thom

Below is my original review of the Manchester restaurant, which was nestled deep in the Red Chilli thread. It is from a good twelve months or so ago so things may have changed, and to be fair my dining partner rated it higher than I (and generally I greatly value her opinion, though she is one of those freakish weirdos who has never fully bought into the cult of Red Chilli - burn her!): "I also tried Red Hot and Spice (if that's the right name?) around the corner which is a new Sichuan place with sites in Birmingham and London. It's an upstairs site, the decor is fine, the service is flaky, and it has the most complicated menus I've ever seen (enigma code like multi-option buffets with all sorts of caveats and provisos). In fact on one of the menu's they charged you for food left on your plate to stop you over-ordering which means if you're tight on cash you'd have to eat till you were sick or stuff it in your pants to avoid a surcharge. What about the food though? Well, it was fine. The dry-fried lamb with cumin was (if I say so myself) less good than the near identical version I make at home from that Chinese Food Made Easy book (one of the simplest and tastiest Chinese dishes ever - I eat it weekly), a baked fish dish was fine, but the revelation was the introduction to "smashed cucumber with delicious sauce". Effectively it's chopped cold cucumber (the initial "smashing" with a cleaver is meant to feather the edges of the chunks so they absorb the sauce more) with a hot thin sauce of soy, rice wine, maybe chilli oil, garlic and sesame oil. It's astoundingly moreish and apparently it's a traditional light side-dish to have with hot, oily Sichuan dishes. I shall look for it at Red Chilli, and recreate it at home (it's also in the Chinese Food Made Easy book). For me Red Chilli still holds the top spot, no contest."

Yes, but cunningly you maintain at least fifty two sets of friends, colleagues and general reprobates with which to have these "once a year" benders ensuring such blow-outs roll around for you with alarming frequency... Speaking of which aren't we due one of our "annual" afternoon tea soirees with cakes and finger sandwiches and daintly extended pinkies? Cheers Thom

Weirdly this is the only vaguely Wolesley-related thread I can find on here. Strange that it doesn't attract more comment or merit it's own thread as so many people i know regularly eat there (I bumped into Shaun Hill no less on one occassion). Anyway I ended up here as Le Gavroche, where i had hoped to sneak a late lunch, had a private do on. Although a different proposition I decided The Wolesley would fill the gap with good food, a little indulgence and some supreme people-watching. I kept it simple. A Tanq 10 G&T in the bar whilst i waited for a table (along with a couple of those free cheese puffs), and then after hoovering up some bread and butter I went for a lunch of dressed crab and a glass of Mosel Riesling, followed by a treacle tart and finally coffee. The chewy batons were as moreish as ever for a kick-off, and the dressed crab itself was absolutely spanking, a really top drawer execution of a superb crustacea. The accompanying toast was a little uninspiring and mean though. The treacle tart was served with a scoop of cream and was just right - unctuous and thick but not cloying or heavy. Weirdly it tasted slightly banana-ish, but that didn't detract. Coffee was good too - an esperesso that stayed scalding right to the last sip - but for me the high point was the people-watching. A load of the European art crowd were in, and there were some stupendously mis-matched couples (mainly in terms of age) which begged all sorts of questions regarding the nature of their relationships. Sadly the traditional Wolesley clatter stymied by eavesdropping opportunities. I read Private Eye instead. The Wolseley is pricy, and the noise puts some off, but the service is slick, the food is generally good (if seldom amazing) and the whole place just has a palpable buzz and energy which makes it a compelling dining experience for me. I like it a lot. Cheers Thom

Weirdly i had dinner in Arbutus on Thursday, and would have had an indulgent solo lunch at Le Gavroche but was denied as they had a private event on (probably some of those arty Frieze lot...). Great minds think alike it seems (The Wolseley sufficed for me in the end). I've done the lunch deal at Le Gavroche a good few times and although I've had some divine souffles there I dont think I've even seen the Suisse version. In fact am I right in thinking it's one of their signature dishes in which case it's unlikely it'll ever make the leap to their cheapy menu. The lunch deal is a simple three choices per three courses affair, and to be honest it seems to change so completely and so regularly that if that is what you are specifically going for its more or less impossible to make predictions, let alone recommendations. That said whatever you eat i think you'll have a spectacular lunch (and go for the ice creams and sorbets for dessert, worth it for the trolly-theatre alone!). Cheers Thom

