Gino D’Acampo – My Restaurant – Birmingham

Gino’s could have been OK, they were crispy and the mozzarella in the middle had melted as you’d expect – the problem was that whoever made the risotto decided not to season it at all. Mozzarella doesn’t taste of much, rice doesn’t taste of much so it didn’t taste of much. There were four on the plate and after eating one and a half I gave up.

The best bit about the starters on offer was how the calamari was served. Someone had the genius idea of putting them on a piece of paper with an Italian newspaper printed on it – Gino is Italian you see.

Cleverly, they settled on La Gazzetta from July 2017 where the lead sport story was about Ajax winger Abdelhak Nouri suffering a cardiac arrest during a game. I don’t know about you, but there’s something about a cardiac arrest that just makes me want to gorge on deep-fried food.

Then, here it came – the fettuccine bolognese.

I was pretty certain this was going to be shit, but I was willing to be proved wrong – honest. And talking of honesty, I honestly have no idea how you can make a bolognese sauce with so little meat in it that tastes of nothing. Quite an achievement.

Things were finished off with a tiramisu almost as good as the one from Sainsbury’s.

The most enjoyable part of the meal was when I got to countdown as the TV showing Gino’s face on a loop went into sleep mode.