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/ 

Baltic Café Bar, Gateshead

I'm stuck in a bit of a restaurant routine at the moment. If it's not Thai Aroy Dee it's Red Chilli. I went to the former last Saturday, the latter the Saturday before, and I'll be back to the latter this weekend. That's not necessarily a bad thing but it doesn't give me much to write about on here, not without a tedious amount of repetition anyway.

Lunches and recipes it is then. I try and go somewhere interesting for lunch once or twice a week to liven things up a bit between the dull home-made sandwiches, tetra pak soups and such-like.

This morning I was in Newcastle so I thought I'd pay a visit to the Baltic. A twenty minute glance round the galleries followed by twenty minutes for lunch would do nicely, then back on the road to Leeds.

As it turned out I was short of time so lunch took precedence. The galleries will have to wait.

Soup of the day (£3.50) was broccoli, chestnut and mascarpone. It was pleasant if a little unexciting. A more generous hand with the barely detectable chestnuts would have been an improvement. The hunk of baguette on the side was good quality though.

I also spotted these (£2 each), and couldn't resist ordering one. I'm not normally into pretzels, big lumps of boring dough that they are. Cover them in melted cheese though and everyone's a winner. Why has no-one thought of this before? Maybe they have and I wasn't paying attention. Anyway it was warm and soft and chewy and cheesy and a bit greasy and delicious.

The café has big picture windows framing the Tyne, with it's wonderful bridges and backdrop of Newcastle city centre, so it's a nice place to sit for a while. The service was great too, friendly and efficient.

I'll return when I have time to visit the gallery, and will probably eat here again. The food was good, nothing special but better than you'd get at many other cultural venues, and it's also worth it for the view.

7/10

Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art
Gateshead Quays
South Shore Road
Gateshead
NE8 3BA

http://www.balticmill.com/visit/Eating.php

Out of the Woods, Holbeck, Leeds

I've been to Out of the Woods a good few times now, but rather unfairly I've never got round to blogging about them before (unlike some of the other Holbeck lunch spots). They describe themselves as a juice bar, but they also do reliably good sandwiches and soups. I've never actually tried any of the juices but the list is extensive, interesting and I'm sure well worth checking out.

The other day I went for the soup and any sandwich special (£5.50). Winter vegetable, lentil and ham soup was fantastic. It was a lovely sweet, vegetable broth. The kind that really reminds you of the depth of flavour achievable without recourse to meat. All you need is a simple base of onions and celery then add in whatever else is available, in this case tomatoes, lentils and cabbage. Alright it did have a few chunks of ham in it too, but they really just added a bit of salty texture, the veggies were definitely the star.

In contrast the sandwich was a bit boring. Tuna, lemon mayo and salad on granary bread. It was a little bit bland and underfilled. I have had a couple of underwhelming sandwiches here, but also a couple of great ones. I think the more unusual varieties are probably the way to go.

Another good place for lunch in this part of town.

7/10

113 Water Lane
Leeds
LS11 5WD

http://www.outofthewoods.me.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/

Crab and Lobster, Asenby, North Yorkshire

Today I met up with my sister and future brother-in-law for a long, leisurely lunch. We went to The Crab and Lobster, a North Yorkshire restaurant (it possibly just about classes as a pub, it does have a bar) specialising in seafood. I hadn't been there before, but had heard of it. It's been around for years and has become a bit of a Yorkshire institution with a good reputation.

Not normally a strong point of mine as I tend to focus on my food rather than the surroundings, but first a note on the decor. This place is eccentric to say the least. The main dining areas are kitted out in a sort of nautical theme, with fishing nets adorning the ceilings and even an entire vintage diving suit in situ. Some parts seem to veer off from this into a sort of 1920's opium den or speakeasy sort of vibe, with chinese patterned screens, hats and musical instruments adorning shelves and walls. The gents toilets win the prize for most bonkers of all, being entirely kitted out with photo's and paintings of Marilyn Monroe accompanied by actual real-life bra's and knickers hanging from the walls. Not sexy ones either, just plain white cotton smalls. All in all I rather liked it, mad but suggesting a place that doesn't take itself too seriously. Sometimes more upmarket, rural pub restaurants can be a bit po-faced. Not the Crab and Lobster.

