Baekdu, Manchester

Stinking hangovers all round after last night's exploits. I usually want something spicy and soupy at times like this, the heat clears the head and the liquid rehydrates. I've been to Baekdu a couple of times before and thought it would fit the bill nicely.

It's a fairly cheap, casual canteen sort of place situated on Shudehill serving up Korean food. To start we ordered a kimchi pancake and a side of kimchi to share between the three of us. Kimchi is fermented cabbage (I think you can get other veg varieties but the usual stuff is cabbage) with loads of chilli in it. Sounds weird but give it a try, it's lovely. Korean pancakes are sort of a cross between a thick american style pancake and an omelette. This one was good, thick and eggy with a good crisp crust and a soy based dip to dunk it in. Great comfort food.

                                                          Pancake, soy, kimchi


For the main event I opted for a clay pot stew with beef, kimchi and vegetables (can't remember the Korean name). A bubbling cauldron of fiery red stuff arrived with a calming bowl of boiled rice. The photo is rubbish because there were was so much steam rising off it it was like peering through fog. Not particularly complex flavour wise, it delivered salty, beefy stock and bucket loads of chilli heat. It perked me up good and proper. My friends opted for a dolsot bibimbap (clay pot dish of rice, chicken, egg, vegetables, spicy red bean paste. It comes all prettily arranged on top of the rice, you mix it all up with your chopsticks) and a chicken noodle soup. Both were good.

                                     Steaming hotpot with beef, kimchi & vegetables

                          Dolsot bibimbap (rice, chicken, egg, veggies, red bean & chilli paste)

The bill came to £36 for three including green teas and a tip. Recommended for a quick, cheap, spicy filling alternative to the more common asian offerings.

7/10

Baekdu
77 Shudehill
Manchester
M4 4AN

The Castle, Castleton, Derbyshire

A visit to the countryside with some mates from down south didn't exactly go to plan due to the untimely interjection of the weather. Lengthy hikes are not really much fun in pouring rain and howling gales. And so it was we rolled up in Castleton, drenched through after legging it up Mam Tor and back from the car park in about 10 minutes flat. At least we got to see the view (just) as the murk parted briefly to reveal the beautiful Hope Valley.

The Castle was the first pub we came across so in we went. Fairly standard pub food on the menu, including a prix fixe at a very reasonable £6/8/10 for one/two/three courses. From this menu I ordered the shepherd's pie with plum and almond frangipane to follow. Other choices included mushroom and soup starters, goats cheese salad, and profiteroles. On ordering we were warned of a half hour wait for the food. Not a problem as we needed drying out time anyway.

When it eventually turned up the shepherd's pie was reasonably good. The meat had a good depth of lamby flavour with plenty of rosemary in the mix and the mash was creamy. The accompanying vegetables were overcooked though and it needed extra gravy. The pudding was fine and creme fraiche on the side rather than cream was a good choice. They didn't work out that the profiteroles had sold out until about an hour and a half after we'd ordered them, but offered a choice of the full dessert menu as an alternative. The apple and blackcurrant crumble chosen was the best dish of the day;- a huge portion with a crisp, buttery crumble and tart, not overly sweetened fruit.

I have no idea whether this is the best pub for food in Castleton, but I doubt it's the worst either. Does exactly what it says on the tin. Countryside done, we headed back to Manchester to hit the town...(see previous post).

6/10

The Castle
Castle Street
Castleton
Derbyshire
S33 8WG
http://www.vintageinn.co.uk/thecastlecastleton/restaurantsfood/

A Manchester Pub Crawl

Enjoyed a great pub crawl last night in Manchester. There seem to be an ever increasing number of pubs serving an interesting array of real ales, which me and my friends all love. I would happily recommend all of these five that were on our route:

The Marble Arch
The Angel
Bar Fringe
Crown and Kettle
The Castle Hotel

.. that was the planned bit. After that things were a bit more 'freeform' and my memory is a bit sketchy. I think it went something like this:

The Bay Horse
Hunters Asian BBQ
Trof
Taxi
24hr garage
Bed

A grand time was had by all. There was much merriment, laughter and intellectual debate (sort of). Favourite beer of the night award goes to Marble Ginger, which is wonderful stuff. Favourite food of the night award is a tie between pork scratchings and smoky flavoured nuts (they taste of bacon!) (both in the Marble Arch). Mistake of the night award goes to the visit to the 24 hour garage (3am cigarettes and Ginsters. Not necessary).

I won't be posting a review of the curries as I can't remember what I had or what they tasted like. (Which is entirely a reflection of my drunkenness and in no way reflects badly on the standard of Hunters).

http://www.marblebeers.co.uk/
http://www.beerintheevening.com/pubs/s/35/35262/Angel/Manchester
http://www.yelp.co.uk/biz/bar-fringe-manchester
http://www.crownandkettle.com/
http://www.thecastlehotel.info/
http://www.thebayhorsepub.co.uk/
http://www.manchester.com/restaurants/details/515/Hunters_BBQ.html
http://www.trofnq.co.uk/

Riverside Sourdough Bakery, Dock Street Market, Leeds

Just another quick lunch post, and my first from Leeds. I got wind of this place on Twitter and it looks like a good find. The sandwich menu is short and interesting. Fancying a healthy-ish option I went for the Baba Ghanoush, Feta, Chargrilled courgettes, Sesame seeds & Rocket on a brown roll (£2.95).

