Penelope's Kitchen, MediaCity, Salford

It's about time Media City got some decent lunch options. If you work in the vicinity you might not want a dirty great burger every day of the week, but for the occasional treat or a Friday blow-out I'd recommend a visit to Penelope's Kitchen.

It's a new indoor offering from the same people that ran the Dock Grill out on the square over the summer months. I never ate there, but I assume they'll be back outdoors next year serving up a similar mix of breakfasts, burgers and dogs.

The burger (can't remember its name. The classic maybe?) was the best I've had in a long while. Two pleasingly beefy patties (from Frost's butcher's in Chorlton apparently) cooked medium, plastic cheese, grilled onions and sauce. Messy but lovely. Only the brioche bun didn't quite do it for me, it couldn't handle all the slop and goo and ended up flattened out like some sort of baggy hat.

Fries were an unexpected bonus, they weren't advertised and I didn't order them, so they're either included as standard or I got lucky. Whichever it was they were good, similar to those from a fast food chain whose name I won't mention, and I mean that as a compliment.

An absolute steal at £5.50, and still great value even if that shouldn't have included the fries. It's not often I get enthused about this sort of thing ('ooh look another filthy burger place, how novel' style cynicism tends to kick in), but I'll definitely be back here. Recommended.

8/10

The Pie Factory
101 Broadway
MediaCityUK
Salford
M50 2EQ

http://www.penelopesmcr.co.uk

@penelopesMCR

Caffeine and Co, Manchester

I'd heard nothing but praise for Caffeine and Co, so I was looking forward to stopping in for a coffee and sandwich. A flying visit to Manchester the week before last gave me the opportunity.

Service was chatty and efficient, but a flat white and a sandwich were just slightly off-kilter on this visit. The coffee itself was an excellent blend, toasty and fruity all at once. The execution wasn't quite there though, the milk being just a little thin.

The reuben sandwich, despite not being a reuben, would have been a perfectly serviceable lunch option (generously filled, decent quality beef) had it not been toasted to buggery in the sandwich press. I've probably got myself to blame for that though, my default response to the question 'do you want it toasted?' being yes, when some sarnies are clearly better left alone.

Gripes aside I'm sure this is a quality place, and if I'd turned up on another day everything could have been perfect. The coffee is definitely worth a second glance and the cakes and other sandwiches all looked good. £2.40 for the flat white and £3.50 for the sandwich.

7/10

11 St James Square
Manchester
M2 6WH

https://www.facebook.com/caffeineandco/info

A summer round-up

I've been too lazy/busy (delete as appropriate) over this summer to blog about everything liked I used to. This is probably a good thing in many respects, fewer boring posts about nothing much of interest being the outcome, although it does mean that I've tended to focus only on the positive, lacking the enthusiasm to write about the mediocre or downright bad experiences.

To redress the balance a bit, here's a round up of some recent eating and drinking. Some of it good, most of it not very. A theme if there is one: why put something on the menu if you don't know what it is or can't be bothered making it properly.

Stay tuned for the next thrilling instalment, in which I dine at Noma, go on a pintxo crawl around the backstreets of assorted small Basque towns, cook barbecue in Kentucky, hang out in Dalston's latest dens of vice/burgers, and buy a sausage roll from Gregg's in Stockport on the way home. Only some of this is true.

Baked, Derby

A bakery with café in Derby city centre. The bread is certainly worth another look....

..but the coffee was just ok. The flat white wasn't a flat white.

Soup, half a sandwich and slaw for about six quid. Half a sandwich isn't an unreasonable idea, but it seems a bit stingy to stick to it rigidly when it's cut from a very small loaf. a lovely nutty wholemeal loaf by the way, but nothing to write home about otherwise.

6/10

http://www.baked-derby.com/


The Swan, West Malling, Kent

Hi friends from work, this one's for you! The Swan was the dinner venue for our team meeting at the end of June. As with the previous dinner back in April we chose from the early bird set menu, but unlike on that occasion it was evident throughout that we'd gone for the budget option.

An asparagus starter was notable only for having hardly any asparagus in it. Three spears or thereabouts. Of the mains neither cooked to grey burgers nor a dry pork dish impressed much.

And Eton Mess for pudding was fine but had blueberries in it. Why put the only non-native berry in a dish that's supposed to show off the best of the English summer?

On a more positive note they have Curious Brew lager on draft, which is a wonderful beer. Beautifully clean, crisp and balanced. A glance at the website suggests the people in charge of the Swan and the people brewing Curious are one and the same; their core business being the Chapel Down Winery that arguably produces Britain's finest wines.

Maybe we were just unlucky at the Swan, the undoubted booze pedigree of the business might suggest they know a thing or two about food as well.

