Coal Bar and Grill, Southwater Square, Telford - food review

The busy streets of Southwater were. . . deserted. Two teenagers were kicking a ball against the red and grey exterior of Wilko.

It was like a sports-panel-bashing game: boom, boom, boom. The inflated leather pounded submissive metal into duteous compliance.

Southwater's lunchtime trade was conspicuous by its absence. The customers who might normally chow down at Telford's selection of national restaurant chains were keeping themselves warm, huddling round fires fuelled by post-Christmas credit card receipts.

Restaurants were watching as their bottom line dropped through the floor, wondering whether all those Prosecco-fuelled Christmas profits would last another month.

January is the meanest month for restaurants. It's cold, no one has any money and those who are enjoy eating out are saving their money for Valentine's, which is just around the corner.

Trade is so low that sensible independents simply close their doors for a week or a month and head off somewhere warmer. The money they'd make by opening the doors wouldn't cover their staff costs so they do the sensible thing and jet off to Spain, Canada or the Maldives. And why shouldn't they. Working as a chef, waiter or bar-tender over the festive holidays (remember them?) is a killer. Committed staff will typically take no days off for a month and work 80-90 hours a week. So when January comes, they need to recharge – and there's no better time than when money's thin on the ground, if that's not mixing my metaphors.

It's not as though nature's larder has nothing to offer, though the restaurants of Southwater tend to avoid such brilliant seasonal treats as Venison casserole; Pan-fried loin of venison with butternut squash, roasted salsify, venison jus with dark chocolate or a vegan-friendly Brussels sprouts salad. It's their loss.

While they could happily serve venison with sweet and sour parsnips, pear and curly kale or a slow-braised breast of lamb with artichoke purée and purple sprouting broccoli; Southwatersville offers 59 varieties of burger, 17 types of pizza, 32 pasta dishes and a mountain of garlic bread. Oink.

Now before the Trollerati gets all sniffy and start writing the usual 'you're anti-Telford' guff – and I'm sure their letters are recycled, with the same content and just the name of the restaurant changed – we're absolutely not.

One of the beauties of Shropshire's dining scene is its diversity. Broadly speaking, Ludlow has the best fine dining restaurants.

People looking to splash out can head to the county's South to eat brilliantly inventive food.

Shrewsbury and its hinterland has the best mid-priced independents, where creative cooking and easy-on-the-pocket prices make for happy eating. There are lots of amazing restaurants and fabulous cafés in the town's Market Hall offering brilliant flavours and variety.

Telford offers a completely different style of food. Fine dining is absent with one or two notable exceptions – Hadley Park Hotel being the most obvious example – and the independents don't have anything like the punch of those in Shrewsbury.

The town does, however, have a good range of national chains that offer consistency, good value for money and a place for informal eating.

Shoppers, friends and young families can sit, chat, make a noise, pop balloons (but only when it's their birthday) and eat cakes decorated with sparklers (but only when it's their birthday).

Some of the chains aren't all bad. Wildwood offers a decent menu providing you can cope with the noise (there are a lot of birthdays) while Zizzi offers fair-to-middling Italian dishes with reasonable pasta and pretty good pizza. The point is simple: there's something different to suit all tastes and pockets in different parts of the county.

The common theme for all of Southwater's restaurants is that they're family friendly and down with the hipsters. Food is on trend, or, more accurately, two steps behind the trend-setting independents of Shrewsbury. If you're looking to sum up what's on offer in three words or fewer, think this: Shopping centre chic.

One of the more popular Southwater restaurants is Coal Grill and Bar. It was founded 10 years ago by a fella named John Gater, who had a burning desire to bring great quality cuts from field to table. John wanted to serve fresh ingredients cooked over hot coals or served scorching from a stone oven. His ethos was pretty simple: he believed flavours were best when bold, interesting and healthy.

His idea has been successful and there are presently 10 Coal restaurants around the UK; from Basingtoke and Bristol to Sheffield and Swindon.

The Telford branch was empty when I called in for a midweek lunch; though that probably says more about the time of year than it does about Coal.

"A table for one, please."

The waitress smiled. "You can take your pick," she said, motioning her arm across the void.

Coal's menu is all about the flavours of the USA sprinkled with a soupcon of Euro sophistication. You imagine it would do brilliantly well if it opened a branch, or seven, in Texas. There are burgers and dogs, a huge range of barbecue dishes, from prawn jambalaya to blackened chicken ranch salad through to chicken chimichanga, not forgetting a decent range of meaty tapas. Barbecue features strongly on a Smokehouse menu while Coal offers hyperbolically described Legendary Firesticks, which are skewers of meat and seafood served on hot skillets with sauce and 'slaw.

I started with homemade panko-crumbed chicken strips with a sweet chilli dip. They were 'meh'. The chicken had been fried to the point of crisp-right-through, rather than moist-on-the-inside. Oh, and it was stringy. Not good. The panko crumb was deliciously crisp and crunchy – though having been over-fried that came as no surprise.

My main was much better. A pulled pork burrito had been filled with super spicy pork, peppers, onions, chilli and rice. A side of tomato salsa, sour cream and fries and an undressed salad finished the dish.

The burrito was fantastically satisfying. It was a night-in-front-of-the-TV-with-the-central-heating-turned-up-high-and-a-big-bag-of-snacks sort of dish. Indulgent, spicy, creamy and packed with saucy, exciting flavours that worked harmoniously, the burrito was a big-old-bearhug of a dish. The fries were crisp and delicious, the salad a little underwhelming and the dips as messy as they ought to have been. Nice.

Service was good. The lone waitress made just-the-right number of visits to my table to make sure everything was fine – it was – and was polite and helpful throughout. The food wasn't particularly memorable, but it served a purpose and provided sustenance on a quiet winter day.

Telford has a decent number of restaurants that are good at what they do and Coal's policy of happy cows = happy customers hits the spot.

By Andy Richardson