Restaurant Review: Gusto, Didsbury

Well, clearly being back at college and expected to teach people things is really quite tiring after 6 weeks off, and it is unreasonable to expect me to come home and cook my own supper. Thus I found myself in Gusto last night, eating food that I could probably have made much better myself, had I not been grappling with Wuthering Heights all day.

Gusto is the current guise of the Italian chain formerly known as Est Est Est, and is really rather disappointing, particularly as Est Est Est had improved no end in the months leading up to its disappearance. The menu remains pretty much the same, and the venue still has the same buzzy feel, with friendly staff and a great view into the kitchen area with its traditional wood oven. However, the food all arrived suspiciously quickly, and my starter of calamari was on the greasy side as well as being pretty chewy.

Main course was better: risotto served with prawns, mussels and yet more calamari was well flavoured with saffron and of a satisfyingly gloopy consistency to bring comfort on a dismally wet night. The dish was mussel-heavy, however, with few prawns in evidence, and the portion was far too large for such a rich dish. My husband's Diavolo pizza disappeared quickly and with no complaints other than it caused him to get flour on his wine glass.

The wine list is the real disappointment. All the Italian reds on offer seem over-priced; indeed, the £13 Syrah blend we went for was the only sub-£15 red on the menu.

All in all, OK but not great: next time I'll go to Felicini's, just across the road.

• Gusto is at 756 Wilmslow Road, Didsbury, Manchester M20 2DW, tel. 0161 445 8209.
  

Autumn 2008 at The Lowry Theatre, Manchester

As the "summer" (I term it such through gritted teeth) departs, at least we have plenty of good stuff on TV to look forward to as well as a spanking new season of goodies at The Lowry Theatre. Some of the highlights are listed below:

• Enjoy (1st Sept - 6th Sept) Alan Bennett has surely now reached the status of National Treasure, and this is a chance to see one of his less-performed plays - good as The History Boys is, there's only so many times you want to see it. This dark comedy is about a couple living in a back-to-back house in Leeds which the council has ear-marked for destruction, and stars Alison Steadman and David Troughton.
• Othello (30 Sept - 4 Oct) One of William Shakespeare's best known tragedies and a regular resident on the A-level syllabus, so expect this to be packed with reluctant teenagers and harrassed teachers. The story raises issues of race, betrayal, jealousy and sexual infidelity and would therefore hardly seem to need updating, but this performance from "movement theatre" group Frantic Assembly sees Othello as a bouncer at a club in a Northern town.
• Calendar Girls (20th - 25th Oct) This play is adapted from the film of the same name, and stars Lynda Bellingham, Patricia Hodge and Gaynor Faye as members of the infamous WI group who pose for that equally infamous calendar.

Don't forget that The Lowry offers free parking for between 4 and 6 hours if you also visit any of the shops or restaurants in the complex - just don't forget to ask them to authenticate your ticket or you will have to run back during the interval and forgo your half-time gin and tonic (I'm speaking from experience here). The best for pre-theatre dinner is probably Lime, which offers a decent wine selction as well as some sharing platters perfect if you don't have much time to eat before the play starts.

Full details available from the Lowry website.

Offers at The Pitcher and Piano, Didsbury

I'm not usually a fan of the ultra-bland chains springing up around Manchester, but Didsbury's Pitcher and Piano has become an increasingly tempting venue of late. Since its recent facelift, the interior is looking pretty classy, with additional seating upstairs for diners, and they finally seem to have realised their prices are bordering on the ridiculous and have introduced some good offers on drinks.

Their cocktails have always been good, and they now rotate the wide selection on a "Cocktail of the Week" basis, with that week's chosen one available at just £4. This being a Bank Holiday Weekend (hurrah!) there are three on offer, the pick of which is the Dark & Stormy - rum, lime juice and ginger beer. As I have predictably enough come down with a cold for the long weekend, I have been forced to consume many of these in the belief that they must surely be medicinal.