When I opened it up on my desk it looked a bit disappointing to be honest. The feta had been forgotten leaving me with a rather vegan looking sandwich. I shouldn't have worried. The inclusion of cheese would have improved things (the inclusion of cheese improves most things obviously) but it was really, really good anyway. The other flavours just worked perfectly, making it far more than the sum of its parts. And the bread was fantastic, really tasty with a nice open texture and proper crust. Oh and chargrilled courgettes are great too. I can't really describe why, but they are. Recipe idea: Chargrilled courgettes, olive oil, black pepper, too much parmesan, squeeze of lemon, all stirred through pasta. Yum.

I digress. Soup is also available for a very reasonable £1.50 and I couldn't resist a pot of that on the side. Lentil and butternut squash it was, and very nice. I took a photo but it just looked like some indistinguishable brown stuff in a pot so I haven't bothered posting it.

The place is still under construction at the moment, with work ongoing on the main bakery and part of the cafe. I will definitely be returning and so should you.

8/10

Riverside Sourdough Bakery
Dock Street Market
22 Dock Street
Leeds
LS10 1JF
http://www.dockstreetmarket.com/riverside-sourdough-bakery.php

Little Saigon, Newcastle

This week's grand tour continues. The final leg before home was Newcastle and I was after something with a bit of zip and zing to it after the previous nights debacle. I spent quite a lot of time working in Newcastle a couple of years ago so I knew it had a Vietnamese place. Situated incongruously on the Bigg Market across the road from a row of neon doner and chips emporia is Little Saigon.

Free prawn crackers arrived promptly and I ordered a saigon beer to wash them down with. First up, a salad of prawn and papaya. I love South-east Asian salads, the kings of the salad world without a shadow of a doubt. The range of textures and flavours crammed into each mouthful brings sheer gustatory pleasure not always associated with the word 'salad'. This was a fine example, soft prawns, crunchy peanuts, crisp juicy papaya, crispy fried onions. Classic hot/sour/sweet/salty dressing. I wolfed it down in no time. The only criticism I have is that it was a touch too sweet/salty and not quite hot/sour enough. More chilli and lime please.

For main course beef with lemongrass, chilli and onion. Not as successful as the salad, the sauce was a bit gloopy (possibly reduced with cornflour) and there wasn't much chilli or lemongrass involved. It tasted generally fine though and the beef was tender.

A good option overall, we don't have too many Vietnamese restaurants in the North (is there one in Leeds at all??) so the more the merrier. My dinner was £21 for the salad, the main, steamed rice, one beer and service.

7/10

6 Bigg Market
Newcastle
NE1 1UW
http://www.littlesaigon.uk.com/

Scotch Pie, A J Learmonth, Jedburgh

To cheer things up a bit after the last post, here's a pie:

and a very nice pie it was too. A warm scotch pie bought en route from Cumbernauld to Newcastle. I've only ever had a couple of scotch pies before and this was better than those. Just the job.

7/10

http://www.ajl-jedbutchers.co.uk/
Jedburgh

Club Bar & Grill, The Westerwood Hotel, Cumbernauld, Scotland

I travel away for work fairly often, and a recent restructure has extended my patch to Cumbernauld in Scotland  for the first time. I always try a few different hotels if it's an area I'll be returning to fairly frequently, and if nothing comes up trumps I end up back in a Premier Inn (reliably good, clean rooms/reliably good breakfast options/reliably rubbish evening food). First up in the Cumbernauld area on recommendation of a colleague - The Westerwood. It's one of those big corporatey/conferencey/golf spa type places but not all in a bad way. The rooms are rather lovely so if this were a hotel review blog it would rate quite highly. Unfortunately it's not.

The Club Bar & Grill (big, bland, corporatey, conferencey) was serving meals to an array of lost souls wondering what they were doing there on a Monday night. Or at least I was anyway. On perusing the menu I was foolishly lured in by the description of 30 day dry aged Orkney beef. I should have known better. These corporatey,conferencey,golf spa type places often have menu descriptions that flatter to deceive, I know this from experience. And so it proved.

Steak: rubbish

Rib eye steak, chips and tomato (£19.95) and an accompanying house salad (£2.50) were rubbish in just about every way. The steak was a damp, greyish, flabby specimen, with little flavour beyond salt. It had been cooked unevenly despite being uniformly thin (the alleged 200g weight seemed unlikely) so that one side was medium-well whereas the other end was the requested rare. The chips looked promising, but had somehow gone horribly wrong. They were a lovely deep brown colour, promising crispness, but in practice offered greasy limpness. I have no idea how they managed this, the only thing I can think is that they were fried to well done earlier in the day and then refried in oil that wasn't hot enough. The tomato was pointless. The side salad appeared to be dressed, as it had a sort of glossy sheen to it, but I've no idea what with as there was no discernable flavour. The bag of leaves it came from had probably been open some time as the cut ones were browning at the edges. Any redeeming features? No problems with the service and a glass of Malbec was fine.

A pretty terrible experience all told. If that steak was burning a £20 hole in my own pocket I would not be a happy bunny. Onwards and southwards, tomorrow night I'll be in Newcastle.

Oh and apologies to anyone reading this and wondering why I seem to be anywhere but the M62 corridor. I'll be spending a lot more time in Manchester & Leeds over the next few weeks so you may find something of interest if that's your area!

3/10

The Westerwood Hotel & Golf Resort
1 St Andrews Drive
Cumbernauld
G68 0EW
http://www.qhotels.co.uk/hotels/the-westerwood-near-glasgow.aspx