Reviews

Hands up if you’ve heard of Chobani? Don’t worry, I hadn’t either until last week when I was invited to a Chobani inspired dinner at Room Restaurant. It turns out they’re a brand of strained yoghurts. They’re new to the UK but have a pretty interesting background. I’m a big fan of Greek/strained yoghurt and use it all the time …

Last week Manchester was transformed into a garden city with tress, flowers and even a forrest transported to the city centre streets. It was all in aid of ‘Dig The City’ festival, an event aimed at encouraging us to ‘grow our own’. With such an interest in food I’m probably their target audience but as somebody who’s barely managed to …

It’s fair to say i’m not the biggest fan of shopping and particularly shopping centres. I’ve been known to have nightmares before an impending trip to the Trafford Centre and try to limit myself to just 1 visit per year at Christmas. So when I was invited to Cheshire Oaks by the people at McArthurGlen my initial reaction was to …

You’ve probably noticed that I don’t need much of an excuse to visit SoLita. I’ve spent an unhealthy amount of time there recently so after my last visit self-imposed a ban in the hope of maybe fitting into my holiday clothes in a couple of weeks. I lasted 13 days. Actually impressive by recent standards and the ban wasn’t broken …

I receive quite a few invites from restaurants and PR companies these days so it takes something pretty interesting to attract my attention. That certainly came last week in the form of an invite to the launch party of ‘Ping Pong Cha’, Manchester’s first ping pong residency! It’s not every day you get invited to eat dim sum, drink beer …

Last Friday I ate at Room on King Street in Manchester. Being a business lunch I didn’t have my bloggers hat on, I didn’t take photos or notes and had no intention of writing it up. However, I was so impressed I just couldn’t resist a small post, it’s not really a review but I wanted to say how much …

Despite officially reopening a few weeks ago last Saturday saw the launch party of The Farmers Arms in Bolton. It was a lovely sunny day so I headed down to see what was going on. Arriving to find Chef Jon Jones standing behind a magnificent looking whole hog which had been roasting for over 10 hours and smelt absolutely divine. …

I’ve been meaning to revisit 3TwentyOne for a while after really enjoying their preview night in May. Even more so after the launch of their great offer ‘Rib Tuesdays’ but what finally made it happen was hearing they have an outdoor terrace which I didn’t know about. This past Tuesday the weather was absolutely glorious in Manchester and I couldn’t …

I’ve never been particularly fond of chain restaurants but there are a couple I’ll tolerate if there’s nothing better available. Until recently it was a short list: basically just Nandos & occasionally Wagamama! It’s a long time since I’ve eaten at Yo! Sushi as I wasn’t impressed with the quality previously but after visiting last month when I kind of …

Just a few years ago there’s no way i’d be writing a review of food eaten at a festival. Thankfully, the days of cheap nasty burgers and hot dogs are long gone. Gourmet street food is all the rage these days and Manchester International Festival in Albert Square at the weekend was no different! I’d love to be able to …

Ceviche is a Peruvian restaurant in London, opened by chef Martin Morales in 2012 following hugely successful supper clubs and then pop-ups. It had been on my shortlist for my last two London trips but we didn’t quite make it there. So as soon as I heard they were bringing their food to Manchester as part of ‘Ceviche On Tour’, …

A commercial property development may not be the most obvious place you’d expect to find a fine dining restaurant. MediaCityUK, home of the biggest BBC studios outside of London including BBC Children’s, BBC Learning, BBC Radio 5 live, BBC Sport and BBC Breakfast as well as ITV Studios and The University of Salford digital media centre is an impressive looking set …

Unless you’ve been living under one of those proverbial rocks you can’t possibly have missed Andy Murray winning Wimbledon on Sunday. Being a patriotic Brit (or perhaps just sensing a marketing opportunity?) Franco, owner of SoLita decided to commemorate this momentous event with a special tribute burger. Since it’s launch on Monday ‘The Murray’ burger has been attracting almost as …

After being so disappointed by Sapporo Teppanyaki last month I wasn’t sure what to expect from ‘Teppanyaki’ in Manchester. On the plus side it’s an independent restaurant run by a Japanese family, but then again so is Samsi and it doesn’t seem to have done much good there. It’s location on the edge of Manchester’s chinatown is another positive. As was arriving …

Having been invited to popup bar ‘Aperol Spritz Social’ in Spinningfields last night where I was contractually obligated to drink many complimentary cocktails I was feeling somewhat delicate this morning. I remembered being impressed by the breakfast menu on my last trip to Delicieux so decided to check it out and see if they can fix poorly heads. Starting with a …