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

Damson, MediaCity, Salford

On arriving in the new Damson restaurant at MediaCity what immediately strikes you is the view. A sweeping cityscape seen through floor to ceiling picture windows, virtually none of which can be any more than fifteen years old. The area is starting resemble a coherent city quarter, alive with people and not just buildings, which isn't something that can be said about many attempts at large scale regeneration.

The jury remains out on what benefit the regeneration bandwagon brings to the area at large, you don't have to travel far from the shiny new world of the Quays to end up in some of the North's most troubled urban quarters, but whatever your thoughts on this you have to admit it looks impressive.  I just hope that the BBC and other new tenants have at least attempted a local recruitment drive.

Whatever employment policies are at work, there are certainly a whole bunch of media types in situ who categorically weren't here before. Luckily for them the highly regarded Damson (original restaurant across town in Heaton Moor, I've never been) are giving them somewhere better to eat than the chain dross that's occupied the remainder of the restaurant space on site.

Luckily for me and my work colleagues too, as we just happen to have considerably less glamorous premises two minutes around the corner.

We all ate from the pre-theatre menu, a short list of four starters, three mains and four puddings. It's not fixed price, so depending on your choices can range from only £16 up to £27 for three courses.

After some decent bread and very good quality butter I started with white onion and thyme risotto, wild mushrooms with parsley and garlic, smoked pancetta powder. The beautifully made risotto spoke for itself but I'm not sure the pancetta powder added much other than a hint of saltiness.

Grilled fillet of haddock, Asian greens with shitake mushrooms and a lemongrass and coriander broth was an accurate, delicate bowl of food. I usually avoid Asian dishes in European restaurants, because they tend to be a bit rubbish, so this was a pleasing surprise. The rich, fragrant coconut-based broth had the balance of a good Thai curry, just one with the intensity dial turned down a few notches.

Best of all was pudding, and it's not often that I say that. Pistachio financier, chocolate ice cream, sweet and salty popcorn sounded like it needed a dollop of cream in place of the popcorn, and arrived with an unappetising brown smear across the plate. First impressions were completely wrong though as it tasted divine. The vivid, powerful hit of chocolate melded with the nutty financier like a dream and the popcorn was much more than an irrelevance, adding a nice change in texture and that all important, addictive bit of salt. There really is a lot to be said for putting a little seasoning into dessert.

Everyone else enjoyed their meals too, on another day I'd have happily chosen three different courses from the same menu. How does Smoked haddock scotch egg, avocado puree, chorizo and red pepper dressing followed by Slow cooked pork belly, Bury black pudding and Lancashire cheese hash brown, spiced apple puree, honey pickled white cabbage and then Mango and passion fruit mousse, spiced roasted pineapple, poached kiwi and coconut granita sound? Good to me.

Service was excellent throughout our meal. I couldn't tell you how much the bill came to, I wasn't paying and we had a few drinks, but the three courses I ate would set you back £20. Recommended, for both the food and the view.

8/10

Damson MediaCityUK
Orange Building
MediaCityUK 
Salford
M50 2HF

http://mediacity.damsonrestaurant.co.uk

A year in Manchester

After an all too brief year I have just left Manchester and moved back to Leeds (well, Wakefield actually but most of my eating and drinking will be done in Leeds). I enjoyed my time in Manchester so thought I'd sum up my favourite things with a list. I like lists and this is the first opportunity I've had to write one on my fledgling blog.

I could have veered completely off topic here, and created a Manchester Top Ten of all the things I love about the place. But this is a food and drink blog, so you don't want to hear me banging on about industrial architecture or trams or cycle paths or whatever. Instead I've included some nice photos of sunny Manchester. Here are five food and drink things I love about Manchester:

1.  Pubs
There are absolutely loads of fantastic pubs in central Manchester (and Salford). The key things I look for in a pub are a good selection of beer and a convivial atmosphere. Add interesting buildings/interiors and good food into the mix and you're really on to a winner. In vaguely pub crawl related order here is my lucky 13: The Marble Arch; The Angel; Bar Fringe; Crown and Kettle; The Castle Hotel; Port Street Beer House; The Britons Protection; Peveril of the Peak; Knott Bar; The Lass O'Gowrie; The New Oxford; The Kings Arms; The Mark Addy.

