Lifestyle: Eating Out – The Pickled Piglet, Birmingham

AREN’T food trends in restaurants a funny thing?

A year or so ago almost everywhere one went there would be on offer salads with black pudding and apple in them and now it seems every eatery in town is offering pulled pork on its menu.

I’m not sure what pulled pork is – and how it differentiates from pork pulled off the bone and shredded from a hog roast, say.

But nevertheless it always appears like a damn fine thing whenever I see it on Man v Food and my eyes are always drawn to it when I see it on a menu.

Which I did when visiting The Pickled Piglet in Birmingham earlier this week.

The relatively new Gas Street diner is building quite a reputation as a decent place to eat should you find yourself in the upper Broad Street/Centenary Square area and I was looking forward to sampling its fare.

Being a lunchtime, I chose from the brunch menu and this offers four options: small plates, boards and plates, more extensive brunch plates and toasted sandwiches.

The small plates – think tapas – range in price from £4 to £6 and included – on the day of my visit – saffron and honey belly pork, roasted squash and chick pea chilli and spiced lamb and olive meatballs.

The boards, priced between £10 and £13, included the meat board, which should make any carnivore happy, offering as it does dry cured ham, crispy shredded pork, smoked chicken breast and pork pate, and the fish board, which offers hot smoked salmon, mackerel pate, prawns in Marie Rose sauce (who was Marie Rose I wonder?) and crab and apple coleslaw. Bread is served on the side.

I was tempted by some of the larger brunch plates, which range in price up to £17. The selection included baked duck eggs with spiced sausages, potatoes and sun-blushed tomatoes (£8) and roast turbot with green beans, samphire, new potatoes, toasted almonds and cockle sauce (£17).

But I decided after much deliberation to go for one of the restaurant’s toasted sandwiches, served with chips, salad and coleslaw.

Which is where I was offered the choice of slow cooked pulled pork and grilled mature cheddar as a filling (£8).

Feeling in a fishy mood, however, I plumped for smoked mackerel, grilled cheese and pickled cucumber (£8).

And jolly nice it was too. Served as an open sandwich with a knife and fork, the meatiness of the fish united with a strong cheese and the tangy pickled cucumber works brilliantly as a combination and with a few home-cooked chips on the side it was a very satisfying lunch.

One minor point though, if The Pickled Piglet expects people to saw into thick toasted sandwiches it needs to provide sharper knives. I kept having to ignore my dining companion whilst I concentrated on what seemed like an unwinnable battle between blunt cutlery and a toastie that wasn’t going to cede ground without a fight.

I had no room for dessert but if I had I would have plumped for warm oats and treacle tart with vanilla cream (£5.50).

It was quite quiet during my visit although we had been forced upstairs as the arrival downstairs of a Christmas party group was imminent, but I gather the restaurant gets quite popular in the evenings.

The Monday night steak night may well be the best time to visit when 28 day dry aged beef, hand cut chips, salad and peppercorn sauce can be secured for £10.

I shall return and I might even try the pulled pork next time.