner won't kick me out for what I wrote!

Organic Milk

I like organic milk.

Not because it is organic, environment friendly, and animal caring, but because it tastes better.

There are people who can tell good wine from bad wine. I cannot. But, I can tell good milk from bad milk. Ha!

Organic milk tastes sweet and has some kind of umami in it. If you put a glass of organic milk and a glass of normal milk in front of me, I can tell which is which even before drinking it.

Recently, however, I noticed that not all the organic milks taste good. When I lived in Beawood I used to buy it from Somerfield's. It was fine. When ASDA came to Cape Hill, I started to buy ASDA organic milk, which is also good.

Then I tried one from Saintsbury's. Surprise. I could not sense the difference from ordinary milk. I felt cheated and decided never to buy organic milk from Saintsbury's.

Tesco's organic milk tastes slightly better than Sainsbury's, but isn't distinct enough to be 'organic' for me.

Now that I live in Edgbaston Reservoir area, the nearest supermarket is Tesco's and the next one is city centre Sainsbury's. Where I can buy my milk!?

What happens is that I have to go back every weekend to Cape Hill to buy organic milk in ASDA.

But, two days ago, I discovered M&S organic milk is just as good and costs the same (although an iceberg lettuce costs 99p in M&S while in other supermarket I can find for less than 80p). It is also very creamy (I wanted semi-skimmed, but I god full-fat one, as the organic semi-skimmed they had were to expire in 2 days!); I can see the buttery substance sticking at the top of the bottle. I went to Harborne M&S, but the city centre one should sell the same thing.

Did you imagine the quality of milk is so different from one supermarket to the other? Certainly I did not.

New Features in University Centre

Went to the University Centre in the University of Birmingham. That is a building containing various shops and facilities of students and staff.

And I notices a few new features.

First, this. It is a display showing bus timetable of the departures from uni. Wow. New technology.

If only the bus runs more punctually...

This is the International Food Shop (I think that is the name) saying that now they sell Greek and Polish foods (they used to specialise in East Asian food).

When I passed there, it was still closed. I have to go back to see what they have on offer.

By the way, tomorrow (3 December) there will be a special Christmas Farmers' Market outside the Staff House. If you live near the University or work/study there, watch out for it.