Food Review: Tapas and tacos at The Alb, Shrewsbury
For restaurants that have made it this far, better days lie ahead. The horror show that was a two-year pandemic is effectively over.
For all the issues surrounding a lack of support for those who ought to self-isolate, Covid is a busted flush. We should wait on tenter hooks for new variants.
But the Government isn’t in a position to introduce the sort of restrictions that pretty much closed hospitality in 2020 and 2021.
Not that 2022 is the springboard many might have hoped for. With energy prices spiralling, the cost of roasting a chicken supreme has never been higher.
Commodity prices are going through the roof and with the political instability caused by Mad Dog Putin, the cost of oil and gas are as volatile as an alcoholic boxer after a night on the Bacardi Breezers.
There may now be light at the end of the tunnel but, to deliberately mix a metaphor, we’re not out of the woods yet.
It’s not just utilities that are causing problems. The costs of running restaurants are hard to manage.
The Government has a ruse in which it’s been cutting funding to local authorities which, faced with the impossibility of running their own budgets, have been increasing their own costs.
And then there’s the price of food, which is rising like a helium balloon.
And then there are problems surrounding recruitment. Vast numbers of people left the hospitality industry during Covid – something to do with not having a viable job, apparently.
Many of those were EU workers who decided to cross the Channel and never come back.
Who can blame them? Brexit has added to restaurateur’s problems, reducing the availability of skilled labour and further fuelling food prices as we struggle to import in the way we did when we were in a Common Market.
But. But. Despite those headaches – and more – it’s still a truism that restaurants who stayed the course can look towards better times.
And, given the above, it could hardly have got any worse. There’s pent-up demand, people are keen to get out and socialise after two years of Wordle, sudoku and Zoom quizzes.
The Alb is a Shropshire pub that does a decent job of combining food with drinks. Visitors can just as easily call in for a few pints, or something more sophisticated, as they can to graze a menu dominated by tapas and tacos.
Located near to Shrewsbury’s bus station, the pub sits on the edges of the town centre and is frequented by a young-ish crowd who want somewhere to hang out while gnawing on calamari.
The menu is decent if a little uninspiring. It hits all the right notes with classic combinations though The Alb has no delusions of grandeur. It’s not the sort of place where you’ll find remarkable ingredients or food with great finesse.
A mid-range, mid-market independent, it’s a few rungs above cheap and cheerful without having any obvious aspirations to appeal to a nailed-on foodie crowd.
The interior is spacious with plenty of seating areas for groups of friends and the staff are good, busily working the tables, offering service with a smile and working hard to make guests welcome.
We chose a combination of tapas and tacos, eating three each, and finding them mostly enjoyable.
Halloumi fries were given a twist as they were served with pomegranate syrup and pomegranate seeds, chillies, natural yoghurt, scallions and coriander. The whistles and bells provided something a little more interesting than sweet chilli sauce in which to dip the chipped halloumi.
It was a decent dish, not earth shattering, but pleasing nonetheless.
A Vietnamese-style raw vegetable spring roll was served in rice paper with a peanut sauce.
The rice paper was claggy and the vegetables had been over-dressed in a deeply acidic sauce. The one bite I took was one bite too much. Must try harder.
A pork taco was the pick of the bunch. BBQ pulled pork was served with refried beans, guacamole and baby gem lettuce in a Mexican-inspired soft taco. It was a thoroughly enjoyable small plate.
My friend had similarly mixed fortunes with his selection of three dishes.
A soft shell crab dish was a game of two halves. The crab was good though why any chef is serving white asparagus at this time of year and with a dish of crab is anyone’s guess.
A sauce comprising kaffir lime and coconut milk was a nice idea but the execution missed the mark. In truth, the crab would have been better served on its own.
Meatballs were decent. Made with pancetta and chorizo, they had just the right amount of heat while a red wine tomato sauce had body and depth. It was one of the more impressive dishes.
A fish taco was also half-decent. Pan roasted salmon was served with chipotle, lime, coriander and baby gem lettuce and the flavours worked well together.
We’d been given a plate of uninspiring bread to eat alongside the tacos, though we left that untouched. There was nothing to commend it.
The service was good. Two front of house staff made themselves busy, one focusing on the bar and the other working between the kitchen and the tables.
Both were pleasant and made visits to the table to check everything was fine.
And there we have it. It was a short-ish evening out in a venue that caters to such informality. The execution of the food might have been a little sharper though the menu was on point for those searching for simple, better-than-a-standard-burger-night bites.
The Alb has done a decent job in recent years in catering to a casual crowd and while a little more accuracy from the kitchen wouldn’t go amiss, it’s well placed to emerge strongly after a challenging two years.