Winot and Matthew, I missed you both! Seems Thursday night was eGullet night at Arbutus! I was in about 6pm-8pm, sat with a mate in the main room in a table that backed onto the dividing wall to the bar. I reckon it was 70/30 male/female in there, we had a table of four girls next to us which skewed the demographic mix a little. We need some special eGullet badges or some-such. Maybe a handshake. Or even a funny walk. I thought the food was generally very good, and was stonking value. We did the pre-theatre menu - three courses for £17. All cheap produce, and far from overwhelming portions, but deftly and tastily put together to create a well-judged and satisfying dining experience. This is going to become a regular early-evening stop-off for me. Crispy pigs cheek came reformed as a tasty little pressed cake, with gribiche sauce and leaves. Main was a knock-out rabbit moutarde stew;/;. the meat was beautiful, and the veg judged to perfection - wafer-thin slices of carrot, spinach wilted but with bite, and celery that tasted so celery-ish (as Gregg Wallace might say) that it defied belief. Pudding was panacotta with stewed apple; ridiculously simple but delicious. We also shared a starter of the squid and mackeral burgers as they are a wonderful signature dish and my friend hadn't been before. Sadly they were the only let-down of the night as they were slightly undercooked with floury raw batter in the centre. The service was bright and buzzy, the room as inoffensive as ever, and all in all it was a seriously good option for grabbing a quick early evening meal. I'll be back again, and I won't leave it so long this time. Cheers Thom

Ohhh... there's all sorts of places to be honest, and the general split would probably be that hotel's will try and nail your hat on (meeting rooms are a crucial revenue stream for them) whereas restaurants will probably be more accomodating and just look to make a margin on the f&b. For hotels Abode is a good shout and, talking facilities rather than out an out quality for a moment, Malmaison also has a nice (if dark) private dining room and I'd be suprised if any of the other decent outfits in town weren't keen to accomodate you - Radisson, Lowry, Great John Street etc. Otherwise loads of the big restaurants (again talking variety rather than quality) have separate rooms or seperate areas - Gaucho, Linen, Room etc for example, as well as quirkier places such as The Market Restaurant. A good option might be a room at Urbis? You'd get catering by The Modern. Which, topically enough, just one Restaurant of the Year at the Manchester Food and Drink festival awards last night. Well done to Vaughan, Annie, Paul, Sam and the team. Cheers Thom

That'll be Zouk ("teabar and grill" or some-such), on the Quadrangle off Oxford Road opposite the BBC. It's yet another of these huge and generally decent operations that have pitched up in town after success on the wrong side of the Pennines (EastZEast, Akbars etc) and on my single visit I really quite liked it. That said I still find it slightly off-putting that on a menu with treats as authentic as sheep trotters they also go overboard on upselling chips and a variety of bland Western dishes. I heard it was popular with the tory delegates and hangers on, but then so were most places in town (including, alledgedly, the champagne selling wine-merchants and the lap-dancing clubs... Chers Thom

Anyway, back on the subject of food... The lunch meeting I referenced in the Red Chilli thread (a client from Buy Art Fair funnily enough) cancelled with late notice and as Red Chilli was a good stomp out of my way I missed out on the enticing notion of razor clams and looked for somewhere spicy on my way down to Urbis. Kabana I thought. One of Manchester's infamous curry cafes. It's got itself a shortlisting for the Manchester Food and Drink Festival in the casual dining category, although it didn't garner my own vote as I had always thought it fine but nothing more, and certainly not even the best in the category of Piccadilly curry cafes. Anyway the strong counter-opinion amongst some of the judges made me think this could be a useful opportunity to reassess my opinions so in I went. I kept it short and sweet - half karahi lamb (on the bone), half spinach and potato, and a chapati. Water from the the jug to drink, and a grand bill of £4.20. It was... fine. The lamb was pretty good, rich spicing with decent meat, and the spinach and potato was fine but not a patch on the superlative example at the Kebabish. My friend, who is no great fan of Kabana, does cede that it was does a brilliant mixed veg, and in retrospect maybe I should have played to it's strengths. My beef though is with the bread. I am a bread addict and a bread snob, and as is so often in the N4 curry places the breads were ready-made rather than to order, and were grilled/hot plated rather than done in a tandoor. My chapati was dry, a tad chewy, and - when you are using your bread as both scoop and sole carbs balance to your meal - was just not good enough. So to sum up, Kabana was fine, and for £4.20 it represents a quick tasty hot lunch which largely hit the spot. The problem is that so do most of the curry cafes in it's vicinity, and at least two do it noticably better. Cheers Thom

