The Smoke Haus, Birmingham

On Saturday we attended the VIP preview night of 'The Smoke Haus, Birmingham' The menu is packed with a variety of burgers, hotdogs, steaks and ribs. There is also a selection of amazing looking combos and lots of sides to choose from.

I took some advice from @The_Thing_Ting and ordered myself a bourbon and Laura ordered a Strawberry Daiquiri. For our appetiser we chose to share 6 Sticky BBQ Wings. For main I ordered the 10oz New York strip with a pepper sauce and also had a side of fried pickles. Laura chose the Baby Back Ribs with a side of Mac n Cheese. We both decided to upgrade our fries with Laura choosing the sweet potato fries and I had the cheesy chilli fries. I also ordered myself a draught Blue Moon.

The sticky BBQ wings were brought to our table within 2 minutes of being ordered which I was over the moon about as I was already salivating from reading the menu. I will just say here that if you are planning on visiting the Smoke Haus for a first date then make sure you are a confident eater, and not ashamed of licking your fingers, wiping your face or trying to remove sticky BBQ sauce from your favourite shirt. The wings were sensational, very succulent and coated with a generous amount of rich, thick sticky BBQ sauce. I also couldn't get enough of the blue cheese dip that was served with them. The wet wipes were well used.

 

The main was served shortly after I had managed to remove all evidence of BBQ sauce from my face.

I ordered my steak blue, and am always a little skeptical as restaurants always seem to overcook my steaks. It was perfectly cooked, well seasoned and really did melt in my mouth. The peppercorn sauce was very creamy and had plenty of heat from the peppercorns. The fries were delicious and were seved with a spoonfull of chilli con carne and topped with a good amount of melted cheese. The fried pickles were ok, but were a little greasy and the batter just fell off, the garlic dip they came with was lovely.

 Laura's ribs were meaty and succulent and had a delicious sticky marinade. This was another dish where the wet wipes were well used. The Mac and Cheese had a lovely flavour but unfortunately had become slightly stodgy, this was probably due to the fact it was left for a while before we tried it.

The meal was very well presented, had great flavours and we really enjoyed our evening. The portion sizes are huge and we were unable to finish all of our food despite giving it a good go.
The service was excellent and the staff were very attentive and chatty when serving.
 I think that The Smoke Haus will prove to be a very popular restaurant with the foodies of Birmingham and I am very much looking forward to returning, and armed with my own pack of wet wipes.
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Amsterdam

As I have the best parents ever, they sent Laura and I to Amsterdam over the May bank holiday weekend. We spent the entire 3 days visiting attractions, dodging trams and bicycles, and of course gorging on stupid amounts of food and drink whilst soaking up the culture of the city.

We made a few great finds which I am going to share with you in this post!

Beer Temple

The beer temple is a small bar that boasts a large variety of draught and bottled craft ales. We spent quite a few hours drinking here! 

 

The sign above the front door kind of sums up this ale drinkers heaven 'Good Beer, No Shit'

In addition to the fantastic beer there was also a good selection of bar snacks, various cheeses and crackers and some lovely looking cured meats.

Out of all the ales I drank whilst in the Beer Temple I have picked these out as my favourite 3.

Top Left: Pepperoni Pizza Porter 6.3%

Bottom Left: Arrogant Bastard 7.2%

Right: Pure Hoppiness 8%

Please see my 'Beer Review' page to read what I thought of these.

Beer Temple will be my first point of call next time I visit Amsterdam, I would recommend it to any lover of craft ales.

FoodHallen

Amsterdam's Foodhallen is an indoor food market where you can enjoy good quality international street food. It is open Sunday-Thursday from 11:00-23:30 and Friday-Saturday 11:00-1:00.

The vendors are permanent and they have a great set up in a spacious venue that boasts over 20 food stalls and  3 bars,

Top: De Ballen Bar served us a tasting board of 5 Arancini (deep fried risotto balls) 

The 5 we chose were (right to left) Truffle, Goats Cheese, Thai Spiced, Bouilla-baisse and Beef. They were served with a lovely truffle mayonnaise.

Middle Left: Chicks Love Donuts- Laura needed to get her crispy chicken fix so decided to try a Korean crispy chicken. The 'mean sauce' was delicious and the personalised takeaway boxes were a nice touch.

Middle:Jabugo is a stall that specialises in Iberico ham, they gave me a generous amount with some fresh bruchetta.

