England, Birmingham

EAT. The Real Food Company

EAT is located in Birmingham's Bull Ring shopping district.

This busy street side cafe is bursting with healthy food, veggie food and wheat and gluten free food in the way of soup, fresh salads and sweet treats such as a chocolate brownie and a ginger cookie and dried fruit and seed mix.

All food is made on site, fresh every day and all produce is organic.

All coffee is ground on site, and the chai tea syrup is organic and gluten free. They also do soya milk which is also organic.

The chefs all have a chart which they refer to if you have a special diet request. I ate the smoked mackerel superfood salad and a side salad of three bean and feta, and soya chai tea latte.

The salad is a single piece of smoked mackerel, shredded beetroot, creamed potato and leaves.

Smoked Mackerel Superfood Salad

BRASSERIE BLANC
Nine Brindley Place, Birmingham B1 2HS

Other locations:
Cheltenham, Leeds, Manchester, Oxford and Tunbridge Wells. Milton Keynes opening mid November. Winchester opening early 2008.

The cullinary French wizard Raymond Blanc's gift to the UK is his award winning restaurants. His books include 'Cooking For Friends', 'A Blanc Christmas', the Sunday Times bestseller 'Recipes from Le Manoir aux Quat' Saisons', 'Blanc Vite' and his most recent book, 'Foolproof French Cookery'.

The Brasserie Blanc menu is full of gourmet pleasures carefully thought about. When you book, or even if you are lucky enough to get a table as a walk in request the gluten free menu. On both occasions in Birmingham and Cheltenham I had the Onion Soup followed by the Steamed Loch Fyne Mussels in White Wine (no cream for me) and then to finish Lemon Sorbet - again gluten free. I have visited the web site and the Onion Soup isn't on the menu for the moment. It was absolutely beautiful and I should have had this as my main. Eyes too big for the stomach.

Brasserie Blonc takes late bookings too, which is perfectly suited for taking in a live show and then dinner. My Birmingham birthday evening was with Andre Bocelli and then our late dinner and with a lot of Bollinger.