Strada, 109 - 111 Wharfside Street, The Mailbox, Birmingham, B1 1XL

As with Café Rouge, and other chains, my opinion is based on the food and service of this venue alone. I really should have mentioned that sooner!

Let’s start with the good: the service was excellent.

And now, after my brief dalliance with niceness, let’s move onto the so-so, the uh-oh and the oh-no.

The restaurants in and around The Mailbox are all well located, the canal-side ones being the best. Strada is situated  just inside the complex, without a view of the water but that’s not so horrible. I suppose we could say that the location, décor and ambience was so-so.

The food was uh-oh, oh no, oh dear, oh my and no, no, NO!

What on earth were they thinking? Jiggly ordered the Pizza Vegetale with a side of polenta chips. I ordered Panzerotti Porcini which had a V sign next to it on the Mailbox menu, but I've just noticed that online it does not - I hope The Mailbox menu was right. 

The Pizza Vegetale was OK relative to what I was served. The Panzerotti was just dire. The stuffing tasted of...nothing and the sauce tasted like powder mix soup. Powder mix soup! No!

Generally, I love polenta, but these polenta chips elicited this response: 'eh...they'll do'. 

The rocket and parmesan salad was suspiciously placed on top of the remnants of a side of mixed salad. I had the distinct feeling that they had run out of rocket, or at least, I hope that they had run out of rocket and not just put rocket on top of some mixed salad that they had lying around. 

The dessert of Fichi al Vino was comparably lovely. However, with such a preposterous mains experience it is somewhat difficult to differentiate between genuinely good flavours and the feeling of hungry belly salvation.

Price: Approx. £35.00 for 2 x mains, 2 x sides, 1 x dessert and service charge.

Veggie Friendly: 2.5/5

Food: 2/5

Service: 5/5

Atmosphere: 2.5/5