5/10

http://www.loveswan.co.uk/westmalling/bar/index.html


Smythson's Deli, Nottingham

A load of old rubbish.

The espresso in the coffee was good, potent yet smooth. Shame the milk was a mess. And it wasn't a flat white either (it was supposed to be, I'm not laying into a latte for not being a flat white).

A poor excuse for a sandwich. One word sums it up: meagre. I can't be arsed elaborating.

3/10

https://www.facebook.com/smythsons


Queen's Park Gelateria and Café, Chesterfield

This place is run by Frederick's, the dominant force in the ice cream world around these parts. Their vans are all over the place, which is no bad thing as their ice cream is good stuff.

They run the park caff in Chesterfield, which is also no bad thing. Instead of the tea and cakes set up you might expect in a park it's more of a pizza and ice cream and beer arrangement.

Pizza and ice cream and beer in the park? Don't mind if I do. A shared ham, pepperoni and mushroom (good chewy crust, surprisingly good pepperoni) and a double scoop pistachio sugar cone makes a very fine lunch. Pizzas 6-7 quid, ice creams 2-3.

7/10

http://www.fredericksicecreams.co.uk/page/queens-park-cafe-and-gelataria/


Harvest Moon Espresso Bar, Chester

A coffee that meets its description! About bloody time.

The flat white here was properly made and properly proportioned, so I'll excuse them serving it in a glass (maybe they've been to Manchester, they do that there).

I'm not really sure what to say about the food though. I can't work out what they were thinking. A not really a Reuben sandwich was still quite nice in spite of not really being a Reuben. The bread was top notch and it was as stacked as you could reasonably expect for the modest price tag.

Why smearing the inside of very good bread with cheap sunflower spread seemed like a good plan is beyond me, and why serving it with stale tortilla chips and a completely undressed salad of lollo rosso, bits of cucumber and carrot and some damp cous cous seemed like a good plan is even further beyond me.

6/10

https://www.facebook.com/HarvestMoonEspressoBar

Cool River Cafe, Matlock

A recent opening in Matlock, could this be the local coffee shop of my dreams?

In a word, no. A moist, walnut-packed wodge of carrot cake with a pleasingly cheesy icing was spot on, but the coffee was crap, the advertised flat white turning out to be an oversized bucket of weak latte. 

They're still finding their feet so I'll give this one another try. The savouries looked on a par with the cakes, but the coffee needs some serious work.

6/10 (8 for the cake, 4 for the coffee)

http://coolrivercafe.co.uk/

Caudwell's Mill Café, Rowsley, Derbyshire

What a pleasant surprise to eat a meal, at a place chanced upon with no prior knowledge, where they've actually made an effort.

I'll spare you the lengthy rant about how eating in this country, brilliant though it certainly can be, is still rubbish if you don't plan ahead, about how you could travel the length and breadth of the country dining in wherever was obvious and looked nice, and not eat a single thing worth the money or calories. It's true though.

The particular speciality in this well-touristed part of the world is the 'doing just enough to get away with it café or tea room'. Your choice of mediocre panini served with a small pile of limp leaves? Six quid, thanks. 

So anyway, it's a refreshing change to end up somewhere like the café at Caudwell's Mill (the mill itself is worth a visit if like me, you like old industrial stuff with levers and pulleys and whatnot) where serving food that's worth bothering with is obviously of importance as well as keeping the bottom line ticking over.

They serve vegetarian food, which I only actually noticed after standing in the queue staring at the menu for at least five minutes. For me, it's always an indicator of appetising veggie food when the lack of meat isn't glaringly and instantly obvious.

As well as the usual sandwiches and jackets, there are daily specials served with salads. Homity pie was a cheesy, garlicky, comforting pile of goodness on a nutty wholemeal pastry base. In winter I could eat bowlfuls of this (probably swimming in a whole tin of beans), but it worked well as a summer dish too with all the associated greenery.

The salads were great; simple stuff done well. Amongst them a nice crunchy coleslaw; apple and beetroot; something vinegary with chickpeas; dressed leaves; and sweet carrot and corn given interest with seeds of some sort.

There are home made cakes galore for afters, the chocolate and coffee looked particularly good. We shared a slice of lemon which wasn't the best choice, being a bit overdone around the edges.

Service was quick and friendly, and you can sit by the window with a lovely view of the river that feeds the mill, then the Derbyshire countryside beyond. Meals are eight quid and a far better proposition than your aforementioned six pound panino, cakes £2-3 and a pot of tea a very reasonable £1.50. Worth a visit.