Yeah, I heartily agree on Chaophraya, I think it's excellent (anywhere that does a top notch papaya salad is ok in my book) and comes out of this year's Good Food Guide with a creditable 3. Some people suggest it's dipped lately but I think there's a bit of ingrained sniffiness because it is, in effect, now a small "chain" with branches in Leeds and Liverpool (and more on the way I think). Don't be put off though, it's big, slickly-styled, with quality food, an excellent wine list, and good service. Other options, should you want to stay closer to Chinatown (but personally I'm recommend the five minute stroll down atmospheric King St to Chaophraya) are the Royal/Thai/Siam Orchids (I always forget which is which) which are long-term Manchester fixtures but which never wowwed me, or the Thai floor of Pacific (good back in the day but dropped off the radar a bit) or a place called Simply Thai which many people seem to rate currently. I think Chaophraya is great, but to be honest if I took an average foody there I thing they would be pleased but not blown away, and would probably have eaten many comparable meals before. Red Chilli on the other hand is truly something special, and even serious food nerds who travel the world's finest restaurants have had culinary experiences there which have become serious addictions. It's not just big-standard Chinese food, it's spicy, fragrant, intense with lots of fresh herbs and many layers of complex flavour. So to sum up Chaophraya won't disappoint if you have to scratch your Thai itch (so to speak), but if you order the right things at Red Chilli you could have a spectacular meal. You'll be happy either way! Cheers Thom

Ahah, you're right, Penang Palace is indeed now Red and Hot or whatever it's called (RIP to it's infamous canoe). The latter I found fine but clearly a way behind Red Chilli which made it pretty redundant in my book (though it made it into another, this year's GFG). That said if you have a penchant for Malaysian food you only need to head to Ning across town in the Nirthern Quarter. It's a sweet and trendy little independent place rather than a mega-menu-ed authentic Chinatown eating-factory but the food is pretty good and although Thai features here and there it's focus is Malay cuisine as the chef and joint owner, Norman, is Malay himself. Cheers Thom

Yeah, it was a seperate specials menu which was a loose set of four or page laminated pages. Your one sounds like it might be razor clam in the infamous "grandma's sauce" which crops up all over the standard menu; it looked damn rich and sticky in the picture and that was the dish which caught my eye. Yum, roll on Tuesday. Cheers Thom

Nice story about the £20. It's a refreshing bit of honesty, in many restaurants that would have gone straight in a pocket, or at best a tips jar. Jealous you tried the razor clams too, i went last week and the specials list had about four razor clam dishes on it all of which tempted. Sadly I was with someone who claimed to have tried Red Chilli three times in large parties and had not been wowwed on any occassion so naturally I was compelled to hit him with double whammy of hot poached lamb and spring onion bread. He's one of us now... I'm due back there on Tuesday and unless they've cleared their job-lot of intriguing seafood I'm going to be treating myself to one of the razor clam variations. Which dish did you plump for Eatenmess? Cheers Thom

