It's all just one big restau-rant...

Sunday 30 November 2008

Bake it baby...

I've got utter mind-fuck syndrome. I need to make a phone call but I can't quite bring myself to actually do it. The consequences of not making said phone call are that I feel sad and distressed and hopeless but somehow that makes it even harder to actually do what I should have done several weeks ago and pick up the telephone.

I've also been in rather deep trouble at work - though it's the kind of trouble that may miraculously morph into huge triumph if I can keep the threads held together. If I can't, well, I'd better do some creative thinking about my career.

I should know by now that there is always a number of therapeutic things that can be done when one is feeling fucked up.

Like withdrawing: I suppose this one is my story recently - avoid the situation at all costs and go hide in bed... or in the pub... also avoid doing anything that might actually make you feel better.

Like going to see the doctor: on this score I'm going to have my mental wealth assessed by professionals on Wednesday and perhaps another course of Citalopram will ensue or the enlightened souls might even do me a bit of CBT. I filled in their assessment tickbox form at a pretty low point last week and am bound to come out of that with massive huge red warning symbols all over me. Other noddy-things they might recommend are stopping drinking (not touched a drop since Thursday now, definitely a good idea) getting more exercise (I get quite a bit) looking after myself and eating proper food (yeah right?) doing something fun and creative to get me out of my slump (whoooo) talking to people (could do a bit more of this) keep a regular schedule of bedtimes and life (totally fucked up - why else do you think I started writing this at 5am). I'd also like to be told I need a holiday.



Like making bread: Couple of weeks ago before this latest personal fiasco properly kicked off I bought some yeast in Tesco thinking I'd get the breadmaker out and have another shot with it. In the past most of my efforts were disappointing for one reason or another, commonly that the bread would rise in the machine and then collapse horribly leaving a mis-shapen and not terribly edible brick. True to form I carefully measured my ingredients (well, sort of carefully) and put them in the machine in eager anticipation of a nice loaf and was rewarded with yet another brick. I had a couple of slices but ultimately threw the brick away. Rubbish waste of effort.

Several weeks later I thought I might have yet another go having sort of decided that the major problem was probably that my dough was too wet. I then realised that I had thrown out the little metal stirry widget from the bottom of the bread maker rendering it useless. This is probably the best thing that could possibly ever have happened. Instead of trusting to some poxy recipe and a cheap-ass bread oven I made up some yeast mixture with a good helping of microbe-food and with flour, salt and a bit of oil made dough in a bowl. I let it rise in the airing cupboard, bashed it about a bit more, stuck it in the useless loaf tin from the bread machine, let it grow again for a while and baked it in the normal regular oven.

People tell you that making bread is all about science and accurate measuring and shit like that. But it isn't. It's about a feeling, it's about feeling the living dough spring around as you knead it, it's about getting the texture feeling just so (something you definitely can't do in a machine) and all importantly it's about that smell when you walk in from the outside and know that you are HOME. Oh and then there's eating a few slices, while it's still hot, dripping with salty butter, heaven. On the back of another slice I might just have the strength to make that phone call.

Update: And indeed I did. Feeling so much better now.

Monday 24 November 2008

Dough and Apotheca

A new restaurant landed in the northern quarter last week looking rather like a classy pizza place. Walking past I see tables and so forth but no indication of what it's called other than some very squiggly bits of red neon. What does it say? Dougal? Dongh? Dough!


A cold and hungry Sunday evening arrived and buoyed by the shout-out from Sarah Hartley earlier in the day I thought that instead of sitting at home and eating noodles, bacon, veg and peanut butter again I'll brave the cold and go check it out. I dithered at the door and thought I'd pop in to Trof for a quiet drink while I try and rustle up some kind of companion with whom to test Dough. Then I saw a nameless bar. What's this? Oh it's actually part of Dough, but it's a bar. Inside they reliably inform me that it's called Apotheca and that the sign will arrive next week. The bar is dark and classy and typical Northern Quarter, all cocktails-and-kegs. They have a huge photograph of some sheep on one wall and fittings lovingly reconstructed to look like an old chemist. The aesthetic is that characterised by the Mighty Boosh as "elements from the past and the future combining to make something not quite as good as either". I sneer slightly but it's quite pleasant and I look the part with my laptop and pint of Peterman. It's a mash-up!

My search for a companion drew a blank - albeit a blank with a promise to do something else some other time. So it's just me. I sat, chatted with a friend who had walked in looking for a job (though didn't try to entice him into dining as he has a gig next-door) and perused the menu. My mate assured me that the cocktail menu was pretty diverse and that (in his professional experience) you don't just don't get that in many places round here - perhaps in "socio-rehab" but that's it. I remain non-plussed. The food menu by contrast was pretty much pizza and pasta but with one or two interesting twists here and there. Moroccan pizzas, special-dietary versions - gluten or dairy free.

