Eat something unconventional

Food is a big part of my life, I really enjoy cooking and until I met my wife I always thought I was pretty good at it. It seems that in actual fact my culinary expertise was quite limited and I have now been shown the error of my ways.
When I was a kid I was really picky when it came to the types of food I would actually eat, I would not eat many vegetables and there were many occasions when my dinner plate would leave the table as full as when it arrived.
I have to say that in recent years I have become more adventurous and I have tried many of the foods that I would never even consider and they have actually become some of my favourites. We nearly had a family crisis a few weeks ago when my sister in law threatened to eat all of the Cauliflower cheese before I could get to it. Luckily she was only joking and there was plenty left by the time the serving dish made its way to me. I think in some ways my present attitude towards food must be making up for my previous fussy eating habits as nowadays I really enjoy a challenge and find myself actually looking for different types of foods to try.
My first experience of unusual food was on a trip to Thailand, there was a food court just over the road from the hotel and I pointed at an item on the menu and received something that bore no resemblance to what I wanted. I was a bowl with a weird soup and even weirder contents. I somehow managed to get a description of what I was eating and it turned out to be Steamed fish innards. To make this a more acceptable dish they accompanied it with a Quails egg.
On my last trip to Australia we all ended up in a restaurant that had a platter which had 3 alternative types of meat on offer so I had to give it a go. They had Crocodile, Ostrich and Kangaroo all one plate. It is often said that the Australians are the only nation to eat the animals featured on their crest but after trying Kangaroo and Ostrich I can see no reason for them to stop. I actually tried both of these again just a few weeks ago at the Good Food show in Birmingham where they were serving up these tasty meats in a Burger. I have to say that I was not really a fan of the crocodile, it had a slightly fishy taste but the thing that put me off the most was the texture. It was a little too slimy for my liking.
Also at the Good Food show I had the chance to try a Wild Boar Hot dog, this was really nice and I am eager to try this again if the same stall is at the summer show when we return in June.

While all these are quite exotic things to try, they are still just meat and you know that this isn’t going to be too much different to any of the other types of meat you have tried in the past. One of my real challenges came when I went to a French Bistro in Birmingham and found that they had Snails on the menu as a starter. I looked at it a few times and in the end my wife dared me to have them. I asked the waiter what to expect and he told me that they were like mussels so I went ahead and ordered them. He lied. Snails are nothing like Mussels. For a start, they look nothing like Mussels, they actually look like snails. The portion I had were not served in the shell, they were just placed on the plate among the garnish so you were under no illusion on what you were just about to eat, Secondly they are a little more chewy than Mussels and finally they have a weird earthy taste that stays with you even after the Snail has gone.

I don’t think I would be in any rush to try these again, they say that they are an acquired taste but I am not really inclined to eat enough of these to acquire the taste for them.
So, that is my experience of “Alternative cuisine”, it’s not exactly a bush tucker trial but when you consider that as a kid I would not eat cabbage I really have come a long way.

Click here to read more tales of “Culinary Adventures” from Danny Davies.

Spend Christmas in a different country

Every year as it got closer to Christmas my parents would have the same conversation.
They would talk about how it was a great expense for just one day and how fed up they became because the weather was so miserable and how one year it would be nice to be waited on for a change.

Christmas is a lot of hard work, particularly when you have people coming for dinner and have a beast of a bird to cook. The general rule of thermodynamics means that the bigger the bird, the earlier you have to rise to get the dinner in the oven so, for the cook, Christmas can be a very long day.