7/10

Caudwell's Mill
Rowsley
Matlock
DE4 2EB

http://www.caudwellsmillcraftcentre.co.uk/Thecafe.htm

Kerb and Caravan, King's Cross, London

I'm still here. Just. A trip to Somerset, a hell of a lot of tennis (watching not playing) and the sudden onset of a proper summer have all conspired to make my blogging even more sporadic than it was already. Lolling around in the sun and watching Murray win Wimbledon has taken precedence over waffling on about what I've been eating. With good reason I hope you'll agree.

So, now that the ghost of Fred has finally been laid to rest, back to business as usual.

A flying visit to Kent for work the week before last meant a change of trains at St Pancras. A few years ago you'd need a good couple of hours spare to make venturing from the northbound stations worthwhile, but the King's Cross area has come on in leaps and bounds in recent times, and boasts a whole host of options from sherry bars to street food, all within a few minutes walk of the station platforms.

It was the latter option that tempted, the street food collective formerly known as eat.st has expanded and relaunched as Kerb. They now have a whole host of stalls on daily rotation on the new pedestrian street round the back of King's Cross.

Kimchi Cult, purveyors of Korean style burgers, was the one I'd been looking forward to most. I bloody love Kimchi and was intrigued to see how its cabbagey funk worked outside its usual environment. I'm pleased to say it works very well. The spice and savour of the stuff works a treat with a high quality beef patty and plasticky cheese, in the same way that anything else pickled works with a burger or sausage.

It was all beautifully put together; bun the right texture, the right sort of melty cheese, very good meat in the patty, but the whole just didn't do that much for me. The presence of kimchi just made me crave a great bowlful of it in a porky noodle soup.

I can't blame Kimchi Cult for this, I think the realisation is finally dawning that I don't really care about burgers. The relentless obsession with the things in the food world in recent years has brainwashed me into seeking the burgery holy grail, but I don't think it exists. They're just not that exciting. Give me a fine steak or a Thai salad or a bowl of raspberries or a pork pie instead please.

£6 for the kimchi cheeseburger. Personal preferences aside this was a top notch burger, but six quid still seems to be pushing it a bit. I had plenty of room for lunch number two ten minutes later...

..which came courtesy of Yum Bun. I was hoping for a pork bun, but I'd left it too late so had to settle for the Japanese fried chicken bun. Garnished with iceberg lettuce, tartare sauce and chilli dressing this was a bit bloody lovely. The soft bun was a delight, just a little bit chewy but light and airy with it. The chicken: think KFC popcorn chicken with better meat, better batter and better frying skills. Very good.

£3.50 for one of these, or £6 for two. As with the burger, a bit overpriced I'd argue. I do think that the food served at all of these stalls is very good, and deserves comparison with similar restaurant offerings (I'm sure it's better in many cases) but lunch can be had at many restaurants for not much more money, and with the considerably larger overheads of a building, waiting staff and so forth. Minor gripe over, and ultimately the prices are pitched at what the London market will bear.

Between my burger and bun I grabbed a takeaway coffee from Caravan. I really want to eat at this place, the menu reads like a dream, but there wasn't time on this occasion so a coffee had to suffice. A £2.40 flat white (very fairly priced for the location) was good, but not as good as I'd been led to believe the coffee here would be. The coffee itself was excellent, the execution just slightly off though, the texture of the milk a little thin and not as smooth as it could have been.


Kimchi Cult 7/10
Yum Bun 8/10
Caravan coffee 7/10

Bold Street Coffee, Liverpool

Of all the coffee shops in northern cities I've been working my way around, Bold Street Coffee might just be the best yet.

The flat white was faultless. Beautifully crafted, perfectly textured, the espresso blend packing a punch but with a subtle fruitiness and hints of smoke too. A joy to drink.

A Monterey Jack, cheddar and onion toastie was also on the money. Generously proportioned and oozing loads of molten cheesy goodness, the sweet, sauteed onions were a nice touch, improving on a classic combination by avoiding the overpowering raw onion reek. The only thing I'd change would be to swap out the Monterey Jack for something with a bit more character, it melts well but doesn't taste of much.

£2.60 for the coffee, a little bit more expensive than the other independents I like, but still passes the 'cheaper than a shit version from a chain test' easily, and £2.95 for the huge sandwich seemed like a bargain. Also worth pointing out that the service was lovely, no hipster aloofness here.

Highly recommended. I'll be returning.

9/10

89 Bold Street
Liverpool
L1 4HF

http://www.boldstreetcoffee.co.uk/

Sandwich Quest

Bacon Sandwich Quest is proving a hard act to follow. I probably ought to leave well alone, write a few reviews and the odd recipe, keep the blog plain, simple and challenge free. But I just can't help myself.

An uncommonly tedious obsession with lists combined with a healthy appetite and a job that sees me ranging all over the North (and the Midlands nowadays, recently swapped with Scotland) is all pointing in one direction:

Bacon Sandwich Quest.