Just to reinforce the points above Manchester has a very decent Chinatown (largest outside London I think) which is full of restaurants, shops, a regular market and a real sense of community with Sunday schools etc. One of my favourite parts of the city. They is a mixed bag of restaurants of which most are Catonese with some Japanese, Malay and Thai thrown in for good measure. The usual Cantonese places are mentioned above (though New Emperor is colsed/closing and becoming a kareoke complex) but for me the stand out is Red Chilli, a Sichuan place which does indeed have it's own thread, some glowing reviews in the national press and a listing in the Good Food Guide. Go, order the hot poached lamb, spring onion bread and plenty of boiled rice and two of you will have eaten like kings for about £7 a head including a green tea or two. Getting there is easy too. The airport has it's own dedicated station and every single train from there will call at Manchester Piccadilly which is where you need to be. They run every five or ten minutes and take ten to twenty minutes to hit town depending on whether it's a local stopping service or not. Maybe £3/£4 for an off-peak return? Piccadilly to Chinatown is a short stroll of five minutes - Piccadilly, Piccadilly Gardens, Portland St and you're there (or cut down Canal St and then Sackville St if you want a slightly quieter and more scenic stroll). Cheers Thom

A little background: I post regularly on the Manchester forum of www.skyscrapercity.com, a gigantic, global "eGullet"-style forum for architecture and urban-life nerds. The food and drink thread therein is always quite interesting, and unsuprisingly as posters tend to be immersed in the guts and bones of their respective city's the rival-bashing between the forums (particularly between Birmingham, Liverpool, Leeds and manchester) can sometimes reach fever-pitch. Because of this (and because of the number of SCC posters, often Mancunian, who like to offer Manchester's lack of a city centre Michelin star as proof that we are an uncultured and unappreciative bunch of philistines living in some sort of post-nuclear urban wasteland) I thought I'd use the latest GFG as an excercise in city comparisons. A neat bit of bench-marking I reckoned. And if nothing else it meant I could finally put to use the statistics module I did in my Marine Biology degree... The post is repeated in full below. Bear in mind it is tailored for city-nerds, not food-nerds, so some of the discussion and specifics are less detailed (and more "spoon-fed") than they would have been had I originated the post here. Also, it's Manchester-centric as it was written for a Manchester forum. London is excluded from the list as frankly within the UK it is a dining scene apart and may as well be treated as a country in it's own right (albeit one who's teams have never won a European cup). I also kept the breakdown pretty basic (as to be honest I think the results are pretty clear and telling) so there is no prattling on about modes, medians and degrees of freedom. The upshot is that Manchester comes out pretty well (and as you all know I like a bit of Mancunian tub-thumping) but oh how we miss Juniper's mighty 8 out of 10 to hoik our stats up like a tent-pole. Edinburgh is steaming ahead as far as the UK goes, and Birmingham comes out well for fans of serious dining too. God help Leeds if Anthony ever decides to pack it in! Ah well, The Modern and Red Chilli both made this year's guide for Manchester, and for that reason alone I couldn't be happier! Ok, let the knee-jerk and defensive city-baiting and all round cheap-shots begin! (You know it will, we denizens of online forums are all the same and give in to our baser instincts no matter what subject we're actually meant to be addressing! Cheers Thom "The new Good Food Guide was out Monday, though Waterstones in the Arndale only got it delivered today (and needed chivvying to put it out on the shelves). Despite it's imperfections (and no form of grading something as subjective as food is without criticism) it is a pretty good yard stick of good dining - more inclusive than Michelin, more serious than Hardens, more integrity and relevence than the AA or RAC guides - and as such it makes interesting reading for Manchester's self-flagellating restaurant scene. For those that don't know the book it is not a definitive list of UK restaurants; it doesn't include crap places just to write a wittily ascerbic review, and to even get into the guide is a serious achievement. Ratings go from 1-10 but in all seriousness a 1 is a respectful rating for say a mid-range restaurant or an unassuming bistro. Anyway once again, for God knows how many years in succession, Manchester has more full entries (and minor listings) than any other UK city outside London and Edinburgh. For the record the regional run-down looks like this: Edinburgh - 20 total listings - 19 (full listing)/1 (minor listing) - 3.8 (average score out of ten)/8 (highest score out of ten) Manchester - 17 - 11/6 - 3.4/4 Birmingham - 11 - 10/1 - 3.4/6 Leeds - 10 - 8/2 - 3.5/7 Brighton - 10 - 9/1 - 2.9/6 Bristol - 9 - 9/0 - 3.3/5 Cardiff - 7 - 7/0 - 2.3/4 Glasgow - 7 - 7/0 - 3.1/5 Nottingham - 7 - 6/1 - 3.1/7 Liverpool - 6 - 6/0 - 3.0/4 Newcastle - 5 - 5/0 - 3.75/5 Sheffield - 4 - 4/0 - 2.7/4 I think what is interesting is that as has long been the case Manchester has a huge breadth and variety of dining scene in comparison to other regional cities (the above numbers are even excluding the other seven listed restaurants outside the "city" but within Greater Manchester) but lacks a knock-out top drawer place. Abode has the potential to become this in time, but as yet we lack an Anthony Flinn style figure (take that one guy out of Leeds and the city's stats drop to 7 - 5/2 - 2.8/4!) to really lift the top end. Birmingham deserve respect for fine-dining strength in depth with no less than four restaurants nailing a 6 out of ten. On a personal note I was delighted to see The Modern at Urbis in the book with a credible 3 (on a per with The Midland and Harvey Nichols, and one below Abode). A big success for a very Mancunian, local and regional dining experience, and God knows Urbis could do with some good news. at the moment... Cheers Thom"