Anyway, one year it was decided that instead of doing the traditional Christmas at home we’d go to Spain and have Christmas in a completely different environment. The group consisted of myself, my sister, my parents and my nan and we were going to spend 3 or 4 days in Salou for our festive season. I have to admit that hindsight is a wonderful thing and looking back I would not do this again. At any other time it would have been a lovely long weekend away, the weather was not brilliant but it was still good enough to walk on the beach but Sunbathing was not really on the agenda. Also, the season was finished so the majority of the bars were closed meaning that we only really had the entertainment and facilities of the hotel available to us. The Christmas dinner itself was OK but you never manage to replicate the whole family vibe when you have a large number of people in a dining area, the whole experience was lacking in atmosphere and the food was not what you would normally have when you and your family have lovingly crafted over it for hours on end but the biggest disappointment was the fact that you can’t just sit and relax afterwards and watch a James Bond Movie or the Queens speech or whatever it is that you decide to tune into as the rooms were simply a bed and a bathroom and the only sitting room available was the hotel bar.

A few years later I spent Christmas in Australia

this was more of the result of a year out rather than a decision to actually spend the festive season in a different country and that was pretty much the same experience apart from when the dessert course came out it turned into a food fight. I have tried to enjoy Christmas in different environments but it all comes down to the simple fact that it just isn’t the same as a Christmas spent at home, in comfortable surroundings with your family around you.

Eat at a restaurant that has a Michelin star

Over the years I have been lucky enough to go to some nice places to eat. When I am on Holiday I am always on the lookout for good food, I guess I am at that stage in life where a night out isn’t a quick bite and then on to drinking as much as I can and dancing like a loon. I find it much more fun nowadays to have a nice meal and a few beers, plus this rarely leads to the explosive headaches the following day and a wasted day’s holiday while I recover from the previous night’s indulgence. The first time I ate at a restaurant that had a Michelin rating was in Portugal, my wife and her family have always referred to this restaurant as “Yellow Brollies” as it had yellow canopies outside. Its actual name is Restaurante Don Sebastião and is one of our favourite places to eat when we go to Portugal. The food is quite traditional and it is a great place to go to if you like to try different types of seafood as their fresh fish selection is very good. I was urged to try the Kid in clay pot, which is a slow cooked stew of Lamb, served in a clay pot…Exactly as the description suggests. When it was initially served I was not really expecting anything too special but I was so wrong. The meat was perfectly cooked and the whole meal was incredible. It was only after our second or third visit to this restaurant that I was made aware of the plaque on the wall indicating that the restaurant was mentioned in the Michelin guide.

The latest visit took us to Purnell’s Bistro in Birmingham, my wife casually mentioned that she would like to go there one day and since she is happy to go ahead and make other people’s dreams come true I wasted no time in booking the table for the weekend of her birthday.

I decided on a lunchtime visit and the table was booked for 1.30. 

To get to the restaurant part you need to go through “Gingers” cocktail bar, even at 1.30 on a Friday this was a lively place, the bar tenders were in full flight with their cocktail shakers and there were plenty of people sampling their impressively exotic looking drinks as we were shown to our table.

I’d had a chance to look at the Menu.

online a few days before but I still hadn’t decided what I was going to eat, my wife’s eyes widened when she started reading and she looked at me and pulled the face that tells me she is impressed or excited or both.

For my starter I decided on the Black Pudding with the poached egg yolk and Potato Rosti while Keely went for the goat’s cheese. For the main course it had to be the steak for me and Keely decided to have the Lamb shank.

The starter was nothing short of amazing, the rosti was a really thin layer of potato with the black pudding underneath, this was delicately spiced so that it didn’t overpower any of the other flavours that the dish had going on.  The egg, as you would expect, was perfectly cooked and the presentation was superb.  I almost felt guilty for destroying the work of art that was placed in front of me.

Keely’s starter was also amazingly presented, the goats cheese was accompanied by thin shavings of pear and the smallest delicate leaves of Rocket you would ever expect to see.  The detail that had been afforded to these dishes made us realise how special this place really was.

With the benefit of hindsight I would not have chosen a steak for my main meal, there was such a nice variety of food on offer that I now feel that not having something different was a bit of a wasted opportunity, after all a steak is a steak and you know you will rarely be disappointed.  The steak was good but I cannot say it was the best one I have ever had.  The star of the main course was, without a doubt, the potato. It was served in a small container and was a creamy mashed potato with a gratin on the top to liven it up a little.