I eat a lot of sandwiches. I already rate them mentally against an assortment of sandwich criteria. I eat them all over the place. Let's do this.

Before we begin I should acknowledge that this is a wholly unoriginal idea. Others do it better, and have been doing so for ages. Better written, better sandwiches, far better photography. There's the Serious Eats sandwich a day strand, there's Burger specialist Burgerac, there's the Londonist's (possibly defunct) Sandwichist, there's the inspired Scanwiches and probably finest of all, given that its author, Helen, has just written an entire book about sandwiches, is the London Review of Sandwiches.

I'm not sure anyone is really chronicling the finest sandwiches of northern England (and maybe the Midlands if they get lucky) though, so that's what I'd like to do. If I'm wrong about this, and someone already is working on this thankless task for the good of humanity, then do let me know.

I'd like to know where to find the finest sarnies the North has to offer. I'm casting the net far and wide, with the barest minimum of restrictions. The rules are simple: is it a filling between or somehow within any variety of bread? Yes? Then it's a sandwich.

From the humble triangle pack, through the sourdough deli-made special to the wrap to the burger to the inevitable bacon butty, all are fair game for sandwich quest.

Without any further ado let's get the ball rolling. Here are a few sandwiches I've eaten recently: a photo, a quick description, and a score out of fifty comprising a rating for the bread, the core filling, the accompanying fillings, any sauces or condiments, value, service and something I've decided to call the S-Factor.

Sometimes, for reasons difficult to define, a sandwich is far greater than the sum of its parts. The bacon sandwich often displays this phenomenon. Budget sliced white, cheapo bacon and Daddies are not a winning formula taken in isolation, put them together and the magic happens. This is the S-Factor.

The sangers I write about might appear only here on Sandwich Quest, but you might see them popping up in other posts too if they're part of a whole meal that's worth writing about.

It's going to be an open ended quest, with round-ups appearing from time to time. I'm not promising to write them monthly, as I lost the will to live doing that for Bacon Sandwich Quest.

Bring on the butties....

Chicken pesto on granary, Philpott's, Leeds

I'd never been to Philpott's before. I was under the mistaken impression that it might be good. It's not. Bread of the 'pappy crap disguised to look like proper bread' variety. See Asda speciality bread if you don't know what I mean. Manky, shredded chicken in an inexplicable shade of orange. Limp mixed leaves. Bleurgh. £2.95.

Bread 4/10
Core filling 3/10
Secondary filling 2/5
Sauces/condiments 2/5
Value 2/5
Service 2/5
S-Factor 3/10

Total 18/50


Fishfinger butty, The Midnight Bell, Leeds

As with all of the Leeds brewery offerings, reliable but unspectacular. Decent slices of bloomer hide fingers hewn from an ogre, thick and gnarled, putting Captain Birdseye to shame. The batter is crisp, the fish moist, the tartare sauce a little bland. £5.95, including chips.

Bread 6/10
Core filling 7/10
Secondary filling 3/5
Sauces/condiments 3/5
Value 3/5
Service 3/5
S-Factor 6/10

Total 31/50


Smoked beef brisket hoagy, Red's True BBQ, Leeds

An early contender, and a place that deserves a post of its own (which it will be getting, tomorrow with any luck). Thickly sliced meat with an intense smokey flavour permeating right through each wedge, sweet onions and pickles in abundance. All in a roll of unexpected quality, somehow both dense and light, and chewy like a sub roll ought to be. House made BBQ sauces on the side are also a revelation in that they taste of something other than sugar. Excellent. £8.95 including two sides.

Bread 8/10
Core filling 8/10
Secondary filling 4/5
Sauces/condiments 4/5
Value 4/5
Service 4/5
S-Factor 9/10

Total 41/50

Create, Wakefield

If there's one restaurant in Leeds that I really regret failing to dine it while I had the chance, it's Create. At this point I could launch into a lengthy and fawning report on the Create organisation, explaining the great work that they do and why you should all give them your support, but given that I didn't bother giving them mine up until now, I won't. It would be patronising and I'd probably be preaching to the converted anyway.

On the off chance you didn't already know, Create are a social enterprise, widely lauded for their work with vulnerable people, sort of like Jamie Oliver's Fifteen without the super-celeb backing. Their Leeds restaurant recently closed for a refurbishment and restructure, from which I hope they return as soon as possible. News of the closure did seem a little ominous though, with talk of 'today's harsh economy' and 'tough commercial realities'.

The honest and truthful reason I hope they're back soon, any guilty feelings aside, is that the food sounded bloody wonderful. Praised by bloggers and critics alike, I don't think I read anything negative about the place, and the menus always read beautifully. You know the kind where deciding becomes a chore as it all sounds so damn good?

