Hip Hop Chip Shop Bring Fish-Based Joy to the Northern Quarter

If there's one meal capable of bringing both great joy and inconsolable sorrow, it's surely fish and chips. Good fish and chips is a wondrous thing indeed - properly crispy batter concealing soft, flaky fish; big fat chips with fluffy middles and a few scrappy bits at the bottom of the tray; more salt and vinegar than any normal person would ever want. In short, it is a thing of great beauty. Unfortunately, standards vary, and too many chippies serve up greasy, soggy fish with anaemic, under-cooked chips...I'm almost weeping at the thought of such travesty. Still, if the purchasing of fish and chips is a gamble, all the more reason to rejoice that purveyors of fine fishy wares The Hip Hop Chip Shop have taken over the kitchens at Kosmonaut in the Northern Quarter for the foreseeable future.

The new venue feels like a good fit for Hip Hop, who have been seeking a new home since the end of The Kitchens project at Spinningfields - Kosmonaut has decent beers, loads of space and always has a good atmosphere, plus it's right in the middle of the NQ rather than tucked away at the bottom of town. The new menu features Hip Hip favourites (the Battered Halloumi Fingers are on as a side and a main, and Feastie Boys - battered fish biters, chips, minty mushy peas, tartare sauce - and the splendid Shell L Cool J Burger - Louisiana spiced crabcake, battered smoky bacon, spicy ‘slaw, brioche bun, chips - are on the mains) as well as some new dishes, the standout of which is the DJ Kool Jerk - jerk batter fish, battered plantain and scotch bonnet pickled pepper. The Chilli Batter Onion Rings remain superlative, and the Minty Mushy Peas are still, for me, the best in Manchester; we also very much liked the Pea Fritters and have both become a bit obsessed with the Curry Sauce and the Black Sunday Gravy (which takes between three and several hundred days to make, depending on who you speak to).

In fact, we liked it all. We like the Hip Hop Chip Shop, we like the beer at Kosmonaut, we like the music (NWA + DJ Kool Jerk = v.g.), and we like the menu, which has a decent range of veggie and meat dishes as well as the obvious fish ones, and just shows what a permanent kitchen can do for you. Yes, it's all a bit deep-fried, but there's still far more range here than you'd get at most chippies, and anyway, there's wholesome booze to wash it all down with. The dishes you see here were part of a preview tasting and thus some of the dishes are not full size (and the crabcake is completely stark naked, apart from its 'slaw) - Hip Hop are not shy with portion size so you'll often get a bit more than seen here. And if fish and chips is more of a takeaway thing for you, they'll soon be on Deliveroo, thus rendering movement from the sofa completely unnecessary.

- You can find Hip Hop Chip Shop at Kosmonaut 4-9pm Mon-Thurs and 12-10pm Fri-Sun (full menu here); the van will also be taking up residence at Trinity Leeds for the next six weeks. This was a preview event with complimentary food but they had my cash off me plenty of times at The Kitchens and will continue to do so now.

Christmas Made Easy: Giving the Gift of GIN this Festive Season

Much as I adore it, I do try to avoid mentioning the C-word - Christmas - until the end of November or so. It really isn't easy. The Boots Christmas catalogue has been in store so long I've had ample time to select which Soap & Glory gift set I require this year (the twisty-tin with ladies on, just in case you've got a spare item in your 3-for-2 basket). A colleague admitted this week to having had Christmas pudding for his tea on Monday. There is a box of biscuits in the staffroom, which makes no direct mention of Christmas but which bears a drawing in which several of the biscuits are sporting festive hats. All this, and we've not even had Halloween yet.

And to be honest, the presents are the least interesting bit of Christmas once you're a grown-up with a house full of tat and very little room to put any more (twisty-lady-tin excepted, obviously); this means it's hard to come up with a meaningful answer when people ask you what you want. Well, no longer, thanks to a PR email I received a couple of weeks ago: had I thought of gin as the perfect Christmas gift? Astonishingly, I hadn't - but it makes perfect sense. If there's nothing you really need, the whole point of a present is for it to be a treat that makes you happy: and if that isn't the very definition of gin, I really don't know what is (bourbon or rum maybe, but that's for a different post).

Thus a happy quartet of four mini gins arrived through the post, along with the promise that there would be one here for every palate. Obviously I immediately broke up the little family by opening and drinking them - purely in the interests of providing the following Christmas gift guide, of course.

BLOOM Gin. This comes in a beautiful bottle and has a slightly floral flavour that explains why it is so beloved of Manchester cocktail bars. BLOOM is distilled by one of the world's few female Master Gin Distillers, Joanne Moore, who is celebrating her 10th Anniversary as Master Distiller this year. This, along with the three main botanicals that go into BLOOM Gin - the flowers of chamomile and honeysuckle and the citrus fruit pomelo - perhaps explains why this is suggested as being a perfect gift for a woman. I'm not sure about this as I think most people would enjoy this gin, but as long as that woman is me I don't really mind.

Available from: Sainsbury's, Waitrose, Harvey Nichols and Ocado. RRP £24.00 for 70cl. ABV: 40%.