To accompany Keely’s main meal the Lamb was served with curried lentil. Again, this was delicately spiced so it didn’t take anything away from the flavour of the lamb.

After we had finished our meals we knew we had not left any room for a dessert so declined the menu, instead we asked for an after dinner liqueur.  The waiter arranged for the Cocktail waiter to come and chat to us and we told him what we were looking for and a few minutes later he arrived with 2 glasses of Rhubarb Mumble.  It was made with fresh fruit and spices with a generous measure of spirit but it was so comforting and smelt like a glass of Christmas.

Our first experience at Purnells was brilliant and worthy of any special occasion.

Go deep sea fishing

The stag party fishing crew.

I have never understood why people go fishing, as a pastime it looks about as interesting as waiting for a newly painted wall to dry yet people seem to love sitting on the edge of a river bank in the cold and the rain waiting for a fish to take the tasty morsel that that they have secured to a hook and dangled into the water. I suppose I can understand it a little more if you are out there to feed the family and are looking for a substantial meal but to take the fish from the pool, have a quick picture taken and then put the fish back so that someone else can do exactly the same thing a little later on completely bemuses me. I do wonder how many times the same fish has been caught from the small pools that some people visit and how much bigger it gets every time they tell the story of their epic battle between man and fish. You can imagine, then, my delight when my mate announced that he had arranged for us all to go fishing for his stag do. All of the equipment had been sorted and he had got beer. It turns out that we were not just going to be sitting on a soggy river bank though on this occasion, as we were in Western Australia we were actually getting on a boat and going deep sea fishing. We met quite early in the morning by the side of the Swan River and got on the boat, the skipper had warned that conditions were not great so we may be in for a bit of a bumpy time but at first it didn’t seem too bad. We got batted about a little but that was put down to the movement of the boat but when we reached the fishing spot we saw what he meant. As soon as the boat stopped we were aware of the swell of the ocean. It felt like the boat had been moored on top of a giant see saw as it was rocking back and forth and left to right at the same time. There were a few people on board that couldn’t handle it and said hello to their breakfast, last night’s dinner and even yesterday’s lunch but others were unperturbed and wasted no time getting the lines in the water. The sea conditions were not just bad for the humans, it seems that there were very few fish about as well as only 1 or 2 people actually caught anything so after a while it was decided that we move on. Firstly to Rottnest Island, to drop off the ones who were feeling under the weather, and then onto a better spot. The second spot was not much better but after a little while we heard an excited yelp from the rear of the boat and a few of us rushed to see what was causing the uproar. One of the more experienced fishermen had a bite. He wasn’t sure what he’d got but it was a spirited little blighter and was already giving him a little trouble.

He spent about 10 -15 minutes letting the line out and reeling the fish in a little further then letting a little more line out and reeling in until his opponent came into view. A deathly hush fell over the boat when we saw what was on the end of the line. As he pulled at the line a dorsal fin popped above the surface of the water, he’d somehow managed to hook a small hammerhead shark, it was only a baby but still upwards of 18 inches – 2 foot in length. He worked harder and harder to get the beast and eventually man was the clear winner. As our excitement grew the skipper made his way to the back just as the head of the shark left the water. Our hammerhead was not happy about his encounter and his jaws were opening and closing like he was trying to eat the world’s chewiest toffee. All we needed were 2 more winds of the reel and the shark would be landed but the skipper stepped forward and cut the line, releasing the shark with an indignant, “Not on my boat lads, sorry”. He later explained that even though he was only a small fish, once he was landed he’d be a nightmare. He was thrashing about on the line, imagine that on a boat, with people. Although I was disappointed that they had not got to land a shark I was also happy that the angry mouthful of teeth stood no chance of being introduced to my soft human flesh. After this excitement we called it a day and made our way back to shore. The weather conditions had got worse by now so it was full speed back home. We arrived at our destination a dozen cold, wet stags with no fish to show for the day and an untouched tubs of beer. But we nearly caught a shark. How about that for a tale of the one that got away??