So I want some food. There are big glass doors between the bar and the restaurant however they remain rather closed and with half a pint in my hand all I can do is knock and beckon at a waitress on the other side who acknowledges me and vanishes. Seconds later she emerges from a door and explains that I have to follow her down some stairs where there is another bar, past the toilets and into the restaurant. This makes me realise quite how huge it is as the already capacious upstairs dining area extends into another relatively big space downstairs. Upstairs it now has only two other people in it (excluding staff) and was rather cold. I know it's a false economy to run the heating when there's no-one in a place but however ecologically sound the reasoning might be it's not nice. The other couple still had their scarves on. We all know that an empty restaurant is never a good advertisement for itself particularly when the windows are so big so they've really got to get some bodies in here somehow and keep em warm.


Starters - cured meats in a red wine sauce. Read bits of various hot salami-type-things in a pool of liquid - dirty but nonetheless very very tasty. I must reek of garlic now - could perhaps have done with a bit more bread to soak up that sauce (again there's the European in me coming out) but terribly tasty and enjoyable with the various chunks seeming to have radically different flavours.

Then I had gnocchi with bits of beef. The gnocchi themselves perhaps a little soft but in general very passable with strips of tender beef, sundried tomatoes and a heaping of mozzarella on top. It was pretty heavy, but then it's supposed to be heavy.


Ultimately my verdict is that they need to decide one way or the other as to how integrated the two halves of the place are. On a Friday or Saturday night it may make sense to treat them as distinct entities but on a Sunday when it's quiet there is no reason why they shouldn't open up the doors and let people travel through. And if you're eating it shouldn't be great shakes to put the bar bill on the tab with your food. It's early days yet and there are clearly teething issues to be worked out but if it can run slickly with a few hundred people in there it will certainly fill a gap in the Northern Quarter eatery ecology. Provide them with the bodies they need and check it out.

Sunday 23 November 2008

Red N Hot, Chinatown

Manchester's Chinatown is a slightly daunting place with restaurants, supermarkets and a hundred and one associated emporiums crammed in a few blocks of tall northern brickwork. Making a decision as to where to go can be pretty tough.

One of my favourites which I found pretty early on in my wanderings is Red N Hot an authentic Szechuan restaurant, tucked away up a flight of stairs on Faulkner Street. The restaurant has been refurbished recently and taken on a much more stylish appearance with it, before this it was pretty basic feeling but consistently packed with Chinese people tucking in to all manner of peculiar things. I've rarely seen many western faces in there, perhaps because the stairs and the fact that you can't see in from the street puts off the less intrepid visitors.

So how brave are you? A must is the hotpot - you are delivered a cauldron of boiling stock (normally divided into spicy and not-spicy segments) and a tray of raw ingredients which you cook yourself in the pot. The selection of fish, meat, noodles, veg, mushrooms and other bits can of course tailored to your dietary needs - though it's likely the stock isn't of purest vegetable origin... Chuck a few things in and fish them out when you're happy with how they're done. Take your time. They have recently replaced the gas burners and bottles in the tables which really hampered legroom, the new electric hotplates being way more sensible.



The regular dishes can be just as daring - fancy a plate of "Duck tongues" or "Pigs ears"? I tried them both at the same time which was a bit much. If you're in for a bit of a banquet they do a marvellous pork hock which is devilishly huge - the manager described it along the lines of "In Chinese families it's the dish we cook when the prodigal children come home from the big city".

Update: Apart from the upgraded tables (edited in above) they have also introduced ordering via laptop - which seems like a bit of a gimmick but somehow managed to deliver our starters phenomenally quickly. In combination with the hotplates I suspect we may find that the laptops have nice melty edges after a while...

Monday 17 November 2008

Live from the Met


Didsbury isn't really my normal stomping ground but this Sunday afternoon (while recovering from an excellent and really quite silly party) I found myself in The Metropolitan, a very very large and exceedingly busy pub. For the lunchtime shift you have to negotiate your way past hoards of yummy mummies cooing sickeningly over their tiny spawn who are of course happily ensconced in their obligatory Bugaboos. It's that or bright young things being seen in the place to be seen - a balance which presumably tips more in their favour later in the evenings.

We were first told we'd have to wait a while for a table down at the back end of the place but miraculously a different one at the front became vacant and we pounced. Being crammed to the rafters this Sunday wasn't exactly making the staff happy - our initially rather surly waitress came and asked us if we wanted to order food and when we said "Yes" she wiped the table down and promptly took our menu away. Erm.... Helpful. However once our menus had been returned, a few other tables wiped down and the order had finally been taken and paid for (in advance mind) the time from kitchen to table was actually pretty quick. The menu clearly is carefully designed to make this an efficient ship.

