The Ox Bar & Inn, 71 Liverpool Road, Castlefield, Manchester, M3 4NQ

Continuing from the last post … (special shout-out to SJ in Japan who requested something on English food!)

After sleeping for what felt like days (it was in fact, only 8 hours) and waking up with my tongue stuck to the top of my mouth, eyes slightly swollen, and hair like a bird’s nest after a flapping session with the girls, I took a well-needed shower and was all ready to eat again. The first thing which took my fancy were the mince pies. As I walked into the kitchen, all 8 of the pies (and 2 cookies) were staring me in the face, so I took the decision to eat half a mince pie. And then the other half.

That craving satisfied, we watched a little weekend telly – a bit of Nigella cooking some terribly-bad-for-you stuff (what’s new), a bit of Australian MasterChef (who knew you could make little sugar balls out of caramelising sugar?) and then who-knows-what (all these cooking programmes blurring into one) which just made me more hungry.

Which made the decision to go for a Sunday roast one of the best decisions of the day.

Now, before I continue, let me state this fact. I have not been much of a fan of Sunday roasts. I mean, I like the idea of it and all, and do understand the fascination that other people have with the stuff, but I can’t say it’s one of the things I’d choose to eat out of all other things. What is my bug bear with it? Well, lack of taste, to be honest. I prefer food with strong, jazz-hands tastes. Food which leap off the plate and onto the taste-buds shouting ‘TAAAAAASTY’. Which is not what I’ve experienced with roasts so far.

Before any of you decide to tell me how wrong I am (was), and that I’m pathetic for not having tasted THEEEE best roast there is before having made these comments, look, this is what the post is about. My roast-realisation, is what I’ll call it. Roast with the most.

How did we find this place? How did we stumble from mince pies to roast with the most? Well, word has it that this place does one of the best Sunday roasts in Manchester. Now if Word has it, then we also have to have it. After having walked past a few frozen canals and through the cobbled streets of Castlefield, we arrived at The Ox.

A sturdy white building right by the Museum of Science and Industry (MOSI), this was a building I usually walked right past – either on the way to Dpercussion in Castlefield, or to Akbar’s for a curry. Whenever we went by in the summer, there would be quite a few people having drinks outside in the sunshine, and therefore, I always had it in my mind that this wasn’t a place that served food – thus, not interested.

Oh how wrong I was.

Coming in from the cold, grey day that was Sunday in Manchester, we were greeted by the warm, brown, woody interior of this Ye Olde English styled pub. The bar counter was made of dark-brown wood, with lots of brass-coloured pub-things hanging off the top, and huge paintings of (slightly overweight) oxen around the place.

A crackling fireplace, lots of squealing, happy children, and plenty of food around completed the picture of a nice Sunday lunch at the pub.

As we managed to get a last-minute table booking, the 5 of us were sat at a table for 4 right next to the fire. Couldn’t complain though, as that kept us warm and toasty (literally toasty) and that also meant we could try the famed roast out! Menus at the ready …

For £12.95, we could have had 2 courses of either a starter and a main, or a main and a dessert. Add another 2 quid and you could have all 3 courses! Why not!

Because I’ve had too much mince pies, that’s why.

This is what else we could have chosen from the set menu.

2 courses selected, we sat down and waited - me with my pot of tea, and the others with a hangover.

When the first courses arrived, I almost had to calm myself down from the flurry of excitement I felt. It wasn’t even my food that had been served, but hey, sometimes taking pictures of food is even better than eating it (very rarely, I must say).

The pate looked amazing – almost like a very rectangular piece of avocado that was just ripe. Around the outer edge of the rectangle, there was a thin greenish frame while the inside of the rectangle looked pink and soft. For what it was, they sure were generous with their portions. Our friends who had this looked like they enjoyed it a lot. Not much talking, lots of pate eating.

Pity about the melba toast though. I can’t say any of us were Melba toast experts, but from our limited store-bought toast experience, this sure wasn’t Melba toast. It looked more like a well-browned piece of tortilla that had been stacked up nicely on top of the pate.

As friends do, we offered them some of the bread from our starter so that they could make a pate butty with it. Classy stuff, us.

This was the starter I had (actually, I shared this with the fiancé – we were both saving space for the kebab after this). What? What’s wrong with having a kebab after a Sunday roast? Nothing, is the answer, when this is THEEE best kebab in Manchester! Anyway, back to our starter. I had no clue what a rilet was when I ordered it, but as I fancied having some fish, I chose the only fish option on the menu. I won’t lie and say that I was blown over when the dish arrived. It was quite small, and paled in comparison to our friends’ generous chunk of pate.

