For
the past few years I have visited the Education Show held in Birmingham’s NEC. On
previous visits I’ve made do with food from the motorway services or the coffee
shops within the exhibition centre. This year, I thought I’d treat myself to
something better… much better!
Having
never eaten in Birmingham before my first thought was to book one of the city’s
3 Michelin starred establishments. My first choice, Purnell’s was closed for
Saturday lunch but I managed to secure a late lunch at Simpsons (blog post to
follow).
Wanting
to check out a little of what else the city had to offer, I asked Twitter were
else I should try – I received a lot of recommendations for `Loves restaurants
and the city’s curry houses but in the end it was a suggestion from
Manchester/Birmingham based blogging duo ‘Pretty and Tasty’ (@Prettyandtasty on twitter)
that piqued my interest.
Min Min Noodle Bar,
opened in June 2012 by a Vietnamese / Chinese family. Judging from online
reviews and sites such as Urbanspoon and Trip Advisor (not that I usually take
much heed of the latter), it has quickly built up a good reputation for serving
tasty and great value food.
There
are two menus - one that seemed to feature a selection of dishes commonly found
as part of the majority of ‘westernised’ noodle bar repertoires.
Whereas
the accompanying menu insert showcased a myriad of wonderful sounding authentic
dishes such as: ‘Salt and pepper chicken gizzard’ ‘Pipa tofu’ ‘Shredded ox tripe
in Thai sauce’ and ‘Jelly fish in mustard and scallion.’
Pleasingly,
they also sell Bubble Tea – I fell
in love with this on my travels in South East Asia and plumped for the
traditional chilled, sweet milk tea with black tapioca peals or ‘boba’.
Salt & pepper soft shell crabs -
If I see soft shell crabs on a menu, it’s pretty much a given that I’m going to
order them; add salt and pepper seasoning and it’s a dead cert! These were
deliciously prepared – crispy, meaty with a good chilli kick.
Pork trotters with sweet vinaigrette – these
were sensational! The combination of the subtly sweet sour sauce with the fatty,
porky goodness and Chinese leaf was absolutely bang on! Since eating, I’ve hardly
stopped thinking about how good it was… it’s got to be worth the 3 hour round
trip to Birmingham alone.
The
soft noodles were also good and the portions were huge and keenly priced – this
was just a flying visit but I’d definitely return to try more of the menu (and
more trotters) next time I’m in town.
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