From the most recent menu, still online at the moment, how about 'Salt cod fritters, sweet pickled onion salad, radish, sourdough' to start, followed by 'Char-grilled skirt steak, wild mushroom gratin, chips, watercress'. And for pudding: 'Sticky toffee pudding, parkin crumble, caramel sauce and milk sorbet'. If that doesn't get you salivating there's something wrong with you.

So the Leeds restaurant may be on hiatus, but Create have also opened a new cafe in Wakefield One, the new building housing a range of council services including the city's museum and central library. First thing to mention: well done to Wakefield Council for giving the concession to Create, and not going for the obvious choice of either a) Costa, or b) one of the anonymous but equally crap giant catering co's.

I stopped in there for coffee and a snack last week, and was pleased to discover it lived up to the high expectations I had for the brand. The coffee, a flat white, wasn't particularly well made, coming from one of those funny auto-espresso machines, but still tasted pretty good as they're using quality beans from local roasters Grumpy Mule.

To eat, an Eccles cake. It might not look much, but what do you expect from currant stuffed pastry? Reassuringly mis-shapen, and a buttery delight to eat, I think it's safe to assume that they're making the food from scratch so I'm keen to return and try the lunchtime offerings.

The guy who served me was also lovely and friendly, and prices are very fair (cheaper than both the big chains and the more upmarket independents).

To sum up, let's hope Create can continue to succeed, and here's to the re-opening of the Leeds restaurant. I for one won't be missing out next time around.

8/10

Wakefield One
Burton Street
Wakefield
WF1 2DD

http://www.foodbycreate.co.uk/restaurant

Bean and Bud, Harrogate

We stopped off for a late lunch in Harrogate a week last Friday after a trip to Fountains Abbey (lovely, best bit the mill, need to return in less miserable weather). It was way past proper meal time, especially given that we were heading home for a steak dinner, so sandwiches and coffee seemed like the best bet.

Bean and Bud served a pretty good flat white, texture-wise spot on, smooth as you like and balanced between coffee and milk. It was just a little bland for my taste though, not really delivering the complex flavours advertised. There were a choice of two espresso blends with quite differing descriptions, one fruitier and the other darker with more pronounced bitterness. We chose one of each but I couldn't discern the difference. Under-strength coffee or maybe my palate is shot? I'm not really sure.

The sandwiches were all pre-made and cling film wrapped, but didn't seem to have suffered as a result. Cheese and tomato tasted fresh and was made with good quality bread and something sharp and a bit crumbly (either a cheddar or an older, more mature Lancashire or similar) from local suppliers the Cheeseboard. A basic sandwich but a good one, like what you'd make to take to work on a 'can be bothered' sort of a day.

Worth a visit if you need a caffeine fix in Harrogate. I'd certainly like to give the coffee another chance to find out whether I was having a tasting off-day. Prices about average for an indie coffee shop, that being a little bit cheaper than the biggest chains (but a good bit better).

7/10

14 Commercial Street
Harrogate
HG1 1TY

http://www.beanandbud.co.uk/

Peli Deli, Matlock, Derbyshire

I might, whisper it, be leaving the North. Last time I did that I moved to south east London. Nothing quite so drastic is on the cards this time but it's highly likely I shall end up residing in that strange netherworld known as the MIDLANDS.

Not ideal for a blog named Northern Food, especially when I've already had to ditch the M62 bit, my preferred transpennine route being the Woodhead pass these days. I shall probably get away with it though, Chesterfield is hardly in Kent now is it?

The upshot of all this upheaval is that I'll be blogging from Derbyshire with increasing frequency, and what better place to start than Matlock. An exploratory trip to the region ended up with us stopping for lunch there, with Peli Deli looking like the best of a limited supply of cafés (it was a Sunday afternoon, and much of the town was closed).

It turned out ok, but I wouldn't rush back. A flat white was more like a latte with a pattern on top, too big and milky and lacking that beautiful velvety texture you get from a good example.

A salt beef sandwich brought generous slices of high quality, tender meat in fresh, nutty bread. All good but let down by the use of some sort of spread rather than butter, and a bright but completely undressed side salad. 

It's not cheap here, but I suppose Matlock is one of the pricier parts of Derbyshire. £4.25 for the salt beef sarnie, £2.40 for the coffee, and over a fiver for A's cheese and ham panini.


6/10


1 Jubilee Buildings
Crown Square
Matlock
Derbyshire
DE4 3AT

http://www.pelideli.com/ 

Marmadukes Café Deli, Sheffield

A Twitter recommendation brought me to Marmadukes in search of good coffee. They use a Monmouth espresso blend and that quality really shines through. My flat white was a beauty, smooth with a bold, fruity flavour. Excellent stuff.

