Manchester Gastroclub Sept 2011: Choice Bar and Restaurant

There's no two ways about it; the Manchester Gastroclub is a very fine thing. Katie Brunt's merry band of convivial eaters take over a different restaurant every month, where they assemble to eat, drink and - obsessively - take pictures of their food before tweeting these along with smug comments about what a nice time they're having. And obviously, I wanted in.

However, I'm starting to think that I, or Gastroclub, or both, might be jinxed. Last month I attended my very first Gastroclub, only to find that on the night in question a small and unpleasant part of the Manchester community was busy looting shops, setting fires and generally rampaging through the streets in a manner not entirely conducive to having a relaxing evening. It's OK, Katie assured me, everything will be alright this time...and to be fair, there was no actual rioting. What there was instead was the world's largest traffic jam and a two-and-a-half hour journey home; this time, when I tweeted *cries*, I actually was, just a little bit, in sheer desperation at the mental picture of my lovely dinner slipping away from me.

But - hurrah - I made it. Yes, I looked rough, but I slipped into most excellent purple shoes that I hoped would divert the eye and was in Choice Bar and Restaurant, holding a glass of champagne, by 7.30. Restaurants that wish to lure the discerning Gastroclubbers through their doors need to put together a pretty tempting menu, and Choice - tucked away round the back of Key 103 on Castle Quay - had certainly done just that. Not all of it worked, but this is what we had:

1. Amuse Bouche of a Confit Duck BonBon. This really did amuse my mouth greatly for the fraction of a second that it lasted - a small ball of meaty goodness that amply demonstrated the fundamental flaw in the amuse bouche concept - we all felt we could have managed about eight of them. Or ten. Or a hundred and ten. A good start.

2. Terrine of Fois Gras with a coarse Chicken Liver Pate centre. This was the opposite of the amuse bouche - most of us felt we could have done with slightly less of this delicious but suicidally rich slab of pate. Luckily the VERY hungry man on our table selflessly ate all the leftovers, along with the extra bread that was brought at our request by the excellent staff.



3. Ravioli of Crab and Langoustine on Pumpkin Puree with seared Queen Scallops. Yes, it DOES sound nice, doesn't it - I'd been really looking forward to this one, and it was unfortunately a huge disappointment. The filling of the single ravioli was good, but the pasta woeful - so dry and crispy that one of our party mistook it for bread (although he had just eaten a dangerous amount of foie gras, and was perhaps not yet back on an even keel). Nor was there any sign of scallops - were these left out? Forgotten? Or had they just run out by the time they got to our table in the corner? Maybe they're the mysterious blobs dotted over the top of my ravioli in the photo below, in which case they had been chopped so small as to barely register. A shame; the main course needed to be spectacularly good to pull this one back.



4. Roast single bone Rack of Lamb served with Braised Lamb Belly Faggot wrapped in Savoy Cabbage. Spectacular. Perfectly pink and tender lamb, an unctuously good port reduction, a big fat faggot, and a really good timbale of haricot beans. This dish was faultless, and no-one was remotely surprised to find that once again Mr Frosty Butcher was responsible for the meat; we certainly all enjoyed nibbling on his best end, and sang the praises of his rump must heartily.

5. Assiette of Desserts, OR a selection of British Cheeses. I went for the latter, a wooden board laden with three cheeses, crackers, grapes, celery and onion chutney. This was generously portioned but unimaginative - the cheeses were essentially just slabs cut from a large block, the crackers were all the same type (thereby ruining the popular dinner-time game of fighting for the Hovis biscuit), and the chutney was bland and on the stingy side. I ate the blue cheese, but found the whole thing a little dry; luckily the hungry gentleman was indeed still hungry, and manfully dealt with the other cheeses.

So overall, a mixed bag. The meal was well-priced at five courses plus canapes and a glass of champagne for £30, the staff were excellent, continually replenishing the water jug without being asked, and there were flashes of real excellence in the cooking. However, it's a tall task to cater for 60 hungry people who all wish to eat at the same time, and at times Choice didn't seem entirely up to the job. I cannot fault their hospitality though, and despite the blemishes a very fine time was had by all - particularly those who showed exceptional bravery in battling through heavy traffic to get there. We can only await next month's Gastroclub with fear and trepidation to see what exactly might befall me next time; a plague of locusts, perhaps? Floods? Or even a non-matching shoe and handbag wardrobe misfire? I'll keep you posted.

- you can find out more about Gastroclub on their website, and can join as long as there remains room for me.

