Following in the footsteps of Mr Rayner – to Brum

Picture: Karen Strunks

Food critics of the mainstream news variety are rumoured to be able to make or break a place. Maybe they can – have you ever known of such? It’s certainly not often I get to eat in a place that’s been reviewed in a national newspaper. Sorry I need to start that sentence again to be accurate –  it’s not often a national newspaper reviewer remembers that the majority of their readers aren’t eating out in London.

But this week I had an unexpected treat with lunch at the New Sum Ye in Birmingham which The Observer’s Jay Rayner reviewed just this week.

Yes, it’s a bit down south for my usual blog beat but, treat it was. The picture here is of my colleague’s meal – three Cantonese roast meats with rice (and a fried egg). I enjoyed a similarly generous, fabulously flavoured seafood noodle with OK sauce, the chilli sauce was sampled and much appreciated and the green tea flowed.

I can’t better Rayner’s appreciation of the place:

“It really is very good. A plate of three roast meats costs just £6.50 and comes on a pillow of rice with a couple of spoon-like leaves of crunchy pak choi draped across them.”

Thinking that maybe we weren’t the only people likely to make a visit to this place on the strength of such praise by a well-known foodie, I mentioned the review to the manageress on our way out.

Her reply: “What is newspaper?”.

Ah well, here’s hoping blogs are more her thing.