Opihr Oriental Spiced Gin. This is billed as a unique and different style of London Dry Gin made using exotic botanicals, herbs and spices; it also comes in the most beautiful bottle. I'd had this once in a cocktail and decided I didn't like it, but it turns out it must have been the cocktail I didn't like - this makes a very fine gin and tonic indeed and I am converted. My boyfriend has favoured this gin for some time, but warns that the attractive tassel that decorates the bottle can be used as a rope by cunning dinosaurs with a taste for Opihr.

Available from: Tesco, Morrison's, Waitrose, Ocado, Booths and seven regional Harvey Nichols stores nationwide and 31Dover.com. RRP: £23.00 for 70cl. ABV 40%.

Thomas Dakin Gin. I'd had this one before as well, courtesy of Manchester legend Alix Walker, and been impressed - it comes in a sexy apothecary-style bottle and is nice and savoury thanks to botanicals including horseradish and English coriander (which explains why it's so perfect in a Bloody Mary). And, it's named after the forefather of English gin, which makes it educational too.

Available from: Waitrose and Harvey Nichols, Booths, Ocado.com, 31Dover.com, GinFoundry.com. RRP: £29.00 for 70cl. ABV: 42%.

Greenall's. This one has a freshness thanks to its rounded juniper notes and mature citrus flavours, but was for me the least interesting of the four. That said, I would much prefer this to the Gordon's (particularly as they are similarly priced) that my mum uses for our lunchtime gin and tonic on Christmas Day, so she may well find that Santa pops a bottle of this in her stocking this year. Even better, it comes in a gift box that looks like a green phone box, so Santa may as well bring me one as well while he's at it.

Available at Waitrose, Tesco, Asda, Morrisons, Sainsbury's and Master of Malt. RRP: £15.00 for 70cl. ABV: 37.5%.

In short, I've made Christmas easy for you - you're welcome. And if you can't decide which one to buy me, may I helpfully draw your attention to the fact my birthday is in November - once again, you're welcome.

- the gin samples were sent to me for review purposes (thanks to MPR Communications, who also provided some of the photos you see here - the professional ones and those without dinosaurs), but as I think this post makes clear, this will end up costing me dearly in the gin aisle from now on.

Your Buddy Mary - the Socially Acceptable Face of Breakfast Booze

I have always been partial to a Bloody Mary, partly because of its most excellent components (tomato juice, horseradish, Tabasco), and partly because it's entirely acceptable at any time of day, thereby sanctioning the consumption of alcohol at breakfast if so desired. Fortunately, many others share this view, and one such - Simon Burgess - has brought a range of Bloody Mary-themed events and pop-ups to Manchester (and not before time, in my opinion - no idea why no-one has thought to do this before).

A couple of weeks ago I got to attend the dry run (an inappropriate name if ever there was) of Simon's new baby: twenty or so of Manchester's food bloggers drinking their way through the full range of Your Buddy Mary's tomato-based repertoire. Simon's plan is to offer three different options, all of which I wish to do immediately:

1. #TheBuddyClub. This is the pop-up version, a 90-minute session coming soon to bars near you in Manchester and London - the first is a Halloween special at The Liquor Store on Sunday 30th October. Here you'll first be served up a selection of Taster Marys - we got to try loads of these and they were all excellent, especially the Red Snapper (properly blow-your-head-off levels of heat) and the tequila-based Bloody Maria - before the 'Club Mary' takes care of any hangover hungers. Finally, you'll get to make your own little bottle of #MyBuddyMary to take away - I loved this part of the press event, and went faintly feral in my application of spices, horseradish, Jalapeno Stoli and pickle juice in the creation of my own masterpiece. These events strike me as good value at £20, particularly as most Manchester bars/restaurants will relieve you of the best part of a tenner for just one Bloody Mary.

2. #BuddysBoozyBargeBonanza. Whilst the idea of combining booze, people and large stretches of water may seem a foolhardy one, I'm a big fan of a booze barge, and I think this one looks really good - little wonder, really, as Simon is a paid-up member of The Liquorists, who certainly know how to pack a boat with genial folk and ply them with alcohol. The 3-hour round trip goes from Castlefield to Media City, accompanied by live acoustic music, an arrival Mimosa and midday beer, a selection of Bloody Marys and - best of all - a #TheresSomethingAboutMary. I actually emitted an undignified cry of joy when this arrived at the press launch - an outstanding, Cajun-spiced, Bloody Mary sporting what I consider to be a superlative array of garnishes. As with the other events, you also get to make your own drink to take home, so you may wish to consult the pictures below to see what perfection you are aspiring to. At an introductory price of £35 this is crazy value, and I am very much hoping to be aboard the next barge on Sunday 3rd December.

3. #YourOfficeBuddy. The idea behind this one is pleasing: if you're hungover at work, Your Buddy Mary will pitch up and make everyone a Bloody Mary as well as one to take home, thereby restoring harmony in the workplace. I fear that a college staffroom will never be eligible for such a service, but it's a nice thought.

Further details and event tickets are available on Your Buddy Mary's website. The press event was a free event but for feedback only with no pressure to review - Simon's enthusiasm and knowledge is a fine thing though, and I shall be going to more events as a paying customer (if only for the prospect of shouting ALL ABOARD THE BLOODY MARY BARGE! for a couple of hours).