- Choice Bar and Restaurant is at Castle Quay, Castleford, Manchester M15 4NT, tel 0161 833 3400

Manchester Riots: Gastro Club Bravely Eat While Manchester Burns

This morning's blog was meant to be really very straightforward: a brisk discussion of last night's Gastro Club dinner at The Mark Addy, complete with shoe details (a very cute pair of orange and black suede pumps if you're interested) and a list of the barking things that Robert Owen Brown had us eating this time. And all of that will come, I promise.

But the problem with booking a meal a long time in advance is that, sometimes, things come up that make it less convenient to go; things such as appointments, illnesses and - just occasionally - riots. We had all hoped, of course, that Manchester would rise above the crazy madness in London and Birmingham, and go about its business in its normal, dignified fashion, but as our bus travelled into the city centre yesterday evening it became increasingly clear that everybody else was going the opposite way and trying to get out; minutes later the bus, tram and train services had stopped altogether.

In the time it took us to walk to The Addy, Manchester literally transformed itself into a ghost town. Those shops and bars not already looted closed up for the night with a swiftness that suggested the owners had known and feared this moment would come for some time; gangs of kids - and they were kids - in masks and hoods congregated seemingly from nowhere, sometimes up to fifty at a time, and ran purposefully up Market Street as we walked equally purposefully in the other direction, all in an eerie silence broken only by the ominous chug of the police helicopter over Piccadilly Gardens.

So what did we do? We went for dinner, obviously, prompting a wise woman to post on Facebook that it was all true - I really would crawl across broken glass to get a good meal; as would many others in Manchester, it seemed. Katie didn't get the 70 people she had originally expected at last night's first birthday party of the Gastro Club she founded from nothing, but she certainly got more than 40 hardy souls, determined to enjoy themselves no matter what, and fed and looked after in splendid style by ROB, John, Melissa and all the other amazing staff at the Addy.

For the record, this is what we had:

1. Eggs with wild watercress. Two tiny quails eggs tucked away inside a normal-sized shell, served with watercress and caviar. A classy start that suggested that our journey across war-torn Manchester had not been in vain.

2. Wild Mushrooms with Madeira. The world's poshest mushroom vol-au-vent: toadstool-shaped pastry filled with mushroomy goodness.

3. Little Fishes. These were the little sand eels we had at the last Gourmet Evening - still good.

4. Slow Braised Pruney Pork with umble pie. This was the course that separated the men from the boys: a cute, innocent-looking pie that turned out to be filled with pig heart, spleen and uterus (all in a tasty gravy, obviously), served with half a pig's head per three people. Now, pig's head on a plate really does look like pig's head on a plate (complete with teeth), and as a lot of it is fat there isn't actually a great deal of meat to be had - but it did (apparently) allow an ill-behaved Mr Liz to offer his neighbour on his other side a bit of tongue.

5. The Gastroclub Birthday cake. Not a birthday cake at all, but a huge pillar of Stilton surrounded by individual fruit cake "bricks" (to enable us to go looting afterwards, presumably), each with a guest's name on. The fact that not everyone could attend would seem to indicate that the good, brave staff of the Addy will be rewarded for their sterling efforts in the face of adversity by a diet of pig's head sandwiches and cakes with someone else's name on in the coming week.

All of this was accompanied by an increasingly strange atmosphere that was part convivial geniality, part fear; surreptitious glances at Twitter between courses suggested that all hell was breaking loose outside, with Miss Selfridge on fire, Afflecks Palace under attack, and gangs of kids doing pretty much whatever they wanted. The truth of the situation really hit home when we were asked to leave the premises halfway through the dessert amid rumours that Australasia, just across the river from us, was under attack. Luckily, the friends we were with had secured a lift to take us home, and we waited nervously on streets that were dark and empty, populated only by streams of hooded males quietly making their way past us on their way to the centre - not a bit interested in us, inexorably drawn to disturbances elsewhere.

The Mark Addy was literally the only place open last night, and the staff and patrons should be proud that the Gastro dinner went on regardless. There's been a lot of talk about the spirit of Manchester on the social networks over the last few days, and really, how could this be better exemplified than by people wrestling with a giant pig's head whilst chaos reigned outside? So thanks to the Addy and staff, and thanks to Katie Brunt for organising another triumphant Gastro Club (presumably her most trying yet - surely she deserves your vote for "Food Hero" at the Manchester Food and Drink Awards?) In the true spirit of Gastro Club, I leave you not with pictures of idiots trashing their own city for kicks, but an image of the Gastro birthday cake, dedicated to the amazing be-broomed volunteers who have been out on Manchester's streets since 9am this morning restoring a bit of pride. Here's to the next Gastro Club being a little less eventful.