You can also get any bottle of wine on a Wednesday or a Sunday for £13, which doesn't sound such a bargain until you realise the wine list includes a Chateauneuf-du-Pape and a Pouilly-Fuisse! This offer is available tomorrow, Bank Holiday Monday, along with 20% off all food so it might just be worth getting yourself down there.

Restaurant Review: Sam's Chop House

If you fancy something a little more traditional than the Italian-American Grich (see below), then wander next door to Sam's Chop House. Lurking at the back of this magnificent Victorian pub is one of the finest restaurants in Manchester, serving gastrofood of the highest order.

Sam's has been going strong since 1872, and the menu is a pleasing combination of the traditional and the modern: amongst the starters, Salted Ox Tongue Salad nestles serenely next to a Butternut Squash and Cheese Tart, whilst the mains encompass the legendary Corned Beef Hash as well as venison, duck and steak. The portions are truly enormous: they will try and tempt you to some bread when you arrive but it is worth resisting if you wish to survive in an upright position to tackle the sweet course.

The pub is refreshingly unsnooty - the wine list includes choices to suit every pocket (we had a joyous Paarl Heights Shiraz at £14.95), and the staff will happily bring tap water without looking down their noses and enquiring whether you want still or sparkling. This is an understandably popular venue so make sure you book ahead.

• Sam's Chop House is at Back Pool Fold, Chapel Walks (off Cross Street), Manchester M2 1HN, tel. 0161 8343210
  

Pre-Theatre Dinner at Grinch, Manchester

If you want to eat before going to the Royal Exchange, then the delightful Grinch Wine Bar remains the best option for a quick dinner. They are still running their Happy Hour offer, where between 5 and 7 pm every day you can choose any of their stone-baked pizzas for £6, and wash it down with any cocktail at £3.50 or a bottle of house wine for £9.95 (the red is a good bet - a juicy Montepulciano). The place is always crammed full of cheerful souls, and the staff are helpful and chatty - one of our waiters wanted to know all about the play we were going to see, and another was genuinely concerned at the amount of pizza I had left on my plate (purely as a result of an over-ambitious starter).

This is an excellent place for a casual dinner before over-loading your brain with culture, and as well as pizzas does lovely beef chilli nachos and the best American burger in town.

• Grinch is at 5-7 Chapel Walks, Manchester M2 1HN, tel. 0161 9073210
  

Review of Hay Fever, Royal Exchange, Manchester

I finally got to see the Royal Exchange's current production of Noel Coward's Hay Fever last night. The show has been running since July 1 and was scheduled to end on August 9, but due to overwhelming demand has been extended an extra week until August 16 - pretty impressive, considering that the Royal Exchange's ticket prices are not exactly compatible with a country supposedly in the grip of a credit crunch.

This is a slick, professional production starring Belinda Lang as Judith Bliss, and Ben Keaton as her husband David. For those not familiar with the plot (such as it is), the Bliss family are an excentric mother, father, son and daughter, living in splendid isolation following Judith's retirement from the stage. The action of the play centres around one weekend when, unbeknownst to each other, all four of the Bliss family have invited a guest down to stay. The comedy arises from the reactions of these four visitors to the behaviour of the Blisses over the course of a memorable Saturday evening, which includes parlour games, mistaken marriage proposals and some fumbling in the library. All very silly, of course, but also very funny, and full of Coward's sly wit on the subject of the moneyed upper classes.

Of the actors on show here, Lang does well to make Judith both vile and strangely likeable, but Ben Keaton seems slightly miscast as novelist David. Lysette Anthony makes a good job of the catty Myra Arundal, a visitor of questionable morals, but they are all upstaged by relative newcomer Fiona Button as the nineteen year old Sorel Bliss.

A few tickets are still available to catch this enjoyable romp, although your best bet might be to ring up on the day of performance to book one of the first come, first serve banquettes at the edge of the stage - great value at £8.50.