Other than the coffee there are good looking cakes, sandwiches, savouries and salads to be had, and the café is an attractive place to sit for a while, either inside or at one of a few tables outside on Norfolk Row, a pleasant pedestrianised side street. Blankets are provided to keep out the chill, a nice touch.

I ate on this visit too, quiche lorraine and salad. The quiche was perfectly fine but the salad was no more than a garnish. If you're charging £1.50 extra for salad, then a spoonful of some of the proper salads behind the counter might be a more appropriate choice than a very small handful of limp leaves, even if they are properly dressed.

The added leaves brought the cost of the food up to six quid, which I wouldn't take issue with at all if it was a proper plate of savoury with salads, but it wasn't that. The coffee was marvellous though, so maybe stick to that and give the cakes a try.

7/10 (a combination of 9 for the coffee and 5 for the meal)

Edit: see comments - Tim the cafe owner says the lack of a proper salad was their mistake, I should have been offered one from the counter. I'll pay another visit sometime soon, defo for coffee and maybe for food too.
22a Norfolk Row
Sheffield
S1 2PA

https://www.facebook.com/marmadukescafedeli

Bragazzi's, Abbeydale Road, Sheffield

I discovered Bragazzi's completely by accident while checking out what Abbeydale Road had to offer. The original plan was a dosa lunch at either Dhanistha's or East and West, but both were deserted and I wasn't in the mood for completely solitary dining. The south Indian fix will have to wait for another day.

It turned out to be a very happy accident, Bragazzi's is an Italian deli and café of unusually high quality. A small cappuccino was easily the equal of anything I've had in the recent influx of independent coffee shops, beautifully made with a complex, roasted flavour.

A mortadella, mozzarella, pesto, olive and tomato sandwich was also marvellous. I did wonder whether having it toasted was going to be a mistake, I always instinctively say yes when offered but toasting a good sandwich can be a bad idea when it ends up overdone; - the bread dessicated and the filling too hot to taste. 

I needn't have worried, this was just gently pressed so the cheese had melted. Layers of paper thin sliced meat with mild, milky, stringy cheese, salty olives and bright, herbal pesto. The best sandwich I've had in ages.

The café would be a great place to while away a few hours with the papers, or you can takeaway. Prices are more than reasonable for the quality, the coffee was £1.80 and the sandwich £3.60. Highly recommended.

9/10

220-226 Abbeydale Road
Sheffield
S7 1FL

http://www.bragazzis.co.uk

Béres Pork Shop, Sheffield

Beers, Bears, Beresh? I'm not quite sure how you pronounce Béres. The latter perhaps, I know it's Hungarian and that sounds to my linguistically challenged brain to be the most Mitteleuropa way of saying it. Beers might be the more Sheffield way though.

Whatever it's called, of all the myriad wonders I've been discovering about Sheffield, an entire chain of shops devoted to pork sandwiches was one of the most intriguing. I'd been looking forward to a visit for ages. Mmmm pork.

It was an expertly crafted sandwich. The Middlewood branch was a well oiled machine, the staff churning them out in a steady production line: bread sliced and smeared in meat juices, then on goes thinly sliced pork, stuffing, crackling and apple sauce to taste.

I can't say I loved it though. The crackling was great, shattered into little salty shards, and the stuffing and bread were fine. The meat itself was just a bit bland though, making the whole thing slightly heavy going.

£2.25 for the standard size pork sandwich. I'd have another, but not in a great hurry. Back to the bacon methinks.

6/10

8 branches around Sheffield

http://www.beresporkshop.co.uk

Whitworth Art Gallery Café, Manchester

After a week of loafing around snacking and boozing thoughts inevitably turn to healthy eating, so of all the recommendations given to me for lunch near the University in Manchester the Whitworth art gallery café seemed like the best bet (thanks to North West Nosh for the tip).

The soup and salad meal deal was really rather good, and a more than generous lunch for £6.50. More than generous as in bloody loads and more than I really needed to eat. Does it still count as healthy eating if you eat two healthy lunches at once, or have I blown it?

Either way it was nutritious and vegetarian so that's a start. The roasted tomato soup was simple but well made and came with excellent sun-dried tomato bread (from the Barbakan deli if I recall correctly). Full marks for not using little pre-packaged pats of butter too.

Everything on the salad plate was distinctive in its own right, there was none of that melange of dressing/mayo mess you sometimes get when several mediocre salads are plonked together in a bowl. There was potato salad, properly dressed leaves, good hoummus, a few grapes and olives, a sweet, oniony roasted vegetable mix and best of all, a lovely nutty chickpea one with cumin and carrots.

