BBQ Handmade Noodles King, Manchester

You can't beat a big steaming bowl of hand made noodles. If you haven't tried them before they are well worth seeking out. They are much chewier and more robust than dried packet noodles, and all the more satisfying for it.

This is a bowl of hand made noodles with braised beef in spicy soup. The soup base was very good, pungent with garlic and five spice. The beef, sliced thinly was fibrous, fatty and beautifully tender. It was a cheaper cut (probably brisket) cooked long and slow to melting unctuousness. A few greens added colour and texture and the noodles themselves were spot on. Wonderful Chinese comfort food. Great value too at £6.80.

Thanks to Mr Noodles for the tip. I'm not sure what the exact address of this restaurant is, but head to Chinatown, look for the sign and you can't go wrong.

8/10

BBQ Handmade Noodles King
Faulkner Street
Manchester

Zam Zam Tandoori, Chorlton, Manchester

A damn fine kebab this, my poor photography really doesn't do it justice. It's chicken tikka on nan. Both meat and bread were cooked freshly in the tandoor. The bread was light and crisp, the chicken was moist, succulent and had loads of lovely nubbly, smoky, charred bits around the edges, and the salad was fresh. Generous dollops of both searing hot chilli sauce and tangy yoghurt sauce to top things off. What more do you need? The only criticism I can come up with is the unnecessary red food colouring on the chicken. Outstanding value at £3.00.

The venue is a run of the mill, scruffy-ish takeaway with a few tables inside. I never have a clue with these places. Most of them serve absolute rubbish, but a few come up with the goods like this. Fortunately Flavours of Manchester comes to the rescue. Will someone please start a Flavours of Leeds blog, so I know where to get a good kebab there too? Thanks.

8/10

452 Wilbraham Road
Chorlton-cum-Hardy
Manchester
M21 0AG

All Bar One, Leeds

I usually try to avoid eating at big chain restaurants or bars, because most of them are rubbish. That may be a sweeping generalisation, some are certainly better than others, but my experience at All Bar One on Sunday backed up the theory pretty well.

I wanted some brunch, I wanted to sit in the sun, I didn't want a meat fest (I was heading to a barbecue in the afternoon for burgers, sausages, steak, chicken, kebabs and beer) and All Bar One on Millenium Square met all the criteria. Bubble and squeak with fried eggs, spinach and salsa sounded great.

It looks ok too, but it wasn't. The egg on the left wasn't cooked, the yolk was surrounded by a thick layer of translucent raw white. The edible egg was very greasy. The bubble and squeak mix was fine, but as with the eggs whoever was manning the stove had completely cocked it up. What appears to be a nice crusty exterior was very thin and rapidly gave way to greasy, slimy, mushy innards. Hint: stuff doesn't fry properly if your oil isn't hot enough. The spinach somehow managed to stick to the greasy theme, seemingly having been wilted in warm oil rather than a drop or two of water. The salsa was inoffensive in a bland, tastes like the mild stuff you get in jars sort of way.

On being asked if everything was ok with my meal I complained about the state of the eggs. This brought a cursory apology but nothing further. The guy serving me was pleasant enough but clearly wishing he was anywhere but there on a sunny holiday weekend.

My meal was ordered from the £6 lunch menu. A cappuccino was £2.20. I had a nice time because I had the paper to read, it was sunny and I was about to go drink beer in my mates back garden. Nothing much to do with the All Bar One experience, which was rubbish. It might be worth noting that I've read a fairly positive review of this place on another blog that I read recently (can't remember which one), so perhaps I was just unlucky.

3/10

All Bar One Millenium Square
Unit D
Electric Press
Leeds
LS2 3AD

http://www.allbarone.co.uk/allbaronemillenniumsquare/

The New Inn, Sowood, Halifax

The New Inn sits on a hill overlooking Elland and Halifax. The view from the tables out the back is marvellous and well worth an hour spent gazing out over the moors with a pint (if you ignore the pylons in the foreground). A friend and I did exactly this on Saturday evening, before it started to get a bit nippy and we headed inside for food. The downside to the lofty location is that it's usually freezing.

Inside it's very much a traditional pub interior, and obviously very popular. It was bustling with a mix of both diners and drinkers. The chap in charge (the landlord at a guess) was friendly and efficient, proffering menus and taking our orders as we waited at the bar for our table to become available.

My starter of poached salmon came all sort of mushed up, so that it had the texture of tinned salmon. I'd have preferred it just gently flaked but it was still pleasant to eat; soft, mellow and well seasoned. My companion's chicken liver paté was pretty good, very smooth and served in a ridiculously huge portion. It's not an exaggeration to say it would have stretched to three servings without appearing stingy.

I'm a glutton for punishment so ordered a 10oz sirloin steak for my main course. Steaks invariably seem to be disappointing in pubs (rubbish meat, overcooked, not rested and so on). I find pies are generally a safer bet. This one was probably better than average. It was cooked rare as requested and was tender and juicy so had clearly been rested. Whatever they cooked it on wasn't hot enough though, as there was very little crisping or charring of any description resulting in a rather dull and pasty finish. The accompaniments were a mixed bag too. The onion rings were lovely, sweet and soft onion in a really light, crunchy batter. The chips would have been great if they'd had an extra two minutes in the fryer. Pepper sauce had congealed and didn't seem to have any pepper in it. The tomato, in line with expectations, was pointless and the mushrooms were fine.

Across the table meat and potato pie was going down well. I sampled a mouthful, the meat and gravy were very good but the pastry a bit stodgy.