However, when I had a bite of it, I realised that the menu was true to its word. Describing it as smoked haddock with butter (or something like that), this was exactly it – fishy, tender and flaky, and buttery. So much so that we didn’t have to add any butter to the bread and you could still taste the butter. Despite thinking that the portions were quite miserly when I first started on the dish, I actually thought that it was just the right portion size when I’d finished it. Any more and it would have been too much fish.

Then came the main meals. Boy oh boy was I excited when I saw the others’ meals (we’d all but one ordered the same thing) – the Yorkshire pudding was HEEUUUUGE!

From where I was sitting, I could just about see the beef on the plate when the waitress was bringing it over, and it looked exactly like how I think perfectly cooked beef should look.

Generous slab of roast beef on plate. Magnificence.

Not only did we have mash potato (creamy mm mm), we also had mash sweet potato, roast potatoes (crispy mm mm) and beans which didn’t look like they’d been cooked since last week (like so often the case).

The beef was one of the nicest, if not, THE nicest roast beef I’ve had in a Sunday roast. It wasn’t actually roast beef, in my opinion, which is probably why I liked it so much. It tasted and looked more like steak than it did roast beef. For one, it didn’t have the carving serration you’d find in a carved slice of beef. Also, it wasn’t dry. How amazing is that! Juicy, rare (just the way I like it), and immensely tender, this was one good piece of roast beef.

The roasties were perfect – soft and mushy on the inside, kinda crispy on the outside. The mash was buttery, and the beans – well, only tried one but it was OK (fiancé had the rest).

On the whole, this must be one of the best Sunday roasts I’ve had, and will definitely set the benchmark for others. Rubbing our happy bellies, we then set off to Abdul’s in Fallowfield for some of their mixed kebab – didn’t take any pics so you’re gonna have to check out the older post on this if you wanna see any pics of it.

On the way back to the car park, we walked by the frozen canal – good thing we were warm with food.

Abduls Kebab, 318 Wilmslow Road, Fallowfield, Manchester, M14 6XQ

You know a kebab place is good when you go there for lunch (as opposed to stumbling there after 10 pints or so, like many people do). But those are inferior kebabs, so that’s understandable.

I guess this explains why the 2 guys at the table beside us kept looking while I was snapping pictures of the kebab, saying, '”Is she taking a picture of the kebab?”. While I don’t appreciate being made to feel uncomfortable just because I was photographing the kebab, I can see where they’re coming from. I’d probably make the same comment if I saw someone taking pictures of paint drying, when it might not seem so strange to a paint drying blogger, say.

Abduls’ is a chain of kebab restaurants (or whatever you want to call it) in Manchester, and their kebabs are unrivalled in London. One theory we have is that up North, kebabs are served with naan bread, which allows the sauce to be soaked up well.

In London, or anywhere not Northern, the kebabs are served in pitta bread, a poor, lack-lustre excuse of a substitute for the naan. Instead of soaking up the sauce and the meat juices from the kebab, pitta bread tends to just go quite soggy, and then chucked with the rest of the paper and polystyrene box.

On the left, is a chunk of donner meat. Made of who knows what, it’s usually served in slices, and is slightly chewy, slightly salty, slightly everything, but mostly nice. I like it, but some people tend to scoff at it, from the higher ground they’re standing on as they eat their Big Mac.

So, for those of you who have never had a kebab – What is the big deal about it anyway?

This, my friends, is a very well-presented kebab. Ignoring the fact that ambience is almost nil in these places (not why you go to a kebab restaurant, after all), Abduls has a very comfortable eating area for us hungry folks.

Once you’ve placed your order, you just sit and wait, tapping your foot impatiently.

Patience is then rewarded with a big, over-flowing, naan-based chicken kebab with donner meat (special request, off the menu), all for £6.20. Who needs utensils at a time like this. It’s everyone hungry person for themselves, as we each dive in, fingers ready to tear at the chicken pieces.

Tender pieces of chicken, bouncey (my favourite term for something that it slightly chewy, the way I like chewy to be) pieces of donner, and warm naan bread impatiently soaking up all the juices from the meat. Not fine-dining, more, mine-dining.

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This’n’That, 3 Soap Street, Manchester (Review no. 2)

Check the first one out here. Like I said before, why try something new when you know what you like (this joke’s getting pretty used by now, so I’ll stop here).