And this from a man who always has so much to say! Excuse my tardy reply chaps, I've just been down in that there London for a couple of days (including an indulgent solo lunch at Le Gavroche - grouse mousseline, mhmmm...). You are right eatenmess, I would list a good, possibly over-facing, number of places for you, but to be honest if you are looking for a clarity and economy of answer you'll need to do better with your initial criteria than "really good food, any style or cuisine". Besides despite this recession-induced aversion to overdosing on consumer choice variety is still, I'm led to believe, very much the spice of life. And if variety is the piquant enhancer of life then San Carlo is possibly the unwelcome and irrelevant garnish - as discussed avoid like the plague. Personally I think the call for The Modern is a good one - huge congrats to Bertie and the team (vested interest blah, blah, blah) - and in the interests of brevity I will leave it there. Oh, and Red Chilli! (damn you RDB, you know me so well...) Cheers Thom

Here's one to avoid (based on my personal experience): My Smeg Fridge (ironically styled as 50's Americana) has turned out to be bloody awful. Just poor, poor quality, and the transparent plastic for the various compartments appears too brittle to do the job. The door to the inner freezer compartment cracked and has now come off, the salad crisper is badly cracked, the metal bar that holds the milk bottles etc snapped off long ago, the cheese-box is cracked (through nothing more than moderate handling) and all is all it's been one long let down. It looks beautiful in it's cream finish and fits the shabby-chic country kitchen style better than you might think, but aside from it's lack of robustness I don't think I ever got over the fact that the big clunky door-handle is actually purely decorative (and for pulling the door open) and doesn't open with a satisfying lift and clunk like you see on similar fridges in American movies (maybe some health and safety thing over here?). By contrast, and mildly off-topic, the Rangemaster range we bought at the same time has been a revelation and is a joy to use every time I turn it on. Cheers Thom

