another review that's really rather old, but why not share it...
when i mentioned that i keep wanting to write reviews of things, i was told that it's a bad idea because i'll just be far too negative about everything. contrary to one of the phrases most frequently used by me ('i hate everything'), it is not my intention to be negative about things; life's too short for the bad bits. unfortunately, i am going to struggle to find the positives of this event...
it would be a little extreme to blame the organisers for the rain, but weather certainly taints perspective. regardless of the rain, the coaches were a teeny bit late, which i'm sure is not a massive deal. it may also be worth noting that they never looked at tickets, they just assumed you were the person whose name they wrote down... journey aside, the night was set to be a bond-themed extravaganza with champagne reception, meal, wine on the table, casino and giant martini glasses (whatever that means). we arrived in a dark, drizzly birmingham slightly desperate for champagne, drawing up to the door of what looked like a large chinese restaurant. oh dear, we thought. after a particularly disappointing queue for the cloackroom, we emerged into a large room that had a sort of oh-my-somebody-has-removed-all-the-furniture-from-whetherspoons vibe. oh dear, we thought.
the champagne reception was an interesting interpretation of the traditional style, in which one gets a glass of champagne. our fifty five pound tickets afforded us a charming little glass of Tesco cava. oh dear, i thought. it is at this point that my natural hatred for the world may be stirring slightly, so let us take a moment to consider the warwick business school society ball 2006. this was a very classy event. there were fire-eaters at the door, we could help ourselves to champagne, the venue was huge, with different areas, chocolate fountains, professional photography, good food and wine: everything you expect from a ball. the secret to the success of this is money. they clearly had a lot of sponsorship, given the ernst&young logos scattered all over everything. in 2009 something unlikely happened: a business society failed to get corporate sponsorship. bizarre.
a lovely, and distressingly photogenic gentleman suggested gin. asking if i would like gin is a bit like asking the pope is jesus was good. (i really tried to come up with a less cliche line, but this was the only thing i could think of that wouldn't be horrifically offensive). so, gin in hand, we sat at our table. the tables were very nicely decorated: black cloth with a gold mesh stripe, oversize cocktail glass with floating candles, all very nice. we decided to look at the menu. oh dear, we thought. with all due optimism, we hungrily awaited the first course. to ease our pain, some girls in dresses did some sort of tedious (and slightly repetitive) dance to some james bond theme songs. then some guy, who i assume was in charge, got up on stage and presented the group responsible for the evening to us. if this had been at the end of the meal, i probably would have considered this part a shooting gallery.
starters: it was a bold move to suggest 'peppered steak wrap' as a starter, but they really went for it. what arrived was a large tortilla wrapped around some red onion and beef. visually, this was not a high-point. it tasted a lot like pepper. lots of pepper. and a bit of bread. oh dear, we thought. the vegetarian choice of cherry tomato tart was similarly sub-greggs in appearance, and i can only assume flavour too. never mind, this is the price you ought to pay for your choice to not eat real food.
mains: on paper, 'pan-fried chicken breast, wild mushrooms and leek' sounds really good. this is something i might order, or even cook (in a moment of imagination-deprivation). what arrived was a chicken breast the size of antarctica, sitting on some sort of lawn-trimmings, sprinkled with mushroomy splodges and a big dollop of dry, yellowy rice. (something peculiar has just happened: the word 'yellowy' has not been underlined by spellcheck. surely it's not a word? apparently spellcheck isn't...) the gentleman on my right noted that the food was 'like canteen food. in fact, i could get better in most canteens'. he's not wrong. indeed, i would go a step further and say that you can probably get better in a hospital (pun fully intended). i'm not a fan of rice, but there was something quite nice about this yellow offering: it was quite salty. i was also a fan of the mushrooms: they almost certainly were cepes. sadly, the monster chicken, stringy leek, good mushroom and mediocre rice combination was terrible.
on the subject of terrible, i haven't yet mentioned the wine (other than the cava). there was, miraculously, a drinkable (but oh so cheap tasting) merlot from veneto. frankly, it could have been any grape, from anywhere in the world. it was cheap. the other red, echo falls californian red, i did not taste, but i heard no good things. in the world of white wine, we had a choice of echo falls californian white, which was very fruity, just dry enough to drink, and over all on a par with the rest of the meal. the alternative was a hungarian 'pinot grigio'. again, this could have been any grape, but it did have the sort of almond-like flavour i associate with hungarian wine. sadly, this was not a good one. in fact, it was a very bad one. if it had tasted good, i think it probably would have been a good match for the main course. oh well.
any expectations we had that some sort of quality was coming were completely destroyed by the time we were offered a choice of desserts. i went for the treacle tart. this was potentially the nicest of the choices, but still was a crunchy, chewy, flavourless challenge. the pastry was made of plaster, and five miles thick, and the filling (which is basically just treacle) somehow tasted like no sugar had been near it at any stage. i'm told the cheesecake tasted like it ought to have been cooked, but hadn't been. oh dear, we thought. the absolute champion of disgusting was the chocolate cake. it takes a special type of total moron to screw up a chocolate cake. you have to put a lot of extra effort into making it taste that bad. i have known people to accidentally add fairy liquid to chocolate cake, but this was something else. half a mouthful was truly nauseating: as though some kind of poison was spewing out of it as you closed your mouth. the only way to make this worse was to drink the 'pinot grigio' with it. trust me.
after dinner, i was quite in the mood for getting crunk. the prospect of champagne (as promised by the bar) was very appealing. sadly, what i wasted my money on was a ridiculously fizzy, slightly sharp cremant de limoux. the fact that they advertised this as champagne (which i'm fairly certain is probably illegal) was more than slightly disappointing, and there were several people who 'just work here' unable to explain this... still, we headed to the 'casino' of a blackjack table and a roulette table. somehow, i won the blackjack table, but i didn't win the overall prize (a signed photo of judi dench!!!), owing to one person winning a whole universe more on the roulette. oh well.
in all, it was too expensive. i had a good time, and i think everyone else did too. that's all that really matters. however, given the choice, i don't think i would return to Mirage. (frankly, it takes a bit of persuasion to get me to birmingham, but that's not the point)
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