When we were in Manchester some weeks ago, we knew what we HAD to have for lunch. Previously, This’n’That had small windows in the day when they were open, so it was kind of a 50:50 whether it was opened when you got there or not. They’ve extended their opening hours now, and are open Sundays, so there’s no need to bring along some sustenance in case it’s shut.

Most of the reviews on this place mention something about what it looks like, something along the lines of ‘moderately furnished’. Seeing as I’m not a person who can describe things very well, I figured I’d take a picture of it instead.

Picnic chairs and tables is as descriptive as I can get. But don’t let this fool you. Behind these plastic chairs and tables are some of the nicest curry dishes you can find in Manchester.

It’s an easy concept, really. You don’t pay for their high-street rent, so the food is cheap. The restaurant’s been there for years, so they’ve had plenty of practice at what they do.

Their menu is certainly quite tiny, and stuck on the wall with little squares for different days. Organisational skills - so much easier for the customer.

This nice man puts whatever you point to onto the plate, and he doesn’t skimp on it either. Whatever you point to, he heaps onto the plate.

With such an easy ordering process, it takes alot of effort not to point at everything. This is what I had (cost about £4 per plate). Cabbage of some sort, spinach and lamb curry, and potatoes at the top of the plate.

The potatoes were fluffy and not too spicy, the spinach was so tender and cooked so well with the lamb, and the cabbage was slightly soft but flavourful, with some spices used in the cooking.

The best thing on the plate was the rice. Don’t get me wrong, everything else was just so tasty, but the rice was even tastier than its friends. It must have been cooked in some stock or something, which made each bit of rice fluffy and tasty, even when eaten on its own.

This is why you should control that finger, and not let it point at everything.

As I look at this mountain, my head starts bobbing to the tunes of ‘You Can’t Touch This’, by MC Hammer. But, I’m not the kind to be easily defeated by a plate of food, so with rolled-up sleeves, utensils in both hands, and the song still going, I set off on the plate.

As a friend says, ‘If everyone has a few mouthfuls, it’s all gone.’

(No one’s having a few mouthfuls of this)

A similar-looking plate, but this one was my friend’s. She, too, set off looking determined to defeat the plate, although the soundtrack was probably something different, something more current perhaps.

To prove that the pics weren’t of the same plate of food, this one has some keema curry on it, pretty much minced meat curry. The little green chillies you see on the plate above were consumed by my friend, who then sweated quite profusely.

Would I come back to this place? Definitely, every time we’re in Manchester. The thing is, it’s quite a small place so I don’t reckon I want to share this with too many people.

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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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New presidents, new policies, and all that

For the first time in a long, long time, America has done something to be proud of.

It's not my place to talk about politics, but finally, that country has now something else to boast about besides the Whopper and Supersize Macs.

Not that those aren't boast-worthy, because they are, but now, people look at Americans and think, 'Good choice', as opposed to 'Large fries, and a Diet Coke'.

Let's hope we learn from this ey.

In the celebration of American democracy, I bring to you ... the Signature Hot Chocolate from that all-American coffee-smelling place that is Starbucks.

In Starbucks, the small sized drink is called 'Tall'. The medium sized drink is called a 'Grande' and a large is, but of course, a 'Venti.'

Let's now focus on the 'Tall' small drink. I've spent quite a few hours pondering the reasons behind this method of sizing, and the conclusion I've come to is that perhaps in the US of A, people feel somewhat ... weird to be asking for something in small sizes. So, to make these people feel more comfortable (re: Supersize Me), they've described the small as 'enlongated upwards' (or tall to you and me).

this is for the space

Pretzels
This is for the space

Of German origin, and very delicious, pretzels are bread pastry shaped (most of the time) in a three-looped knot. Sometime covered with cinammon sugar, sometimes salted, but always chewy (in a good way, not in a leftover pizza way) and best eaten when fresh out of the oven.

During the recent trip to Manchester, I discovered this place that sold Pretzels for £1. As a guide, £1 usually buys you half a door handle. Not the whole thing, but enough to look like a door handle, without the functions of one.
this is for the space

Located in the Arndale Centre (swishy shopping mall in town, now extended and even more swishy), the stall is called Ditsch. Besides pretzels, it also sells pizza slices and wedges.
This is for the space

Pasta was Pizza Hut

Enough said.

Manchester weekend

This is the lasagne that greeted us upon our arrival in Manchester (cold, dark and windy). Manchester, that is. Not the lasagne.

While the rest of the world are grappling with global warming, Manchester is on full-freeze mode. The milk keeps better on the window sill than it does in the fridge.