The food is of typical pub variety but with a classy edge; soups, starters, roasts, burgers, and risottos (i.e. veg/pescetarian slops) each of which containing some kind of slightly fancy ingredient or other. The menu also has some "interesting" touches involving use of "quotations" like Sirloin of "Cheshire" beef and Risotto of "native" seafood. Quite where the seafood is "native" to was not mentioned and we tittered over the concept of mock-welsh lamb.

My burger was presented with a dollop of blue cheese, some tomato relish, a little salad and some much needed chips. Oh and the inevitable cocktail stick stabbed through its heart. The meat was perhaps a tad chewy but then this is supposed to be a posh burger made of nuggets of real meat and not factory scrapings. Steak hashé it ain't but it was just what I needed. It wasn't even over-cooked, with a bit of pink left in the centre - I hadn't specified or been asked how I wanted it doing though.

My fellow diners seemed pretty content with their selections and certainly very glad to be fed. With wallet ten pounds lighter and stomach much improved for being loaded back up I bade farewell to my ashen-faced companions, went back home and totally failed to get to sleep till 5am. Too much stuff churning in my head and general feelings of stressyness... waaaaa....

Saturday 15 November 2008

Meat defeat at Pau Brazil


It's another Northern Quarter Novelty Eatery... Pau Brazil is on the corner of Lever Street and Great Ancoats and is open from noon-til-midnight every day.

The fatal mistake to make is to think it's like a Chinese buffet and load up your plate with heaps of stuff from the central counter. There are lovely stews there (melty oxtail mmmm) but by filling yourself too quickly there is the danger that you'll miss out on the main event. It's a drink and graze kind of place, not a big fat heap of food on your plate and stuff it all in job.

The "churrascaria" concept exemplified here is that you sit down, get some drinks and perhaps a bit of salad and the waiters will meander around the restaurant with large bits of meat on spikes and slice some chunks off for you as they pass. You are also given a set of coloured discs with which you can control the waiters' attention traffic-light style. Green for "more meat", red for "leave us alone". It took us quite a long time to figure this out - by which point we were very very full.

The meat on spikes thing - I think you can afford to be a little fussy with... don't be shy to send a cut of meat away if it looks a little dry, there will be another one along in a minute. Saying which bit you want - "I want that nice juicy fatty bit from the top please" is perfectly acceptable form.

For £22.50 a head (fixed price, not including drinks) it's really not a cheap dinner, but it is good fun and certainly memorable. Again it does get busy and is worth booking ahead. Hopefully if I can find a suitable meat-eater to accompany me I'll get to try Manchester's other (and marginally cheaper) Brazilian offering, Tropeiro. Oh and next time I'll prepare myself for taking it all very very slowly.

Did I say - don't try taking vegetarians out here. You'll look very stupid okay!

Wednesday 12 November 2008

Ning nang nong

It's been over a year though I've not been missing out on lunches, dinners or otherwise in the meantime... Just missing out on passing them around the gentle readers of this blog. A few recent encounters with fellow mancloggers though has given me the strength to pick up the ailing laptop and hit the keys. Let's just damn well get it out there. Thanks folks.

So... What's been happening? I'm living in a nice little flat somewhere in central Manchester (no longer time-sharing with my mum) and having a complicated old time dealing with the changes in my domestic life.

So where have I gone when things go wrong? To Ning (nang nong) on Oldham Street - which is a most wonderfully excellent Malay / Thai / Indonesian restaurant suitably bedecked with fancy wallpaper and lightfittings. I've been there a bunch of times with friends (and not easy-to-please ones at that) and apart from being conveniently near my flat is an absolutely guaranteed crowd pleaser.

Hitting the slightly-non-standard oriental boxes while being accessible (offal is in short supply here) they manage to conjure up very flavoursome food packed with more peanuts than a Marathon bar and enough chilli to make your brains explode a few times over the course of the night (not in a constant way like a vindaloo mind - contrast is the thing here).

It's popular - if you're going there on a weekend really make sure you book. I've been turned away on several occasions and squeezed in begrudgingly on a few others. On a weekday there is a bit more slack but really it's a plan worth executing with some forethought.

My favourites here, starters being a major temptation; the Gado Gado salad, the "street style" fritters (real name escapes me but they are amazing!) nicely cooked calamari, and actually just pick things at random that you've never heard of and you really can't go wrong. Vegetarians can just about get by here and they seem happy and able to do vegetarian versions of many dishes, fish and meat eaters will be very happy bunnies.

And if you really want to get stuck in they do cookery classes - the perfect gift for any special chef in your life.... I'd like a special chef...