Back to the food. The original intention was to order from the set menu (£18 for three courses) but it turns out that Sunday is the only day they don't serve this on, so a la carte it was. The menu is a mixture of classic dishes (fish soup, lobster thermidor, steak and chips etc) and some more ambitious sounding stuff (Grilled Fresh Local Halibut, Cauliflower & Almond Puree, Tomato, Asparagus Seared King Scallops, Lobster Bisque sounded good). I chose the fish soup, followed by fish and chips.

Pints or halves of well kept Best Bitter from local brewery Nick Stafford's Hambleton Ales went down nicely while we were waiting. The bread basket promptly arrived, and was excellent. Three different breads, one granary, one white with a cheese crust, and one dark with walnuts. The dark bread was my favourite, almost like a very nutty malt loaf. The accompanying butter was unsalted and creamy.

The fish soup was served the classic french way, with croutes, rouille, and Gruyere cheese. It was a delight to eat, the rich red soup having a good stock base and being chock full of salmon, mussels, prawns and scallops. The addition of all the cheese and rouille made it very rich, and a struggle to finish, but I just about managed it with strings of cheese dribbling down my chin. My sister's mussels (in a cream sauce with bacon and cabbage) were also noteworthy. Good plump specimens, not at all gritty.

After the fish soup, my main course was a little bit disappointing (probably also a poor choice after such a substantial starter). The fish was a good chunky fillet of haddock cooked just right, but the batter was too thick and rather stodgy. The mushy peas were dry and claggy, and would have been fine if let down a bit. The chips however, were excellent with very crisp exteriors and soft fluffy centres. The tartare sauce was also very nice.

Having ordered such substantial starters and mains, there was little room left for pudding so we ordered one to share between the three of us, a lemon meringue pie with raspberries. They were back on the top form of the starters with this, it was very, very good. Perfect balance of sweetness and tartness between the lemon filling and the meringue, and the pastry case was light and buttery. The raspberries on the side were more than just garnish, having the strongest, deep, tart raspberry flavour of any I can recall eating. No mean feat in February, I think they must have been macerated in some sort of raspberry syrup or liqueur.

In summary I liked this place a lot, on the whole it was very good. The fish soup was a particular highlight. It's expensive, 3 courses with service but no booze will set you back about thirty quid, but the set menu at £18 would represent great value. To add to the fun on a Sunday you get serenaded by a man with a banjo in a technicolour suit, who goes by the name of Richard Muttonchops, ably accompanied by his mate on sax. Apparently they play free jazz. Told you it was bonkers.


8/10

Crab & Lobster
Dishforth Road
Asenby
Thirsk
North Yorkshire
YO7 3QL
http://www.crabandlobster.co.uk/
http://www.hambletonales.co.uk/
http://www.muttonchops.org/

Y McGregor, Altrincham

More soup. Raining again and sudden head cold = more soup.

This is a nice spot for a bit of lunch in Altrincham. Soups, sandwiches etc all made on site. I opted for the sweetcorn and onion soup (pictured) with a chicken, spinach and Mediterranean veg sandwich. The soup was a sturdier beast than the description might suggest, all those stewed onions combined with the corn giving it a stocky sweetness. The bits on top are mixed seeds proffered at the counter. They gave it a nice bit of texture - sort of like health croutons.

The sandwich wasn't quite so good, the bread (a seeded roll) didn't seem overly fresh but fillings were fine. Good chickeny chicken. The staff seemed very friendly;- the woman behind the counter was busy offering two old dears a free sample of the other soup choice (Tomato Masala) which was confusing them no end ('Tomato what is it?' 'It's sort of curried..' 'Curried? Eh?')

Soup and a sandwich was £5.95 to eat in, or just the soup £3.50. Cheaper to take away.

7/10

Y McGregor
29 Stamford New Road
Altrincham
WA14 1EB

Not far from the Metrolink

Soup Kitchen, Manchester

Soup Kitchen has a simple formula for food; several soups served daily and a few other one plate meals (e.g. bangers & mash). Things are made a little more unusual by the presence of a bar, with the place open late Thurs - Sat night.

I stopped in for lunch on a cold, wet day and opted for the spicy lentil soup. The soup pretty much hit the spot; deep, thick with a slow building spice hit. Accompanying bread was a huge chunk of granary loaf.

I paid £4 which is a touch more expensive than the prices on the website, maybe they are takeaway prices. Table service provided was a bit slow, but otherwise fine.

7/10

Soup Kitchen
31-33 Spear Street
Manchester
M1 1DF
http://soup-kitchen.co.uk/