Oh, I'm going to be Monday-morning-contrary here, I have a double VAT inspection for the next two days so I'm in that sort of mood. Apologies in advance. Antonios in Piccadilly is (in my eminently fallible opinion) poor, both for food and people-watching (i find the human grind of Piccadilly Approach a tad depressing), and Kabana, although not bad at all, would none the less fail to get my curry cafe vote - Kebabish for curries and Mahabra for breads (unfortunately the MFDF awards are a democracy...). Back to the subject of breakfast's it all depends what you're after. I still rate Linda's Pantry (Ducie St, 2 mins from City Inn) as one of the best authentic greasy spoons around but I'm not sure it's open Sunday morning. I'd call ahead and check if you fancy wandering up there. Other's like the Abergeldie on Shude Hill but I think it's lost it's soul since they did away with the Heath Robinson style tea-maker. For something a bit trendier try the Northern Quarter which is spitting distance from City Inn - Koffee Pot in Stevenson Square (favourite of Mr Scruff and artist Mark Kennedy) is pretty good and get's a very interesting crowd in. Trof on Thomas St is a bar (nice space, great beers) which is also famed for it's mega-breakfasts but I can't claim to have eaten one. In fact still on a Northern Quarter tip if you want more of a independent coffee-shop vibe try Drip on Hilton St or An Outlet on Dale St (both barely two mins from City Inn). Drip does better for comfortable seating and probably edges An Outlet in terms of cakes and pastries, but both are good places to sit with the papers. Bread and Butter cafe (no sign, pink frontage) on Tib St might also do breakfasts and defines N4 eclectic in terms of decor and menu. Oh, Olive in Sackville Street in the Gay Village is passable too and barely two mins walk for you. It's a shop-led deli (albeit one where you can buy bog-roll as well as Barbakan Norlander ryebread) but does have a counter for sitting with coffees (Illy), pastries and paninis. You can also buy papers there, and I find with the cosmopolitan and colourful locale, the architectural style and the facing park it has quite a New York feel to it. Personally when breakfasts are called for I either go for the faux-continental cafe (with an accent) style of the places listed immediately above, or I go greasy spoon. My current favourite for the latter is Williams sandwich bar/cafe on Hilton street - an absolute unsung gem in terms of profile, albeit one which is always busy and must make a fortune. It is a bog standard English cafe, but it makes it's own branded sandwiches and fillings, it does loads of hot stuff (including every breakfast item you could imagine plus soups and specials) and everything is slightly better quality than you'd expect. It's my place of choice for a hangover curing bacon butty on the way to work and it's been going strong since I first worked in the adjacent Fourways House fourteen years ago. My favourite thing about it is the bread. Cheap bacon can still hit the spot - hot, salty, piggy - but cheap bread/barms are shite; they're just made of fluff and disintegrate into claggy mush the minute the moisture of the red/brown sauce hits. Williams actually splash out on half decent stuff - fresh, nice texture and a little bit of chew to the crust. This ain't Poilane, but for me it hits the spot every time. If the rest of Williams breakfasts match up to the bacon butties and if you want to avoid the mentalists of Piccadilly or the over-styled/willfully low-fi Northern Quarter joints where punters tend to sport asymettrical bleached mullets and Macbooks then I'd point you in their direction. Cheers Thom

The lamb dish is pretty pokey but it is so, so good (and a snip at only £7:50) that I implore you to try it. Really, you'll be suprised how quickly your mouth becomes acclimatised. As to whether it's the lamb version of "water-boiled beef" I think it could be. Poaching is boiling, all said and done, and I guess it's not a common cooking technique on the Chinese menu's (at least in UK restaurants). Harters, I say try the pork and beans; the last one I had was almost too salty/umami but damn it was good. Spring onion bread for dipping is a must, and I'd heartily recommend trying some fish dishes too - cod with chilli and/or fungi (the little flappy ones like wet mouse's ears) is a regular dish for me. My only caveat is that to avoid spice in Sichuan cuisine does put a good portion of the menu, and some of the most wonderful dishes, off limits for you. If, God forbid, you're also not keen on offal, extreme meats or exotic seafood then you really are missing out on the best of the place. Last time I was in there I had a look at the laminated special menus (one is handed to you as you're seated, but several others are up on the wall in reception) as I fancied something trying something new. I did try and remember the descriptions as they were brilliant but the dish we went with (something about "honest lamb" with aubergine and coriander) but a bit of a damp squib. The pale aubergine was about texture rather than taste (unlike the delish Beijing aubergine) and the thin milky sauce tasted underpowered. There was some fantistic looking stuff on there though, including the "fondue" style dish I drunkenly had on the last night out with Bapi and Gary. Reading what the chunks for dipping actually were was enlightening (something about jellied fish skin I think)! On the way out I spotted a specials list on the wall which was all about rabbit dishes (again not something I've ever seen in a Chinese restaurant) and they all sounded eminently triable. One of them was actually called a "Roger rabbit" something, something. Anyway Harters I hope you have a good visit and find some dishes to your liking, but pleeeease order the lamb. Cheers Thom

