The Four In Hand, 108 Palatine Road, Didsbury, Manchester, M20 3ZA

When it’s a sunny day, you can either go for a stroll in the park, have a nice laze on the beach, or go for a pub lunch. The weekend we had in Manchester certainly was a sunny one, despite it being windy here and there, but hey, when you’re in Manchester and it’s dry, you don’t complain.

We had dinner the night before at midnight in this lovely Chinese banquet-type restaurant called Tai Wu. They have a 30% discount after midnight, so the queues for this place are ridiculous, requiring a number system. This is at midnight, not lunch time, so seeing huge groups of people, including little kids having dinner at this time is not something that common.

Anyway, as we’d only just had dinner 11 hours previously, I wasn’t up for having anything too heavy. My friends, however, (who’d had the same dinner the same number of hours before) didn’t have those reservations, and went all out for lunch.

The beer garden in this place is fabulous, with plenty of tables, a huge car park and a friendly layout which meant that each table had plenty of space around it.

Some of the blogs I read have been featuring pictures of condiments in their review, so I thought I’d do the same! You wouldn’t exactly call these condiments, but this is a pub, so you wouldn’t be expecting olive oil and balsamic vinegar, really.

Containing a selection of British favourites, we have (from yellow to blue):

English mustard in yellow
Unsure what in orange
Brown sauce in brown
HP sauce (like brown sauce) in light blue
Ketchup in red
Mayonnaise in blue

Steak and Marston’s ale pie - £5.95

My friend ordered the steak and kidney pie, but the taste of ale was so strong in this pie that we were convinced that this was the steak and ale pie instead. Pub grub are usually average-tasting, but this was very nice. The pastry was crumbly and the gravy had infused well into it. The meats were generous chunks within the pie, and the mash potato was the obvious choice for this. Mash and everything go well together.

Special of the day – Cumberland ring, egg and chips, £5-ish

Apparently, the bit that sold this dish to my friends was the egg. I fully agree, as there is nothing else nicer than perfectly cooked egg.

The sausage was meaty and taste nice, unlike some other sausages (you know the kind) which don’t taste of much and don’t chew of much. This one was delicately spiced, and the egg (as you can tell) was cooked just nice.

Sunday roast – Chicken, roast potatoes, vegetables and Yorkshire pudding, £5.45

Most pubs have roast lunch on their menus on Sundays, and usually, you have a few choices of meat to choose from.

Roast beef – usually comes with Yorkshire pudding, roast potatoes, vegetables
Roast chicken – usually comes with stuffing, roast potatoes, vegetables
Roast lamb – usually comes with mint sauce, roast potatoes, vegetables
Vegetarian option – usually in the form of a nut-loaf

Chicken and bacon salad, £5-ish

As mentioned at the start of the post, I didn’t feel like having too much, so I ordered this salad, which was (unsurprisingly) the most ‘bleh’ dish of the meal. Beneath the delicious (looking) bacon and chicken, there was ALOT of lettuce. Lettuce not being the most flavourful of ingredients, I decided to venture to the chips on the bf’s plate instead.

Would I come back to this place? When in Manchester, sure thing, but not for that salad.

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