La Fibule, 29A-31 Woodbridge Road, Moseley, Birmingham, B13 8EH
Dinner at La Fibule
My plans to try Kitchen Garden Cafe in Kings Heath were somewhat scuppered by the fact that they don’t open for dinner Monday – Wednesday!! So instead we went to another one of the places on my ‘to do’ list, La Fibule in Moseley.
Having read a few reviews from the past I decided to call ahead and book us a table for two at 7:30pm and it turned out to be a wise decision as the restaurant was already pretty full when we arrived.
I was dining with Gemma (of Puppini fame!) who has recently moved to Moseley. We had planned to meet at her house and walk to dinner. However the typical English weather meant walking without wellies and snorkelling equipment would have been ill advised! So we drove to dinner. However, a word of advice, there is little parking available near the restaurant especially on a busy night!
On arrival we were greeted by a rather busy and flustered waiting staff and offered a choice of three tables. Once seated with menus we were left to make our choices form the menu or specials board.
The table next to us had not realised that La Fibule operate a BYO policy as it is unlicensed so a rather damp fellow diner from the party next door arrived back with a bag of beer and wine, however neither Gemma bothered to get any wine and were happy to stick with soft drinks, it was a school night after all!
We placed our orders fairly swiftly and the food arrived after a reasonable wait, having read other reviews I was concerned we might be waiting for some time! Our food did arrive before our drinks! I pointed this out to the waitress who seemed to be rather angry for forgetting, the anger somehow felt as if it was directed at us though, when she did eventually bring the drinks.
Having observed the same waitress attending to a table one away from us it seemed to me that she was the type who doesn’t suffer fools gladly and expects all of her diners to be well versed in Moroccan cuisine. By this I mean she is not about to explain how the dishes work or how one is expected to eat them, for example one diner looked a little disappointed by the dry bland side order of cous cous which arrived before the separate sauce to moisten it which is not mentioned on the menu and said waitress seemed rather annoyed that they did not know about the sauce or how it was to be used!
Thankfully both Gemma and I had eaten Moroccan before so we scored full marks with the waitress!! I had chosen the Cous Cous Royal (Couscous served with monk fish & king prawns). It was a delightful portion of four large shell-on prawns and four decent medallions of delicately grilled monkfish, cooked to utter perfection, placed atop a generous mound of steaming cous cous and vegetables (which even generated an enquiry from the table next door as to what I had ordered!). A side dish of broth to season my cous cous and a finger bowl to assist with my de-shelling was also provided. The sauce was a deep burgundy hot bowl of flavours which gave the cous cous a much needed hit of seasoning and was a perfect match to set the fish off. Gemma had opted for Tagine d’agneau d’abricot et des Pruneaux (tender pieces of lamb with apricot & almonds, sultanas & prunes) which arrived in a traditional Tagine and smelt delicious. It was a perfect balance of meat and fruits and the lamb was incredibly tender falling apart at the first sign of a fork coming near it. A side dish of cous cous mopped up the juices from the Tagine perfectly and we were both more than satisfied by the flavours and portions of our dishes.
We decided to skip desserts and went straight for mint teas and coffees to finish our meal, however this was where we were somewhat forgotten and trying to catch the eye of one of the three waiting staff to request a bill proved a little difficult. When we did manage to get the damage we chose to split the bill on cards and round the total up to include a tip, however all of our brownie points earned with the waitress earlier were swiftly lost when she brusquely informed us that she would not accept the tip on a card as she would not see any of it! So we left cash though not as much!
Overall I have to rate the food and atmosphere of La Fibule highly with only minimal point deductions for service, if you accept that the waitress we had is never going to become your best friend the rest of the service was hard to grumble about!
Alternatives: Theres only 1 this time, which shows a clear gap in the Birmingham market for more Moroccan establishments. In fact if I’ve missed one let us know!!
Zagora -4 Fletchers Walk Paradise Place Birmingham B3 3HJ
