- Manchester
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- eating
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United Kingdom
A fantastic venue for a wonderful lunch. I highly recommend this award-winning cafe, run by 'The Modern Caterer'. The menu is packed with a number of mouth-watering choices, all of which are home made. A main course plus a drink will cost around £5-£6 so not expensive for good food. Great to call in just for a coffee to take in the pleasent atmosphere. Also during fine weather outside tables are available to enjoy your meal alfresco.
Located inside the Whitworth Art Gallery, Oxford Rd, Manchester M15 6ER and opposite the MRI Hospital
Opening times:
Mon to Sat 10am till 4.30pm
Sun 12noon till 3.30pm
This is a little gem located in Morley Green just outside Wilmslow and a short distance from Manchester Airport. I recommend the all-day brunch. Not exactly cafe prices but this is not your average cafe, it's an upmarket version. Good service and excellent home-produced fayre.
Morely Green, Wilmslow, SK9 5NU 5mins drive from Manchester Airport, 10 mins from Hale Barns
The Trafford Centre is probably the best shopping centre I have visited. There are so many shops to choose from - and there is a shop for everyone!
From clothes, accessories, sportswear, gaming, homeware, beauty and more - you are certain to come home with a car full of shopping bags.
There are also lots of great restaurants, bars and cafes to suit everyone's tastebuds after you've worked up an appetite from all that shopping - from Indian and Spanish cuisine restaurants to cosy coffee bars - you're bound to fine somewhere to satifsy the whole family.
As well as shops, bars and restaurants, the Trafford Centre is also the venue of many events such as fashion shows, dances and other competitions- it's also appeared on Channel 4's '10 Years Younger'.
So if you're looking for somewhere to shop, shop, shop - and then relax, the Trafford Centre could be right up your street!
Check out the Trafford Centre website for more information
Best Indian restaurant on the Curry Mile. Despite its name, it's the only place you can find south Indian food in Manchester - bhel puri, masala dosa, uttapam. Friendly service, reasonable prices, good for vegetarians.
177 Wilmslow Road, Rusholme
New restaurant on Cheetham Hill Road Manchester, Amazing, amazing curries and kebabs. I go there all the time and it gets better and better. Go and see for yourself.
www.kebabishoriginal-ch.co.uk
0161 834 4544 (Near Manchester Victoria Stn)
Recently checked out the Modern for a 'working' lunch with a friend, who suggested the venue to me as she'd heard rumours that we would be in for a real good treat, mmm. And I wasn't disappointed.
It was fairly quiet when we arrived and we were allocated (in my view) the best table which presented a 360 degree view of the wintry Manchester skyline, rotating big wheel and all. The decor was formal yet cosy, sophisticated but not intimidating - the dark solid wooden tables and chairs contrasting nicely with the floor-to-ceiling frosted windows, with a nice clear panel you could see out of to admire the view, thank you very much.
Being a huge soup fan, particularly in the winter months (and there's nothing I enjoy more than knocking my own up at home) for starter I opted for the Jerusalem artichoke and rosemary soup with chanterelles. It was delicious, smooth, creamy, satisfying and tasted surprisingly healthy too (although I'm sure it wasn't). My friend forwent the starter and straight on to the main course. Pollock, smoked haddock and Loch Duart salmon fish pie, with wilted spinach and of course a side order of fat chips. A suprisingly generous portion, (she struggled to finish) the pie was dominated to her delight by the salmon (all that omega 3) which was perfectly pink and a wonderful texture. I opted for grilled Goosnargh maize-fed chicken,
braised leeks and Cheshire smoked bacon & a grain mustard sauce.
The chicken was tender with a crunchy jacket, complemented wonderfully by the bacon and the mustard sauce gave it a bit of added va va voom. Resisted desert (but of course tried 'just a taste') of my friend's caramelised quince tart and vanilla ice cream, which outshone event the artichoke soup. A beautiful combination of sweet and sour, the caramel gave it an added twist that was very moreish. The ice cream tasted home-made - which I didn't expect - and had a creamy, custardy texture, which was perfect.
With two diet cokes each to wash it down (it was a 'working' lunch after all) it came to just over £30, astoundingly reasonable for something quite so thoroughly posh. Marks out of 10 - 8.9 and with the starter and desert both scoring a winning 9.9.
Floors 5 & 6
Urbis, Manchester
0161 605 8282
www.themodernmcr.co.uk
Tasty and healthy Lebanese food from a restaurant often overlooked despite its great position in the Northern Quarter. Better still, if operates a bring-your-own-booze policy, meaning an already cheap meal works out even cheaper. Well worth considering, both by travellers on a budget and locals out to try something new.
69 Thomas Street, Manchester M4 1LQ
+44 161 834 5016
I love the restaurant, I love the name, I love the food, I love my home town Stockport.
An Indian restaurant, the best curry I ever had. A great name in Stockport.
Food and drink festival between 5 &15 October 2007. Thirty five bars, restuarants and shops around Chorlton and Whalley Range are taking part. Chorlton joins other areas of Greater Manchester for the annual Manchester Food and Drinks Festival.