Witness a secret gig of a band I am a fan of

To attend a secret gig is a rare delight and is usually just a matter of being in the right place at the right time. I have heard stories of huge acts taking on a small venue just to practice the set before they embark on a tour of the arenas. I have heard of REM playing a show to 250 people in London under an assumed name in the past. My experience wasn’t of a band on this scale but I had avidly followed them for a couple of years and had all of their albums. The band in question were Wolfsbane, they had just released the album “All hell’s breaking loose at little Kathy Wilsons’s place”. The Title track is homage to the Sci-Fi movie “Invaders from Mars”. So, when I arrived at my usual drinking hole one Saturday evening and saw posters advertising a band called “The Wilsons” using the tag line “All hell’s breaking loose at the cock Inn” I had my suspicions that the Tamworth Terrors were coming to “Paint the town red” so on the day of the gig I went to check it out. For those that have never been, “The Cock” was just a pub, of a weekend the back room was used for Rock Nights and could probably cram in about 200 people. This particular night there was no cramming, the room had about 50 -60 people milling about but that didn’t stop the band from delivering an epic performance.
The stage was only about 6 inches high so we were watching a band that is used to being on an actual stage rather than just slightly elevated but this gave them the chance to fully utilise the floor area and to actually join the people on the dance floor. Above the stage area was a reinforced iron girder, this has been fitted with a few clamps and the vocalist, Blaze, would use these to perform Chin ups during the instrumental parts of some of the songs. He was always a very active front man and even the restrictive stage would not prevent the normal energetic performance. Although the turn out for this evening show was poor I still class this “Secret” gig as one of my favourite performances by this powerhouse of a band as it gave me the chance to see them up close and personal. Shortly after the show Wolfsbane split up as Blaze went on the replace Bruce Dickinson as the vocalist for Iron maiden. They have recently reformed and have performed at a few festivals around the Midlands; I hope to catch them live again one day soon.

See a Turtle in its natural environment

This is one of my life’s achievements that has sort of happened by accident and was not something I particularly had a great desire to do until fairly recently. The realisation that I secretly harboured this desire became apparent when we were sat in a travel agent, looking at holidays. We had narrowed our options down to about 3 locations and were struggling, until we were told that one of the Greek islands was among the sites where Turtles went to lay their eggs and the dates we were looking at fell right into the hatching season. I was sold and off we went to Zante. The holiday was great, we had a nice relaxing time despite our hotel being right by the airport runway and being disturbed by the early morning flights but the Turtles remained elusive. There were a few people who had seen an eruption of hatchlings during a walk down the beach and the evidence of the nests were all over the place but I must have been really unlucky as my quest to see a Turtle remained unfulfilled. We had even been on a boat trip to see the famous shipwreck where they specifically mentioned a possibility of seeing them in one of the coves but on the day we were not lucky enough. After a few days of not seeing any turtles we decided to book one of the trips that took you to the sites where you were most likely to get a glimpse of the creatures in their natural habitat and I was quite excited at the prospect, we waited eagerly at the pick up point and were greeted by a man on a scooter who came over and told us that our trip could not go ahead as the weather conditions were not good enough for them to take the boats out. We accepted our refund and the next day we went home, tanned and relaxed but sadly without any contact with the famous turtles of Zante. A few years later we were on Honeymoon in The Maldives, we had already been to see a Turtle hatchery in Sri Lanka and had held Turtles so my quest had sort of been fulfilled but I was still amazed and thrilled when during our trip on a Glass Bottom Boat I spotted a Turtle shaped figure among the Coral. The driver of the boat hadn’t seen it and reversed the boat when I said I thought I’d spotted it and he confirmed my suspicions. There, right beneath us was an adult Green turtle, male of about 5/6 foot. We sat watching for a few minutes before we lost sight of him but just those few moments made this 30 minute trip into a magical event that I will never forget.