Oh queue-jumping is imperative, the door policy is so unpredictable and officious I can't be bothered otherwise. The drinks are fine but I just find the fit-out (especially the "annex") is horrible and the crowd and atmosphere is rather bizarre. Glad you liked Harvey Nichols. I've not been since the new chef took over. I see no major changes to the menu yet which seems a little concering as you'd expect a new chef to balance continuty with his own stamp but we shall see. I think the food at Walrus has always been fine and the cocktails are pretty good too. Can't knock it with one of Man Con's vouchers. Next time you're in that neck of the woods check out Apotheca which is an outstanding bar at the moment. I'm not quite house-size yet (well, maybe a compact and bijou maisonette) but that's a constant battle believe me... I'm actually a stone lighter than back in my Restaurant magazine days though that may have largely been down to the enormous Mange Tout (RIP) lunches i used to have every day. Mhmmm Mange Tout lunches... Cheers Thom

Bapi, Considering the state you ended up in that is a very fair and accurate write-up! I think you've nailed pretty much all the dishes, and myself and Gary deviated only on having rabbit ravioli - which were really rather wonderful and stuffed to bursting with densely packed meat - in place of the duck. All in all I thought the meal itself was close to very good - only the over-salting of the halibut dish really threw me (strangely the potentially salt-heavy cod cheeks and pork belly was seasoned perfectly - but I found the service clunky and odd. Certainly the worst I have encountered here. Firstly we had at least four people serving us at various times, and they ranged from warm and efficient to warm and well-meaning to cold and uncommunicative. The gold star of bringing the pinot noir glasses has to be offset against one waiter trying to remove our initial red wine glasses twice even though we clearly said each time that we still intended to order some. The thing which really irritated me - and in a world of civil unrest and impending enviromental and nuclear meltdown I realise how petty this sounds - was the bread issue. Essentially we finished the first basket of rather fine bread, and asked for a second. This was a long and multi-faceted meal, but Gary is from Yorkshire and was worried about leaving hungry. "We don't have any more" we were told. Now come on. An aspiring to Michelin star restaurant, with a half-full lunchtime service and the dinner trade still to come, can't rustle up an extra bread-basket? Especially for a table of lunatics intent on over-ordering off the a la carte grazing menu and bothering the upper-middle region of your wine-list? No bread at all? Not even any dough prepped and resting for the evening which you could call into service? Seriously? No more bread. We let it go at the time but it is one of those small but jarring incidents which makes you question what the restaurants motivations are, how it's run and what it's aspiring to be. It can't be a one-basket bread policy (indeed I'm often been offered more bread at previous lunches) so was it down to a badly informed/trained waiter or some cock-up in the kitchen? Quite tainted the place for me (but then I'm a precious little git at times...). Following that we took in the mediocre bar with astonishing views with is Cloud 23 at the Hilton, called at Piccolino's for beer and then The Vines (for more beer) en route to Trof in the Northern Quarter where we had, well, more beer. Then stir-fried chilli pigs maw and some sort of offal fondue at Red Chilli, topped off with whiskey cocktails in Socio Rehab, back once again in the bosom of the Northern Quarter. Then me and Gary got the train. And Bapi got a kebab. A good day was had by all. Cheers Thom

I've eaten there a number of times and found the sushi very decent (not spectacular, but the best in town by a long chalk) and the black cod actually pretty damn good. The reason I can't recommend it more wholeheartedly is: a) It's so, so, horrifically bling. And the chairs are ridiculous. b) I constantly hear that they've had major personnel changes in the kitchen which endangers consistency. c) There are constant rumours they are about to close. Recent cheap lunch deals seemed panicky and now I hear they're moving into a new menu of pizzas and luxury burgers. Waving or drowning...? d) The winelist has pictures of each of the individual bottles of wine on it. So it's a weird one as I keep chancing it and it keeps being pretty good (if empty), but whilst I'm happy to risk my own money I'm loathe to recommend it to anyone, particularly for a special occasion, as I know it does seem to be a ticking timebomb and sooner or later it will let someone down spectacularly. Cheers Thom