All over Chorlton-cum-hardy. For more information pick up a festival brochure from outlets including - Barbakan, Pad-chorlton, Unicorn and Wild at Heart
Kebab place, because they have real chicken tikka (not that rubbish on a stick). Top naan breads and tasty salad to go with it, I recommend it with all the salad and yogurt and mango chutney.
Sajan, Wilmslow Road, Fallowfield.
An award-winning Nepalese restaurant that I just can't get enough of. In a city of myriad curry restaurants, many of them very mediocre, this cosy little hidden gem sits on a road that also houses two other Nepalese restaurants - but it is undoubtedly the best.
I know people who travel miles to visit this place, as does Peter Crouch, apparently. I find it very difficult walking past on my way back from work, as the smells are to die for. Try the chicken makhanwala.
140 Burton Road, West Didsbury. On the 111 bus route from Manchester town centre. 0161 445 2145
I've only ever had great meals and service in this restaurant over the last 20 years. Mr. Khandoker is a bit of a local institution largely because of the amazing amount of charity work he does. Go.
812 Kingsway, East Didsbury, Manchester
Smashing local curry house specialising in delicious Nepalese food - definitely a big step above the usual Rusholme fare. It's been a while since I last visited, but I loved it before I moved from Levenshulme to Brazil a year ago. Top grub, nice atmosphere, good value - can't be beaten.
945 Stockport Road, Levenshulme, Manchester, M19 tel: 0161 248 8883
This is worth the trip out of town and out of Didsbury or Chorlton. Amazing, healthy (well, as healthy as a curry could be) and good value. Great service, always willing to give advice on what's best and wine to go with it. A real gem!
I agree that curry mile isn't worth it unless you're very inebriated and after the experience of the location, rather than the taste of the curry.
Barlow Moor Road, Chorlton.
Taking the "curry" experience in an Indian restaurant to the next level. Amazing food
First stop on the Curry Mile from the City Centre, and no need to go further - excellent service, from the complimentary poppadoms and pickles -tasty, well-prepared and presented curries and high tolerance for families. They have two other branches in Didsbury and Heald Green, but Rusholme works for me.
Oxford Road, Rusholme
Been twice to this restaurant and the second visit was disappointing. The service was slow at times, although the place was not full. The staff did not appear happy and seemed to be apathetic. The wines were quite pricey and I thought the meals were no better than the average 'chain' Italian restautrants.
Great place, wrong location, Joe's cafe bar on Oldham Street is a little gem lying in the mud.
Decked out in leather sofas and dark wood tables it could fall into the trap of being yet another Bar 38 or Pitcher & Piano but it's all saved by well cooked food and service that just falls neatly into place.
Get in there and pretend you're in St Anne's Square. It's just as far, as owld Will Mossop would no doubt pipe up.
Oldham Street
I find the trouble with anyone recommending curry places is that they tend to think the one that they go to is the best and rarely venture anywhere else.
I've been right up and down Rusholme numerous times and have found some favourites - but if you want to avoid the generic 'curry' you've got to order the right thing as well as go to the right place - traditional Karahi Gosht at Darbar, for instance.
Most places have their cons too. (Some greatly outweigh their pros as mentioned by other reviewers). But I don't think the curry mile has had it's day in general. As for the northern quarter cafes: they are indeed great value - particularly for town centre but are they really the best places around as some claim? Probably not. Are they tasty, great value great additions to the town centre? Definitely. I'd agree that all those mentioned above are good places.
Shalimar (formerly Chandni) wasn't so great last time I went - however again it's ordering the right thing that counts. Play to a place's strengths and you'll invariably get better food. I always avoid exotic ingredients when trying out budget places because one of the reasons they're cheap is that they're not throwing out £100s worth of shellfish every evening that nobody ordered. So if you do have exotic items they may well have been recently frozen.
Similarly the 'made from base sauce' issue is usually there in all curry places - does one place's lamb bhuna, jalfrezi, karahi or balti really taste that different from the next dish? Or is it 90% base sauce and a few trimmings? In most cases it's the latter. I try to find traditional Pakistani and Indian cuisine but it's not that easy. Often you're better off going with the speciality of the house, whatever it may be. And really there's not much can beat lamb/chicken, lentils, naan and/rice in whatever fashion that comes most naturally to the chef.
I've tried various other places around and about -the Didsbury places mentioned by others, Asian fusian in Chorlton, EastZEast in the city centre. Every place seems to have somebody who thinks it's the best in the city but it's rare I find one that's really exceptional in anything other than presentation - maybe I'm looking for the wrong thing in traditional home cooking - meat on the bone etc.
They still all just serve meat or veg in a preprepared sauce tarted up with a few bits of this and that (pun not intended). Or marinaded and grilled (the quality and 'redness' of these marinades varies somewhat - I'm not a fan of food colouring). Unfortunately 'good' often means well presented these days and some people recommend curry places on matters such as décor or how loudly their plate's sizzling when it arrives.
I'd try anywhere at least once - and most places numerous times. Try and check out the menu - if they've got lamb on the bone it's a good sign. Off to Hhunter's for lunch tomorrow... See how we get on.
One more thing, outstanding value at £2.70 for a chicken kebab at Kashmir King in Whalley Range. Fresh meat, naan, good sauces - just don't bother with the lamb tikka - reheated in the back room.
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