We all remember those heady days at university, drinking rafts of flavoured vodka shots at the local Vodka Revolution right? Well I do, and I always seemed to be the one that ‘lucked’ out and got the Chilli flavoured one! Back then Revolution weren’t known for their food offerings – I vaguely remember a bad panini in the Sheffield one about 10 years ago. Well fast forward to the present and things are changing and it seems they are really trying to push forward with their food.
We went down to the Broad Street branch in Birmingham to try out their new menu, inspired by American Street food which is pretty on trend at the moment. The menu involves sharing crates and starters, burgers, dogs, burritos and much more.
I liked the interior decor, with a long bar down one side with an attractive display behind, table and booth seating on the other side. It was simple with some bold blue colouring and really effective.
Obviously the ‘drink’ side of Revolution is still their big attraction, and their cocktail selection is LARGE! I tried one of their new Absolut cocktails – the Absolut Soup (absolute vodka, coconut schnapps, apple & grapefruit) I really enjoyed the flavours of this. It was served in a ‘soup can’ which was a funky twist. Lee stuck to beer – they have a small craft section on the menu including Pistonhead and Brooklyn Lager. Later on in the night I had an Asian Spritzer mocktail – a nice refreshing mix of ginger ale, elderflower apple and lime.
It was good to see they still had the vodka shot menu too! The barman treated us to a sample of his favorite – the salted caramel popcorn and then the creme egg to finish off the meal later on. Both delicious and reminded me how they went down so easy way back when!
We were looked after really well on the night by the team – particular praise to our waiter Jacob who was friendly & knowledge about the food and happy to make recommendations. To start we decided to share one of the new items on the menu – a Deli Crate. Made up of San Fran chicken sliders, crispy goat’s cheese bon bons, oaky smoky houmous, garlic flatbread, crispy chorizo, crudités, olives, Wotsits. We really enjoyed this – particularly the goats cheese bon bons which were creamy and piping hot. The smoky houmous was unusual in that it was quite chunky but had an excellent flavor and went well with the fresh veg to dip in it. The chicken sliders fell marginally short of where they should be, a little dry and lacked the flavor punch of the other items. The Wotsits, well, a curious addition, but who doesn’t like a Wotsit I guess??
Mains saw Lee choose another new item on the menu – a Salt Beef Burrito which was packed full of guacamole, black beans, smokinnaise, spicy red rice & cheese served with tortilla chips. This came pretty spicy but with some cooling dips of salsa and big easy mayo. This Mayo also came with my burger and we both loved it. Speaking of burgers, my one was the Fizz Bomb – Smoked cheddar, armageddon sauce, spicy pork n’duja balls, roquito peppers, popping candy. There was no shortage of of spice on this burger either. The arrmagedon sauce almost blew my head off but I liked it, not for the faint hearted. The burger was well cooked, not dry and the chips crisp, but I didn’t taste/hear the popping candy coming through. For burger and chips – thumbs up!
We both chose a chocolate brownie for pudding – large portions and I couldn’t quite finish mine. It was probably the weakest course, but in saying that it was perfectly pleasant to eat, just didn’t knock our socks off.
I was pleasantly surprised by the food at Revs. They are definitely improving from the food I remember and for a meal in this kind of category you could do a lot worse!
Disclosure: We were invited to try the new menu at Revs, the meal was complimentary. All views are entirely honest.