Heck, penguins are leaving the North Pole in hordes, all rushing to be on the first express train to Manchester. Seen a polar bear in the park? Yes, he got on the same train. Seen some baby seals in your local chippie? Now you know why.

Anyhow, it may be Arctic-like up North, but looking at the pictures, you wouldn’t believe it was that cold. I mean, look at that.

We were in Manchester for the weekend, catching up with some old friends. Having left from London at 7.30pm on the Friday, we arrived in Manchester at about 11pm which is quite good, considering the traffic and all that.
For those who don’t know, as soon as the congestion zone restrictions stop (6pm), London roads become like hamsters diving into a bowl of feed.

Stuck.

From above, the highways and town roads look as though there are many little ants, holding torchlights, at a party.

So, a journey from London to Manchester consists of:

2 hours getting out of London
1 hour on the motorway
1 hour getting into Manchester

When we made our way to Manchester town on Saturday, around lunchtime, the birds were singing (pop classics), the sun was shining, and the air smelt like autumn. Leaves on the trees were a bright shade of orange.

There are 3 main roads which lead from South Manchester (Fallowfield, Rusholme, Didsbury) into town. More on that in the next instalment of ‘Interesting things to chat about at parties’.

For now, please make do with interesting sights around Manchester.

The town hall

In case you don't have a map

The Manchester wheel

Hot dog stand in town

Market St. (main shopping street)

Shopping in town

Due to this post being quite long, I’ve divided it into sections.

Curry – Episode One (Luke Skywalker, I had your curry)

On Saturday, we went to This’n’That for lunch. This (pun intended ha ha) is actually a little shop located off a main street in the Northern Quarter of Manchester. The shop is on Soap Street, it has a little sign saying This’n’That, and a red door shows the spot.

It looks something like this (because this is not it)

The name of the street

You may be wondering what the big deal is about this place. Well, the big deal is that you don’t find many café-style curry restaurants like this in Manchester, or any other town. The chairs and tables in this place are similar to those you use at picnics, i.e. yellow, plastic and the chairs and tables are joined. There aren’t fancy accolades on the walls, no TimeOut awards for ambience, but why on earth would any restaurant need that when it has

CURRY

Lots and lots of curry.

3 meat curries and rice for £4. The menu changes daily, and on the Saturday that we went, it was lamb, chicken, spinach, potato curry, and some other curries which I didn’t try. The guy takes a plate, scoops rice on, and you pick which curry gets on your rice.

If you’re greedy like us, you’re likely to say ‘Could I have a bit of everything?’ at which point the niceness of the guy is tested, really tested, and he says ‘No.’

Never hurts to try. Especially if you’re a cheapskate.

3 curry plates later, and we’re off to have some popcorn in the cinema.

Curry – Episode 2 (Luke Skywalker, you shouldn’t have had ordered more curry)

Variety is the spice of life, as they say. If you’ve had one curry, you’ve not had them all.

So, we ordered more curry as we sat in front of the telly, watching X Factor and South Park. This time, the curry was from Moon, a curry restaurant which also delivers based in Withington. Back when we used to have Moon’s on a weekly basis, the standard of the food was very high. I also used to know which curry it was that I liked, which explains why I ordered something completely wrong this time around.

Curry comes in plastic bags, as opposed to the idea that they have to be cooked from scratch

Chicken tikka masala

Medium prawn curry

Bombay Potato

Dim Sum – Pearl City

Finding a parking space in Chinatown on Sunday is kinda like queuing for the lobster at a buffet – time-consuming, not very satisfying, and someone always gets there before you.

However, this time, it was easy (only 10 rounds of Chinatown).

The restaurant in which we were going to have our Dim Sum was Pearl City.

There is a 50% off offer on the Dim Sum items, although you might need someone to tell you about this (me, in this case). This is because it’s not on the menu, it’s not on the signs outside the shop, and in fact, no one mentions this to you at any time during the ordering, eating or paying. However, this seems to be the way Chinese restaurants work in Chinatown.

You have to have contacts who know people who recommend people who tell you which shops are best to go to.

If you have the cheek to go into an unrecommended restaurant, you may very well end up paying full price for the meal.

For our group of six, we had:

Chicken wings in BBQ sauce

Cheong fun 'tai pai tong'

Carrot cake

Chicken feet and ribs with rice

Fried squid

Beef fried hor fun

Siew mai

Lotus leaf glutinous rice

Char siu pau

All this totalled £42, cheap by Manchester standards.