Lounge Ten is fine, in a fine sort of way, but I find it costly for the quality of food. Also, although the interior is "unique" and "intimate" I actually find it "contrived" and "cramped". I can see why people like it, but it isn't for me and it isn't special. I once had an argument with a friend of a friend who used to work there regarding why it didn't have, and had never had, a Michelin star (he was adamant it did). Obsidian has had flashes on inspiration (not least when it opened with Duncan Poyser as chef and Jamie Stephenson as bar guru) but key staff never stuck around and generally it has been down more than it's up. It's a funky enough space but apart from one-off events it never really attracted anyone, fur coat or not, in significant numbers. I wouldn't discount Lounge Ten entirely as despite me getting bored with the whole "shocking" erotic murals thing it can represent a decent night but I would certainly strike Obsidian from your list forthwith. It's ok for cocktails but if you want decent food and sceney, Cheshire slickness then Grill on the Alley, or indeed the original RBG, still do it better. I reckon you're on the right track with The Modern or HN. Cheers Thom

No longer. Unless they've re-introduced a jacket rule since we were there about 12 months back ← It's the end of an era! The barbarians are at the gate! This world started going wrong when men stopped wearing jackets for dinner. And hats generally.

I never posted up my experiences about Le Manoir. Shame on me, let me belatedly cast my mind back... I was down there for a friend's child's christening. A small affair - about twenty close friends and family - which was held in a private dining room which sat seperately to the main proerty and had french windows off the dining room into a private lawned garden. We struck lucky with a beautiful sunny day. As an aside I can only say that some people have too much money; if my boys ever got christened it would be limp white bread sandwiches and trestle tables at Glossop labour club. Actually I might simply wait until they're old enough to settle the bar tab. Anyway, I must admit I went there in a cynical frame of mind. I knew it wasn't going to be shite with two Michelin stars, but maybe I expected it all to be a bit brand-Blanc and feel like a glorified gastronomic theme park. The room, indeed the entire place, was beautiful. The formal gardens were gorgeous, and the standard of finish and fixtures, art and furniture, in the main accomodation and restaurant was genuinely a good few notches up from what I've experienced at the usual one star country house suspects. I can almost see why the average room rate is about £800 a night... The food was actually very, very good indeed. memory is a bit hazy now but I remember the bread was spectacular (especially the potato bread where the dough was dense and the crust smelt like baked potato skins). The amuse bouche passed me by but the risotto of garden veg was a delight. So light and silky with crisp little nuggets of courgette etc dotted through it. Reminded me of one I once had at The Weaver's Shed in Golcar actually. The main course was the humdinger though. A thick slab of Aberdeen Angus beef fillet, cooked rare, complete with the usual veg, silky pomme puree and red wine reduction with smoky morels. The beef itself was a revalation. I'm not sure if Raymond is into his sous-viding but it's the only way I think he could have got such a thin but seared crust on what was otherwise a flawlessly even pink and tender inch thick chunk of meat. There was no graduation at all, just crisp sear (maillard-a-go-go) and soft, melt in the mouth flesh. Yummy. Dessert was, a rather fine fruit-cake made by the cousin of my friend (the restaurant were happy to serve it). Coffees and petit four outside on the terrace were spot on. Service throughout was silkily efficient and altogether wonderful. The single child present (ours had been palmed off on their grandma) had a fine old time of it with a cheese salad thing constructed to look like a mouse, followed by outstanding fish and chips served wrapped not in newspaper but in an Asterisk comic, which he could then read. I like attention to detail. Afterwards we stayed in the garden finishing the champagne and other assorted drinks for a good hour or two. On my part the afternoon quickly descended into competitive croquet (with rules of our own making - half golf, half marbles) with my friends other half (we were level at two games all but I had the momentum) but I remember the whole affair feeling unhurried and relaxed which was delightful. Raymond even came out and said hello and shook everyone's hand. he brought a teddy for baby Olivier too. All in all the warmth, honesty and the level of execution in both food and service in the place caught me off guard. I had expected complacency or laurel resting, but whilst I appreciate this is not pulling up gastronomic trees it is certainly a fantastic operation and made for a very pleasurable day. I would return under my own steam, if only the pricing wasn't quite so excruciating. Cheers Thom

Yep, I did exactly that all over again. Thankfully the lamb was back to it's spicy best. Hurray! Cheers Thom