• The Royal Exchange Theatre is on St Ann's Square, Manchester M2 7DH. Box Office 0161 8339833.
  

Review of Moss Nook Restaurant

The Manchester Airport Ring Road is not necessarily the first location you would think to look for a fancy restaurant. And yet it is here that the Moss Nook resides, an oasis of posh frocks and fine dining amongst the ugly sprawl of the airport. Here you may relax in the knowledge that the decor (a little like being in rich old lady's parlour) hasn't changed in years, and that when your food comes it will appear from under a proper silver dome (yes, really).

This most recent visit was on a Wednesday evening, in celebration of a birthday that was exciting although sadly not mine. Of course, a restaurant is often more enjoyable if you've been on the margueritas prior to your arrival, but the staff gamely tolerated our obvious inebriation, and even brought dessert with a candle and a cheery rendition of Happy Birthday.

Anyway, the food was impeccable as usual - turbot mousse served with five beautiful scallops; spiced chicken skewers; duckling with parsnip chips and cherry sauce; fillet steak perfectly cooked and served with the least soggy rosti of all time. The portion sizes here are very generous, and the hungry diner is also provided with bread and with two amuses bouches. Do try to leave room for pudding, as the selection of mini chocolate deserts is frankly worth fighing over, and if you order tea or coffee there will also be an exciting plate of home-made petits fours (ours were wrapped up and taken home for my appreciative husband, who overlooked my high alcohol content as a result).

The prices aren't cheap: most starters are around £9 and most of the mains around £20, but you will leave with full tummy and a warm feeling that such a charmingly old-fashioned restaurant still exists in a dreary world of McDonalds and Starbucks.

• Moss Nook is at Ringway Road, Manchester, M22 5WD, tel. 0161 437 4778

• Opening times: Tues - Fri: 12:00 - 13:30 19:00 - 21:30, Sat: 19:00 - 21:30

Restaurant Review: Saints & Scholars, Didsbury

As Didsbury becomes ever more of a clone town, the death knell for the small independent business tolls ever louder with the news that the old Boots premises are to become either a Starbucks or a Cafe Nero. Add this to the depressing roll call of chain bars and restaurants that now line Wilmslow Road - Slug & Lettuce, Cafe Rouge, Pitcher & Piano, Felicinis (good though it is) - and Didsbury is in danger of losing its identity.

Hurrah, then, for Saints & Scholars, flying the flag along with Jem&I for something a bit different. This charming little restaurant is open all day (9.30 am - 11pm), serving fantastic cooked breakfasts first thing, the best banoffee pie in the world at elevenses and a proper grown-up dinner menu in the evenings. True, the menu hasn't changed in years, but that's not the point. You are free to relax at your slightly wobbly table, listening to Radio 2 as the very charming staff run up and down stairs that are rather bizarrely decorated with scenes from Dennis the Menace (the staircase, not the staff).

Beware of the "light bites" section of the menu, as in the absence of a "starters" section you may well order with gay abandon and woefully overface yourself - these are hefty portions (especially the deep-fried cheeses and the cajun chicken salad). Last time I went I ordered the cheeses followed by the salad along with a portion of chips, whilst my husband manfully ordered the steak from the specials board. This arrived perfectly cooked to order and garnished with the most delicious parsnip chips. Having been caught twice stealing the aforementioned chips from the aforementioned husband, the very charming owner enquired if I would like my own bowlful (yes, obviously) and duly appeared with a very large and very free portion of parsnip chips just for me. You see, you wouldn't get that from a restaurant chain, even if my husband did sulk all the way home about the sheer unfairness of life.

