Once upon a time, when dinosaurs roamed the earth and ladies had dangerously bouffant hair, there was a place in Didsbury known as the Steak & Kebab restaurant, on the site now occupied by The Fat Loaf. I do not remember this; I only go back as far as the Didsbury Village Restaurant, which once served me a meal that was memorable for all the wrong reasons, being both cold and tasteless.
However, the small detail of not actutally remembering the place in question seemed no reason whatsoever not to attend last night's "trip down memory lane" at The Fat Loaf's Steak & Kebab night. I think it was the close proximity of the words "steak" and "kebab" in the same sentence that sold it to my husband, and of course we were both intrigued by the idea of a kebab that can apparently be consumed sitting down wearing nice clothes rather than eaten slightly drunk at 2am on the way to the bus stop.
Considering it was a filthy wet night and that some team or other were playing football (a fact clearly forgotten by my husband when booking, causing him to continually check the Sky Sports Football Centre app on my iPhone during dinner), the restaurant was pretty busy. Despite this, service was excellent, and there were certainly none of the small portion sizes that threatened to derail my good mood last time we ate here. For £20 per head, we shared a platter of various delicacies that I hoped my husband would dislike but didn't: garlic prawns, gravadlax, cheese fritters, sausage, bread and pickles. These were all lovely; I'm sure they serve this on a slate to prevent over-eager customers from licking their plate.
Main course was a generous piece of skirt steak served bravely pink, with a chicken kebab, a lamb kebab, fat chips, herbed rice and salad. Even the salad was good, my only (very minor) criticism being that something, somewhere (I'm thinking you, Mr Lamb Kebab) was quite astonishingly garlicky. Not a bad thing at the time of course, but maybe not ideal for a school night.
To finish, you could choose any dessert from the a la carte menu. Fat Loaf do good puds (although I notice the sherry trifle isn't on at the moment - roll on Christmas) and I went for an entirely unnecessary white chocolate cheesecake. If this all sounds like your kind of thing, and you too would like to pretend to take a trip down memory lane, you'll be pleased to know this whole shindig is on again on Tuesday 25th May - call 0161 4380319 or visit www.thefatloaf.co.uk to book.
2 comments:
This restaurant chain has gone into receivership. None of the locations are open anymore.
I was the head Chef at the Steak and Kabab in the early eighties, met my wife there too :^)
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