Red N Hot
On 25 November 2007, I went to this Chinese restaurant with a friend of mine. This a relatively new restaurant, that opened in the summer this year. The reason I have never been here was its off-putting outlook. The name is not attractive, the transparent glass wall is annoying and the mismatching furniture that we could see throught the glass.
I felt however the need to come, as it specialises in Sichuan cuisine, rarity in Birmingham.
I browsed their website, and I learned that there are one outlet also in London, and another in Manchester. They were run by a parent campany which is travel agency. In the restaurant, there is a travel agent's desk.
When we entered the door, there was a few Chinese couples in the entrance area. We thought they were waiting for the table, but it turned out that it was a queue for the travel agent's desk.
Less than in a minuite, a waitress noticed us and invited us into the dining area. I did not count how many table there were, but I guess there were less than 20 4-seaters.
In this photo, at the centre of the table are not menus, but travel brochures. If you are interested, you can buy tickets after the meal. Convenient?
The décor is modern and simple in white tone, but the furniture is totally mismatching. Not good taste.
They offer lunch menu for about £6 for a dish with white rice, but we ordered from à la carte menu. I found the menu rather difficult to read, and the English description not very helpful. We asked our waitress which are the typical Sichuan dishes, but I had an impression she did not know very much.
The Sichuan cuisine is famous for the liberal use of chili and Sichuan pepper, but don't worry, you can chose the spiciness of the food, mild, hot very hot, when you place the order. As we have never eaten here, we chose the middle one to avoid risk. In hindsight, the very hot could have been all right for us.
This is Dan dan noodles (£3.50) from snack dish section. It comes in a small bowl, not as a full meal. I would not particulary recommend it, mediocre at the best.
As we wanted one vegetable dish, we got Steamed Green with Sweet and Sour Sauce (£6). The waitress recommended stir-fried green, but I prefered something not oily.
The green was cold and the sauce was hot, so the dish in total became lukewarm. Despite the colour, it was not spicy at all, and was rather sweet. Nothing particular, but went well with the dry and hot main dish.
This is Diced chicken and Dry Chili, recommended by our waitress. The chicken was diced, deep-fried, and then stir fried with dry chili, Sichuan pepper, and peanuts. Impressive quantity of dry chili, but as far as you don't eat them, they are totally halmless. The hotness came rather from the Sichuan pepper. I don't think the chili was for eating, as they it was pretty tough.
Although it was tasty, after a while I feld unusual thirst. I am not sure if it was cased by excessive salt or MSG.
Close-up. Notice the quantity of dried chili.
We ordered also one portion of rice (smelt stale), and a pot of Chinese tea (free), the bill came to a bit less than £20, which is not particulary good value. The place offers varies seafood dishes that looked about 10-20% more expensive than, say, at Chung Ying Garden. The service was good, especially for a Chinese restaurant.
I would not mind coming, but frankly I have many other places to visit, so it would not be very soon.
Address: Birmingham China Town 35 Hurst Street,Birmingham B5 4BJ
Telephone: 0121-6666076
Website (in Chinese): http://www.rednhotgroup.com/
