One of the things I missed the most during the pandemic has been the ability to eat out in a restaurant. Sure, my town Basildon has great takeaways, but just the act of SITTING DOWN in a restaurant is so appealing to me, mostly because I am such a strong fan of both sitting down and eating, so as you can imagine I thoroughly enjoy the combination of the two. The most I managed in the pandemic was a quick Prezzo at Lakeside with my Mum, but aside from that, for the past 18 months, if I have wanted to engage in one of my favourite pastimes (sitting down and eating), it’s been strictly at home.

That’s why I was so excited to try Bank in Birmingham when I went up for the weekend a couple of months ago. For a start, being somewhere different was so good for my wellbeing in general, and Birmingham just so happens to be one of my favourite places (despite the fact I work in London, Birmingham is the only city on this island of plague I would ever move to). Luckily e went with someone that knows their way around Birmingham, as left to our own devices last time my friend and I that I went to see were let loose in Birmingham we managed to book a hotel with no windows which aren’t ideal when you come back to it at 6 am after a rave feeling worse for wear.
The inside of Bank reminded me for some reason of La Sala in Marbella (my favourite restaurant in the world aside from Le Versace in Phuket which I don’t think exists now), but my last memory of La Sala is being hungover and a woman running me over on the zebra crossing directly outside, so now that I don’t drink I can create much more pleasant memories like the ones made at Bank and no one has tried to run me over since.

When it comes to food, I’m very much of a “little and often” type of person (aside from one holiday to Crete where I could NOT stop eating and my friend commented “well actually, it’s been a lot and often this holiday hasn’t it Kel?”). The smaller portions you get in “more upmarket” places suit me fine. I’m not saying I won’t be hungry again in two hours, I’m just saying that at the moment of eating I’ll get full quite easily. Before my big weekend Birmingham trip, I’d been eating a lot of fish because I heard through the grapevine it’s meant to be quite good for you or something. I had the salmon fishcakes, three in total, which doesn’t sound too filling without a side, but was actually the perfect amount for lunch. The salmon was fresh, and I detected no hint of it being cheap frozen salmon that so many restaurants try and pass off as the “catch of the day”. One of the things that usually puts me off of fish cakes is the fact that they can be quite heavy, depending on what they are coated in and how they are cooked, but these had a very thin coating and were fried just enough to ensure the main taste was the salmon itself rather than being left with a “deep-fried” taste.

The cocktails at Bank can be quite pricey, but if you are a smug non-drinker like me it can be a inexpensive trip!