Middle Right: Bulls and Dogs was an odd choice for me as I would not usually go for a 'hot dog'. i chose this because I liked the look of the food when I saw others eating it. They offered several different homemade sausages served with a brioche bun and various toppings. I went for the 'Bacon and Chips Dog' which was a pork sausage, bacon, cheese and crisps. It was really tasty but the sausage was pretty thin ;)

Bottom: Laura finished off with Chicken Yakitori and Tempura Prawns, they were both delicious. Laura ate most of it!

I mentioned earlier that De Food Hallen had 3 bars aswell as the food stalls. The one bar that really stood out was the Gin and Tonic Bar. They served very large gin and tonics in many different flavours including, Blueberry and Raspberry  (Left), Toasted Rosemary and Black Olive (Middle), Basil and Cranberry (Right) and many more appealing sounding flavours. They were quite expensive at between 9 and 15 euros, but they were definitely worth it!

 De Foodhallen is an excellent place to go if you want to eat at a cheaper price and also get a good selection of food in a busy sociable setting.

The Pancake Bakery

 The last place I am going to recommend is The Pancake Bakery. 

We visited this place at around 11.00 and their was already a 10 minute queue. It serves huge pancakes, sweet and savoury with lots of different and appetising fillings. I went for the Brazilian pancake which can be seen below with a description. I was a little skeptical about how good a pancake could actually be, but to be fair it was amazing! Very sickly and filling, but amazing all the same!

If anyone has been to any other decent places in Amsterdam for food or drink, let me know and I will put it in my 'to go' list! Facebook / Twitter

Rofuto

On Saturday Laura and I were lucky enough to be invited to the soft launch event of Rofuto. Rofuto is a new restaurant and bar that serves modern Japanese food, stylish cocktails, unique sake and a wide range of white wines. It boasts fantastic views of the city from the restaurant and the Karabu bar (the views from the toilet are also worth spending a penny for!) We were told that the Karabu bar will soon play host to guest and resident DJs which will surely help it become one of Birmingham's hottest venues. We traveled up to the restaurant via the restaurants own entrance on the west side of the building. We were met by a smiling waitress who took our coats and led us to the bar in the center of the restaurant. Straight away we were greeted by floor to ceiling windows featuring stunning views of the city. The restaurant has an open kitchen area where you can see sushi being made fresh, a charcoal grill and a large hot plate with chefs preparing food live, I decided to try the Japanese draught beer Kirin Ichiban which was served in a glass beer mug. Laura chose a Riesling from the impressive selection. The manager came and welcomed us and asked our opinion so far, he also escorted us to a table by the window and presented us with menus. The waitress was clearly knowledgeable about the menu and confidently explained the difference between the different sushi and other ingredients we had not heard of. The menu features Sushi, Yakitori, Tempura as well and a selection of dishes cooked on the charcoal grill. Laura and I ordered 3 starters between us, Laura had the Beef Kushiyaki with Caramel Soy, I chose the Grilled Octopus with Rocket and Pine Salad and we also had a Salt and Pepper Squid between us. 

All 3 starters were presented really attractively.  Laura's Beef Kushiyaki was sticky and sweet and had a lovely flavour, however the meat was quite dry which we were slightly disappointed with, nevertheless the soy sauce that was provided added moisture.  My octopus was fantastic, it was was soft and smokey and was complimented really well with the fresh rocket and crunchy earthy pine nuts. The salt and pepper squid was my favourite, the batter was light and crisp and the soft squid was soft and chewy. There was a subtle taste of coriander and lime running through the batter. The squid was quite difficult to cut with chopsticks so we ended up tearing it apart! We completely cleaned all 3 plates and ordered more drinks. Laura went for another wine and I chose the Hitachino White Ale, which was made with orange peel, coriander and nutmeg.

For our main courses Laura chose the Chicken Katsu Curry and I had the Saffron Miso Black Cod with Razor Clams. The Cod was served to a very high standard and looked beautiful. It was very colourful which really stood out against the black dish. The cod itself was cooked to perfection, slightly sticky on the outside and wonderfully soft and flaky. The rich saffron and miso sauce was delicious and had a wonderful depth. The razor clam was soft and chewy and coated with the miso sauce. It was definitely one of the best seafood dishes I have ever eaten. I would 100% recommend this excellent dish. Laura's Katsu was also very good. Crispy succulent chicken with a rich creamy curry sauce, with scented fluffy rice.

We were given 50% off all of our food, but I would have paid full price for all of the dishes. The food and drink were both excellent. The service was also brilliant, all staff were polite and friendly and were knowledgeable about the the drink and food. It is well worth the trip to the end of Broad St to sample the high quality food and drink and excellent view. Facebook / Twitter