I really enjoyed this, and it's always nice to see cultural institutions outsourcing the catering to small companies who care (as opposed to execrable catering giants like Leith's). Highly recommended.

8/10

Oxford Road
Manchester
M13 9PL

http://www.whitworth.manchester.ac.uk/yourvisit/thegallerycafe/

http://www.themoderncaterer.co.uk/ 

Costello's Bakery, Headingley, Leeds

Someone on Twitter suggested Costello's to me as somewhere I might find a good cake. I didn't find a good cake there, but I did find a very good lunch deal so thank you very much whoever you are.

It was a little incongruous sat eating this on a warm sun dappled afternoon, it's probably more one for the dismal winter months, but who am I to turn down pie, mash, gravy and a drink for £3.50? I got the choice of ordinary or special mash, special being ordinary with added leeks and bacon. Entirely predictably I chose the special.

I enjoyed the pie, a sturdy affair of short pastry and tender, stewed beef. The mash and gravy weren't half bad either and there was bloody loads of it. Give it three months until there's a nip in the air then get yourself down there. In the meantime the sandwiches looked good too.

7/10

61 Otley Road
Headingley
LS6 3AB

http://www.costellosbakery.com/

Pink Lane Coffee, Newcastle

I chanced upon an excellent little coffee shop in Newcastle last week. In need of a quick bite to eat before the train home and with only a few minutes to spare I'd almost given up hope of finding anything decent. A station pasty beckoned.

Pink Lane came to the rescue. I drank a top notch flat white, smooth and strong. It was served in a glass which I'm not a fan of, but tasted delicious which is the main thing.

I ate a tuscan ham, grana padano and rocket sandwich, also very good. Generously filled with high quality ingredients, herb edged cured ham in thin, delicate slices and sharp, salty cheese. The bread was slightly past its best, probably as it was teatime. I doubt that would have been the case at lunch.

Prices are about what you'd expect. The coffee was £2.20 (I think) and the sandwich £3.40. They only had one other customer in the ten minutes I was there so I hope they're getting more trade earlier in the day. The place deserves to succeed. Highly recommended, go check it out.

8/10

Pink Lane Coffee
Newcastle
NE1 5DW

https://twitter.com/PinkLaneCoffee

Bagel Nash, White Rose Centre, Leeds

Until the other week I hadn't been to Bagel Nash in years. I had it in mind that it was crap. I can't recall why, but presumably I ate something rubbish from there. Either that or my confused brain mixed it up with somewhere else.

Whatever the reason for my assumptions, they were wrong. Sorry Bagel Nash, I was mistaken, you're not crap.

I had a salt beef bagel from the White Rose Centre branch and really enjoyed it. It wasn't legendary-American-diner-sandwich good, but it was certainly £2.95-in-a-shopping-centre-in-Leeds good. (For moaning about poor attempts at salt beef or pastrami sandwiches see here.)

The bagel was a pleasing combination of both light and chewy. The beef wasn't amazing, but there was plenty and it had a good beefy flavour. The mustard was hot but not overly so and there were loads of pickles. Delicious, crunchy, sour pickles.

A good lunch. I won't leave it so long before paying a return visit.

7/10

7 branches in Leeds, 2 in Manchester, 1 in Huddersfield and 1 in York.

www.bagelnash.com

Katsouris Cafenion, Bury

When considering the increasingly strident debate about the future of Leeds Kirkgate market, it's worth taking a little look at Bury. What irritates me the most about the situation in Leeds is this insidious idea that there are two implacably opposed sides.

In the red corner we have the saviours of the people's market, aiming to preserve the market in existing form in perpetuity, a haven of cheap goods for the deserving poor. Piled high, prices low.

In the blue corner we have the evil peddlers of 'gentrification', those who dream of plush, anodyne food halls for the well-heeled elite. A sanitised ciabatta, olives and fine wine emporium, the prices high, the tone higher.

As if it were that straightforward. There are plenty of valid points on either side of this debate, but turning it into some sort of class war isn't going to help. What with the national government being rather keen on this approach we don't need people joining in at a local level. Which brings me back to Bury, and in particular, to Katsouris.

Katsouris is a deli of some renowned. The Bury outlet is the original, but they've also branched out into ('gentrified') Manchester. Bury Market doesn't appear to be particularly gentrified to me, but here it is. A delicatessen piled high with olives and capers and ciabatta and cured meats, many of which are cheap but some of which (the horror) are quite expensive.

Bury market: sneering poshos eating caperberries. Possibly.

Adjacent to the deli is the Cafenion, and ooh look the theme continues here. There are sandwiches on quality breads, stuffed with quality meats, served with good, proper coffee. The prices are fair, not dirt cheap, but fantastically good value. Everyone eats and drinks here, from suited office workers to chain-smoking grannies, I'm not detecting any silly them and us segregation.