Everything was very generously proportioned so we didn't have room for dessert. A couple of coffees were provided free of charge as we were asked to move so they could re-arrange the tables to accommodate another group. Not a problem as we were about ready to leave anyway.

I'd eat here again. There were enough good things about the food to make it an enjoyable meal and the service was excellent. It's quite expensive for what is fairly standard pub food though. Our bill came to £46 before service for two courses and two drinks each.


6/10

The New Inn
Forest Hill Road
Sowood
Halifax
HX4 9LB

(2 minutes drive from Junction 23 on the M62)

http://www.thenewinnsowood.co.uk

Café Lento, Headingley, Leeds

The cafés of Headingley have a nice quiet, laid back atmosphere at the moment because most of the students have buggered off for the Easter holidays (I'm not some sort of student hater by the way, I was once one myself in Leeds. Just can't be bothered queueing for seats in cafés). Last weekend I spent a couple of peaceful hours in Café Lento with the sunday papers and a fry-up. Here it is:

Pretty good effort, but not quite good enough to take the full english title from the Koffee Pot.

Plus points: excellent thick cut, meaty bacon; plenty of mushrooms and tomatoes (nice to have something vaguely healthy in the mix); butter for the toast.
Minus points: sausage tasted a bit weird, egg very slightly underdone on the top.

£5.25 including tea and toast. Another worthy breakfast option.

7/10

21a North Lane
Headingley
Leeds
LS6 3HW

http://www.cafelento.co.uk

The Three Horseshoes, Oulton, Leeds

An outdoor pub lunch just had to be done this week. On Tuesday I had a lot of work to get through and there was no way I was missing out on the sunshine stewing in the office from 8 'til late.

The Three Horseshoes is a steady sort of place. Very popular with the pensioners due to their OAP specials. The food is nothing special but it's better than what you'll get in the Hunslet/Stourton area which is nearer to my office.

Ham sandwich, chips, salad

I had the hot roast beef sandwich, and my mate had the cold roast ham sandwich. No idea ff the ham sandwich was any good, but it looked ok. Decent quality ham in generous proportions. Chips frozen but fried properly. Salad probably rubbish.

Beef, onions, gravy, bread. You don't win friends with salad.

For some reason the hot roast beef comes unadorned. Just bread, meat and plenty of oniony gravy. It was pleasant enough. Soft, open textured bread but sturdy enough to handle all the gravy. Overcooked but thinly sliced beef. Thick, salty gravy. This is exactly as I expected it to be by the way, so it's not a criticism. Overcooked beef works with loads of gravy, and that's how the pensioners like it. I'm sure there are some elderly folk out there somewhere who like their meat pink, but not in Yorkshire there aren't (not in my family anyway). Maybe in France or London or somewhere. With a good dollop of hot english mustard I quite enjoyed it. And the sunshine was grand. Both sandwiches were about 6 quid each.

6/10

16 Leeds Road
Oulton
Leeds
LS26 8JU
(by the roundabout at the bottom of Rothwell)

A couple of salads

This week I have mostly been eating... salad. Honest. And there's no meat in it or pies or anything. The unseasonably warm and sunny weather has made slightly cooler, slightly lighter dinners seem appropriate already.  Barbecued meat would also be a winner, but I'm gardenless for another couple of weeks so that will have to wait.

Here are two really good, simple salads for a weeknight meal. Each recipe is enough for one, but they will easily double up or more.

Goats cheese, beetroot and watercress
This is a winning combination. Sweet, earthy beetroot works really well with creamy, tangy goats cheese. The cress adds a bit of crunch and pepperiness, and the dressing a fruity, sour note.

You will need:
50-60g soft-ish goats cheese (I used Chevre)
100-125g cooked beetroot (about half a pre-cooked vacuum pack. NOT pickled)
a big handful of watercress
a lemon
extra virgin olive oil
salt and pepper
2 slices good bread for toasting (sourdough is ideal)

What to do:
Slice the beetroot and put it under a hot grill with the bread
Dress the watercress with the juice of half a lemon, a good glug of olive oil and some salt & pepper
Break up the cheese into small chunks
Turn the beetroot and bread to grill the other side
Toss the warm beetroot with the dressed watercress and cheese
Put on a plate with the toast, drizzle over olive oil and serve with the rest of the lemon to squeeze over.
Eat straight away.

Salmon, cucumber and watercress with yoghurt and dill
This is a rich, cool and creamy salad, quite fatty from the yoghurt and salmon. This is balanced nicely by the aromatic, fruity notes from the dill, lemon and olive oil, and by the crispness of the cucumber and cress.

You will need:
150-200g salmon fillet
half a cucumber
a big handful of watercress
a small bunch of fresh dill (half a small supermarket packet is about right)
2 tbsps greek style yoghurt
a lemon
extra virgin olive oil
salt and pepper
2 slices good bread for toasting (sourdough is ideal)

What to do:
Season the salmon and wrap it in tin foil with a couple of very thin slices of lemon.
Bake the salmon in a hot oven until just done (this will depend on the size of the piece, about 10 mins or so).
While the salmon is cooking chop the dill very finely and mix it up in a bowl with the yoghurt, the juice of half a lemon, a good glug of olive oil and some salt & pepper.
Slice the cucumber into thin strips.
When the salmon is done leave it to cool a bit for a couple of minutes.
Toast the bread.
Toss the cucumber and watercress in the dill and yoghurt dressing.
Flake the salmon and throw it in with the dressed cucumber and watercress.
Plate it all up with the toast, drizzle over olive oil and any excess dressing, and squeeze over the last bit of lemon.
Eat straight away while the salmon is still warm.