2. Chinese restaurants
In my opinion Manchester has the best and most varied selection of Chinese restaurants in the UK outside London. I have barely started working my way through all of them, but I have eaten very well at the following: Red Chilli, Middle Kingdom (both Szechuan); Hunan (Hunanese); BBQ Handmade Noodles King (hand made noodles!).

 
3. Curry cafés
The curry cafés of Manchester appear to be a unique phenomenon. I've certainly never come across anything similar in this country (although strangely I do recall them having the same sort of thing in Australia, but with really rubbish curry). The premise is simple. The curries are pre-cooked and kept warm at the counter. You get to pick any three curries on rice for a fixed price, which is always under a fiver. The quality can be a bit hit and miss, the decor is invariably scruffy, but you are guaranteed to get a decent feed for a low price. Sometimes they really surprise you with a corker of a dish too, one of them does a lovely keema with whole hard boiled eggs in it. Great stuff.

There are loads of the places scattered around the Northern Quarter and various other parts of the city. I'm not going to bother listing them all here. Instead I shall refer you to the comprehensive and excellent Flavours of Manchester blog.

4. Traditional caffs
Manchester seems to be well stocked with places to get a good fry-up or some other home cooked and ridiculously cheap meal. Perhaps the same applies to most towns and cities in the UK, but I just seem to have noticed it more over the last year or so. In the city centre I like The Koffee Pot and Abergeldie Cafe.  In the suburbs my favourite spot is in the grotty precinct in Prestwich. Can't remember the name of it (not sure it has one), but they do a competent and comforting corned beef hash followed by crumble & custard for about £3.50.

 
5. Markets
This might seem a strange one, particularly for Manchester itself. Central Manchester hasn't even got a proper market, either indoor or outdoor. What impresses me is the way the council has made the most of its meagre resources. The only permanent central market of any size is the Arndale Market, which is essentially a small, spare corner of the shopping centre. About half of the space has been given over to traditional market stalls, and the other half turned into a thriving food hall. There are a good selection of stalls, including an ale bar and the excellent Pancho's Burritos. Glass of ale and a spicy, porky burrito for lunch. Don't mind if I do. In addition to this is a rapidly expanding number of street markets that are spreading all over the suburbs as well as the city centre.

A special mention is also due to some of the markets in other Greater Manchester towns. Bury and Ashton-under-Lyne have particularly good examples. If you'd heard rumours that the good folk of Bury like to eat entire black puddings, on their own, with a dab of relish, mustard or ketchup, they are true. Don't knock it 'til you've tried it, it's actually rather delicious.

 

The Mark Addy, Salford

I've been planning a trip to the Mark Addy for some time now, as intermittent glances at the menu on the website have had me salivating for months. Friday was pretty much the last window of opportunity before I move back over the hills to Yorkshire. I'll still be in Manchester from time to time, but far less frequently in future.

Four of us stopped off for lunch, midway through a tour of some of Manchester's finest hostelries as a way of bidding farewell to my home for the last year. As chance would have it, the Mark Addy has been getting a lot of coverage of late, with reviews from Jay Rayner in the Observer and Sarah on the North West Nosh blog. Both of those two gave the menu a more thorough going over than we did, so I'll try to keep my thoughts relatively brief and point you in their direction for a more detailed review and a bit of background about the place.

First up we ordered various bits and pieces to share with a couple of pints. I can't remember what we drank, other than that it was ale, and very well kept. Homemade pork scratchings were spot on, with just the right blend of crunch and softer fatty bits.

 
Spam fritters were also crunchy, piggy and lovely, and came dressed with brown sauce and ketchup. I don't think they used actual spam though, which seemed a little strange (unless they cut it into semi-circular pieces).

 
Welsh rarebit was intensely cheesy, but just the one small slice seemed a little stingy for £5.50.