There's an extensive display of cold sandwiches, all of which look excellent, but I was drawn to the hot sandwich list. They are all available on ciabatta as either 'half' or 'full', and greedy pig that I am I couldn't resist ordering the full club sandwich.

The club: less than half of it is visible in this photo

It was absolutely enormous, at £5.40 I should have realised. That might sound like a lot, but it's really two or three sandwiches. I ate half of it and took the rest home for tea. Packed with good quality sliced chicken, smoked ham, cheese and stuffing it was a beast. The stuffing was a little unnecessary though, I'd give that a miss next time, but other than that a great sandwich. Meat, more meat and cheese, decent bread. Simple but effective.

The coffee hit the spot too, strong but not bitter and less than two quid for a large Americano. If you've not been before I'd recommend a visit to Bury market, there's plenty more to it than Katsouris alone. Be sure to get your hands on a black pudding barm while you're there.

8/10

Katsouris Delicatessen and Cafenion
23-25 Market Square
Bury
BL9 0BD


http://www.burymarket.com/stalls/katsouris/index.html

Tamper Coffee, Sheffield

Good pies and even better coffee. Antipodean heaven. That's what you'll find at Sheffield's Kiwi-run Tamper Coffee. You'll also find sandwiches, cakes and lovely service. I went here for lunch today and was impressed.

The flat white was pretty though not the prettiest I've seen, but tasted divine. A really rich coffee blend, not at all bitter, perfectly made so it was silkily smooth. An absolute delight. I could drink these all day.

I had to have a pie. Sadly there were no steak and cheese left. Anyone who's been to New Zealand or Australia will be aware of the regard in which pies are held in those nations (what with the pies and rugby and beer, both are rather like a sunnier Wigan), and to my mind the steak and cheese is king. I was so looking forward to eating one here, but had to settle for steak alone.

No matter, it was a lovely pie. Quite a flakey crust, not too dense, and chock full of chunks of tender beef bound in just the right amount of gravy. The little pot of crunchy, light coleslaw on the side was a nice touch too.

I also tried some of the brie and cranberry sandwich, and that was spot on as well. I was waffling on the other week about how genuinely good bread could elevate a sandwich from good to great. This was the case here, decent fillings and bread cut from an organic loaf with a lovely open crumb and chewy crust. The bread was advertised as being from the Cat Lane Bakery, definitely one warranting further investigation.

Excellent food and drink, and as I mentioned at the start friendly service from the guy in charge, who was enthusiastic and welcoming. Prices are fair at £2-2.50 for most coffees and £3-3.80 for sandwiches, although perhaps a little toppy for the pies at £3.60. That's a very minor quibble though, as they're certainly high quality. A great little place.

9/10

9 Westfield Terrace
Sheffield
S1 4GH

http://www.wix.com/tampercoffee/nz

Sesame, Leeds

I was confident there’d be somewhere good to grab lunch up at the financial/legal/office end of town. Surely those hungry workers couldn’t all be satisfied with Tesco Express or Starbucks. It was starting to look that way until I chanced upon Sesame.

It's a little corner café and takeaway just off Park Square, the focus is on sushi, salads and noodle soups but I spotted there was a Friday special - a fishfinger sandwich for £3.

It was £3 well spent, a very good sandwich. I don’t think the fishfingers were home-made, but they were a cut above the average frozen effort, the crumb crispier, the fillet chunkier. There were also a generous three of them in there.

Combined with decent tartare sauce, salad and very good bread and you’ve got an excellent sarnie. It’s funny how you often don’t much notice the bread when eating sandwiches. Bad bread, cheap and nasty or stale stands out a mile, but average bread just passes me by as I home in on the fillings. It’s that average bread that tends to be the norm, so when you eat a sandwich made with genuinely good, well-made bread you suddenly realise what you’ve been missing. I do anyway.

I chose granary but rather than the open textured slightly dry stuff you might expect this was closer textured, slightly chewy and with a lightly glazed crust and a delicious mild, yeasty flavour. A proper sub roll I guess you’d call it, reminiscent of the rolls used for the sausage butties at the excellent Barbakan Deli over the hills in Chorlton.

The bread at Sesame was advertised as being from Thierry Dumouchel, a French baker and patissier based in Garforth. I’ve heard of him before but this was the first time I’ve sampled his bread. A trip to Garforth beckons.

Service was quick and friendly, even though they were very busy. Great stuff. I'll be back to give the noodle soups and sushi a try.

8/10

18 St Paul’s Street
Leeds
LS1 2LE

http://www.ilovesesame.co.uk/