On Friday I was very kindly invited to The Canal House bar/restaurant to check out their Valentine’s menu and new selfie cocktails. I have lived in Birmingham for over two years now and I’d never heard of The  Canal House but after having a look at their website I jumped at the chance. It is a beautiful place along side the canal with outside seating and the most gorgeous decor inside and the menu looked incredible.
I checked them out on Google maps to see what parking in the area was like and how far the walk would be from the nearest parking and I was so happy to see there is a car park with pay and display at the back of the building with just a short walk up a ramp to the main entrance.

It’s accessible to wheelchair users and once you’re inside, the bar, the dining area and the bathrooms are all on one floor. Also there is bench seating and the individual seats don’t have arms so if you’re on the bigger side you can sit comfortably.

Initially it all looked a little fancy and that made me a bit nervous but all the staff were super friendly and welcoming. We went on a Friday afternoon as I figured it wouldn’t be as busy as an evening and I’m so glad we did, there were a few patrons but the place is huge and there was plenty of free tables.

One of the things that I was most excited about is that they have a machine that allows you to order drinks with a picture on it that they call ‘selfie cocktails’ so obviously I was dying to drink a porn star martini with my mug on it!

It was really easy too, the staff give you a website address and you upload any picture to their bar printer and they bring your chosen drink over with the photo on… It’s very cool.

I checked out the Valentine’s menu online ahead of time because I love food so I already knew what I wanted before I even got there but then I saw the list if starters that I hadn’t paid attention to before. We ordered kale crisps, honey mustard chipolata sausages and the homemade houmous to start. I wanted to try the kale crisps because they are something I would never usually eat and they were seasoned with Chinese spices and sounded delicious so I figured why not and I actually like them…. A lot… I know I know… Who even am I but they were really good. The stand out of the starters was definitely the homemade houmous, it was perfect and was served with the best warm pitta bread I’ve ever had!!

For mains I, again, wanted to try something I wouldn’t usually go for and opted for Seabass served on a bed of mashed potatoes, tender stem broccoli and a poached egg. It looked really fancy and made for a lovely photograph but it was really nice too, I enjoyed the seabass even though I’m not usually a fishy person but the winner on the plate for me was the mash, it was delicious.

I tasted some of my sisters food, she ordered the chicken hanging kebab and honestly I prefered her dinner over mine and we have agreed that we will 100 percent be going back as I want to try the pork version of the hanging kebab she had. It was the chicken with sweet chilli, properly seasoned chips and garlic butter and it was absolutely epic, the waitress poured the garlic butter over the hanging kebab so it dripped down into the bowl of chips below… Not gonna lie it was heaven to watch and the perfect combination

For dessert they has the cutest sharer called ‘My last rolo for Valentines’ and is a bowl of vanilla ice cream, caramel sauce, brownie pieces and a single rolo… Awww! I thought that was adorable and so perfect for the valentines menu.

We had a really lovely afternoon, the place is beautiful and the food is amazing and to top off the whole experience we had the best waitress ever! Her name is Savannah and she really went above and beyond to make sure we had a good time, she was super high spirited and you can tell she enjoys being there and that really makes a difference.
I will be going back without a doubt, the food was just incredible and I can’t wait for summer to roll back around to take advantage of the canal side dining area.
If you’re looking for somewhere to go for valentines in Birmingham or any other day at all I really can’t recommend this place enough!

*This meal was very kindly gifted to me but all thoughts, opinions and pictures are my own.