For the main meal two of us ended up having scallops and black pudding starters and a shared side of chips with tarragon sauce. Both scallops and pudding were high quality and cooked just right. The chips were very good but the tarragon in the sauce was barely detectable.

 
The other two had roast beef sandwiches which looked great, stuffed with generous amounts of pink meat. Feedback was positive.

We sat on the riverside terrace, which really is a splendid place to be on a sunny afternoon. Don't be put off by the less than pleasant entrance to the pub which requires you to pass the door to the Gents and descend a flight of stairs carpeted in the style of a cheesy nightclub circa 1995. They really ought to sort that out. We had no problems with service but were probably there in a quieter period (around 2-4pm). Good value too for the standard of cooking, we paid just under fifteen pounds each for all of the food, a couple of pints and service. I'm definitely planning a return visit.

8/10

The Mark Addy
Stanley Street
Salford
M3 5EJ

http://markaddy.co.uk/

Caribbean Flavas, Salford

Amazing jerk chicken alert. In Salford.

Good jerk chicken is absolutely gorgeous, but bad jerk chicken can be truly terrible. The trouble is it can be difficult to tell by looking at it. The bad stuff might be burnt, dry, stringy, bland and lacking in spice. The good stuff should be smoky, fiery, fruity, moist, crispy and utterly delicious. I've eaten both good and bad that look pretty much like this:

Doesn't look particularly enticing does it? This, I'm pleased to say though, is the good stuff. Beautifully smoky, crisp skinned chicken fragrant with allspice and scotch bonnet chilli. The flesh beneath the skin was moist and the flavour had permeated through suggesting a long, slow marinade. It was also very spicy with a slow burning, lip-tingling heat.

The accompanying rice and peas were also good, rich and sweet from stewing in coconut milk. The vegetables were rubbish (mushy and tasteless) but they're really not the point and are optional. £4.00 for a small jerk chicken meal (a fiver will get you the large which probably includes twice as much chicken). Thoroughly recommended.

A few final notes:
- They have a video on YouTube where the camera pans slowly over fried plantains and dumplings and stuff while music that sounds like it's from the emotional bit of a cheesy 80's film plays. Brilliant.
- The website claims it's in Manchester, but it's very much on the Salford side of the river, next to Salford Central station.
- Finally, I can't take the credit for being the first to find and blog this place. Flavours of Manchester went first and gave me the idea. Thanks again to them.

8/10

Caribbean Flavas
187 Chapel Street
Salford
M3 5EQ

http://caribbeanflavas.co.uk/

Cafe Logos, Salford

I was working at the Salford office yesterday, only five minutes walk from the attractions of Salford Quays. What with the Lowry, the Imperial War Museum, the Outlet Mall and various office developments you'd think the area would be better served with dining options. I haven't looked too closely but there's not obviously much of interest. Any suggestions would be warmly welcomed. Hopefully things will improve when the BBC and others start moving into the new MediaCity UK development.

In the meantime my favourite spot is Cafe Logos on South Langworthy Road. It's a big, clean, modern looking place serving freshly made sandwiches, soup and daily hot specials. The sandwiches are ok, but the cooked specials are better. There is usually a choice of two, always priced under a fiver, yesterday's being honeyed chicken on the bone with stir-fried veg and rice or chicken curry and rice. I opted for the honeyed chicken at £4.75. That's more than you might pay for a regular sandwich at lunchtime, but it's much more of a meal. I'd compare it favourably with most middling pub lunches.

Yesterday's choice was about par for the course, generous portion; fresh, crunchy veg and moist, tasty chicken. It looks burnt on the photo but wasn't, just nicely caramelised, gooey, crispy chicken skin. To be honest it looks entirely terrible on the pic, but that's just my rubbish effort at photography. I really need to brush up my skills in this area.

Cafe Logos won't blow your mind but it will serve you up a freshly cooked, tasty, healthy lunch for a reasonable price. Which is more than can be said for some of the places nearby.

p.s. according to the MediaCity website, Booths supermarket are moving in. Excellent news, much better than another Tesco Express or the like.

7/10

South Langworthy Road
Salford Quays
Salford
M50 2RP
http://www.cafelogos.net/