Sunday Roast at Beef and Pudding: Lovely Meat but WHERE HAVE ALL THE DECENT ROASTIES GONE?

One of my very favourite things about British people is their absolute commitment to the roast dinner. Yes, we like to flirt with fire by having an impromptu barbecue or two at the first sign of sun (or indeed, the first break in the black clouds), but ultimately we remain prepared to sit down to a good, sturdy plate of animal, vegetable, potato product and gravy at pretty much any time, whatever the weather. I am certainly no exception, and thus found myself in one of the leather booths at Beef and Pudding on Sunday - a thoroughly beautiful, sunny day - eschewing the normal menu in favour of a big fat roast dinner in the company of many others who had seemingly chosen to do the same.

Beef and Pudding has had its ups and downs during its time in Manchester - I've had some very good meals there but some slightly less impressive ones too, with the general consensus seeming to be that there is an air of inconsistency that could do with being stamped out. I remain inherently fond of the place though - it's a great venue with lovely, knowledgeable staff and a menu full of things I want to eat, and thus I was willing Sunday's roast to be bang back on form. And mostly, it was - with one important, carbohydrate-based caveat which I will come back to later. The set menu (which changes slightly from week to week) certainly offers good value, with two courses for £14.95 or three for £16.95, and the restaurant also has an excellent wine list that does its best to avoid unreasonable mark-ups - we loved the Granfort French Merlot at £16.95 a bottle. We also enjoyed the boar pâté that we both chose for our starter - good coarse texture, strong punchy flavour, decent chutney and a sensibly-sized portion. So far, so good.

The meat was also excellent. I went for the lamb option while my friend chose the beef; this latter offers the option of well done or rare, and did indeed arrive pleasingly pink - something of a rarity in pub and restaurant roast dinners. In both cases, the meat was generously portioned, thickly sliced, tender and full of flavour - we liked, very much. The veg and gravy were also good, as was the large homemade Yorkshire pudding that came with the beef. BUT. One of the greatest joys of a roast should be the potatoes, particularly at a restaurant that proudly tweets every Sunday that Aunt Bessie isn't welcome here - hers might, in all truth, have been preferable. These were floury and a little flacid and had none of the crispy joy one gets with roasties done at home; I appreciate that it must be difficult to keep such items in prime condition during an all-day service and indeed, now I think about it, I can't remember the last time I had really great roast potatoes in a restaurant. I had also been very excited to see that roasts came with Bubble and Squeak, one of my all-time favourite dishes and a proper Boxing Day treat; what arrived though, was slightly lumpy, slightly tepid mash with a couple of flecks of carrot in. We didn't send it back as we had plenty of other nice stuff to eat, but still a shame.

There were no issues with desserts - the Sticky Toffee Sundae was an enjoyable combination of cake, cream, ice cream and marshmallows (although I could have handled a bit more sticky), whilst across the table the accompanying pipette of mimosa shot perfectly cut through the richness of my companion's chocolate mousse. Overall, we enjoyed our visit very much, and felt that apart from Potatogate the roast had been very good - still, it has made me think I need to go on the hunt for the best roast potatoes in Manchester. Any suggestions, please let me know via the comments box below and I will nobly check them out, whatever the weather...

- Beef and Pudding is at 37 Booth Street, off Fountain Street, M2 4AA. We were invited in to try the roast and were not asked to pay for our food or drinks, but we took two other friends and paid for everything they had - I have left them out of the review in the interests of not making things too complicated, but the opinions here do reflect the consensus of the whole table.

The Thyme Machine Lands in Chorlton: A Carvery with a Difference (and an unconvincing moustache)

I'm a big fan of a roast dinner, and can think of few other plates of food that so effortlessly encompass so many highs and so few lows. To be honest, I think the meat is almost the least exciting part - I like great piles of parpy vegetables, and enough crispy-edged roast potatoes to build a wall across half of Cumbria, and an ocean of gravy lapping lazily round the edge of the whole magnificent ensemble. And to be fair, most pubs and restaurants do a decent roast these days, no doubt having realised that this is a meal most people are capable of knocking up at home and thus there is no real excuse for getting it wrong.

Chorlton is not short of options when it comes to choosing a roast dinner, with places such as The Parlour and Electrik carving out pretty fearsome reputations on the back of their legendary Sunday lunches. Still, it's nice to find someone doing something a bit different, and The Thyme Machine, a new silver service carvery that has started popping up in the Chorlton Irish Club every Sunday, is certainly that. It's essentially Sunday dinner meets steampunk meets Parisian bistro - the blinds are down, the staff are dressed in fetchingly Victorian-esque outfits, the music is a mash-up of old and new, and the wine waiter (Marcel, apparently) sports an extravagant fake moustache that is only fractionally less convincing than his French accent.

Maybe this sounds a little contrived, but in reality it isn't - it's fun. And for all the frippery, at the heart of it all is great food and a proper wine list - the chef hard at work in the kitchen is Kim H Merritt and the man behind the ridiculous moustache is a wine merchant who really knows his stuff and is eager to share his enthusiasm (he also does magic tricks if you ask nicely). We start by sharing a couple of dishes from a board offering a short selection of starters, all priced at £4.50 - we have cubed watermelon wrapped in smoked ham (very refreshing and a good combination of textures and flavours) and the garlic mushrooms, which are pretty sexy and carry just the right amount of garlic (ie enough to be tasty but not so much as to preclude you actually speaking to anyone else for the rest of the day).

The main event though is obviously the roast dinner, which comes in at a reasonable £13. The meats change slightly every week - this week we are given brisket, pork and chicken along with Yorkshire pudding, roast potatoes, carrots and parsnips, red cabbage, greens and a baked onion stuffed with bubble and squeak (a treat that I normally only get to eat once a year, on Boxing Day). This is all served at table from underneath satisfying silver domes, and our lovely server Melissa, to her credit, doesn't so much as blink when my "say when" with the roast potatoes takes an embarrassingly long time to come. We also like that when we request more gravy we are simply brought the enormous jug from the kitchen and allowed to drown our dinners to our hearts' content. Everything is beautifully cooked, with nice crispy frilled edges on the potatoes and the most flavoursome roast chicken either of us recall eating in some time - both of us surreptitiously save the skin till last. Even the veggie option looks good - smoked butter squash and goats cheese pie - and there is also a weekly special, which this week is blackened salmon niçoise.

As well as eating all this, we also take a pretty enthusiastic run at the wine list. We have a bottle of good Sauvignon Blanc at £16 (well, guineas, but I only have English pounds on me), a couple of glasses of very easy-drinking Barbera with dinner, and then a Port and a Madeira from the basket of goodies Marcel tempts us with after our meal. He is really quite something; in fact, all the staff are lovely, and Melissa even remembers me from my eating marathons at The Mark Addy when she used to work there (this might explain her lack of surprise at the RoastPotatoGate incident). We are both a little saddened to emerge from this mad little corner of 1890s Paris at the end of the meal, and will certainly go back - I don't think this concept will be to everyone's taste, but we enjoyed doing something a little bit different. Even better, next time I plan to return in full-on Victorian garb - Chorlton, you have been warned, and if anyone can lend me a top hat and some evening gloves I'll be eternally grateful.

- The Thyme Machine is currently running every Sunday afternoon on High Lane, Chorlton - check their Facebook page for more details or call 07459 023741 for reservations. We were invited to try the carvery and paid for all our drinks but not our food.