• Saints & Scholars is at 694 Wilmslow Road, Didsbury, Manchester M20 2DN, tel 0161 4482457
  

Manchester Museum and Whitworth Art Gallery

Last weekend I decided to do something a little more productive than lie on the sofa watching Saturday Kitchen, and intrepidly embarked upon a day of culture in search of a big brain. First stop was the Manchester Museum on Oxford Road, part of the University and completely free free free. The museum holds an impressively grisly selection of Egyptian artifacts (the second biggest in the country), so if gazing at mummies with disturbingly shrivelled feet on show seems like a pleasant way to spend an afternoon, this is the place for you. Animal lovers will also be delighted to find a cat coffin containing a mummified kitten. Next month sees the arrival of the Lindow Bog Man who was found in Cheshire in 1984 and is thought to be around 2000 years old: see him from April 19th.

The cost free nature of the day faltered with a visit to Blackwell's academic bookshop just up the road; this is where those lucky blighters still in full time education off-load their unwanted books in exchange for beer money, so there's always a good selection of second-hand stuff. Fantastic chocolate brownies in the cafe too.

Next stop: Whitworth Art Gallery, also on Oxford Road but this time heading out of Manchester. Like the museum, the gallery is part of the university and is also free; at the moment they have an interesting exhibition on the influence of William Blake, but this ends soon so have a look at their website to see what's coming up.

After such a day of culture, the only remaining option was to rest my tired brain in Jabez Clegg, a Manchester institution opposite the Students' Union building on Oxford Road.

Good News for Gluttons - Northenden Farmers' Market Set to Stay

After a six month trial, the monthly market in Northenden is to become permanent - good news for those of us (hangs head in shame) currently swept up in the whole "happy to pay three quid for a jar of jam because it's been hand-made by a rosy-cheeked dame" craze. I am happy to admit that I have been an ever-present at the market, reuseable cotton bag clutched to my chest, eager to purchase all manner of over-priced goods before stocking up on the basics at Sainsbury's.

The market will continue to take place on the first Saturday of every month, as well as every third Saturday under a new six month trial. Be there early, as although the official opening hours are 10 - 4, the good stuff goes fairly quickly and the stalls have been selling out before the end of the day. The stalls sell pretty much what you would expect - fruit and veg, good quality meat and pies, home-made fudge and cakes, as well as a black pudding stall on a day out from Bury. Snaffle a minted lamb burger so that you may elegantly drip sauce onto your clothes as you peruse the wares.

Where Can You Eat the Best Steaks in Manchester?

Well, until recently, The Gaucho Grill was the undisputed master of all things bovine. Situated in a hugely impressive building just off Deansgate, this temple to Argentine beef and wine has ruled the roost (cowshed?) for the last few years, thanks to an impressive range of steaks cooked perfectly to order. On my last couple of visits, though, I've noticed a change in atmosphere - a bit rushed, a bit corporate, a bit "well we're not really that bothered whether you eat here or not".

So I've defected. The Grill on the Alley is tucked away on Ridgefield, just off John Dalton Street, and although less visually stunning than The Gaucho Grill, this place has a real buzz about it. The tiny bar at the front always seems to be packed with cheery after-work drinkers, and the restaurant section has been full both upstairs and down on every occasion I have visited. Despite this, the attitude of the staff suggests that nothing is too much trouble, and although the selection of steaks on offer is not huge, it is perfectly formed. Go for the melt-in-the-mouth fillet steak with a side order of horseradish mash, or if you're feeling particularly flush, the Kobe beef fillet - from a cow that has been fed on beer and massaged daily since birth. A £50 for an 8oz fillet, maybe next time...

The Grill on the Alley is at 5 Ridgefield, Manchester M2.

The Best Cheese Burger in Britain?

My current and all-consuming obsession with Grinch Wine Bar & Restaurant continues - I am now physically unable to resist its lure when I go into central Manchester on a Saturday. And each time I go, I promise myself I will try something different - a pizza perhaps, or something healthy like the teriyaki salmon. And each time I go, I end up having the cheese burger because it's perfect, arriving at your table coyly pink in the middle and smothered with caramelised onions, double swiss cheese, dill pickles and fries. I must have it, and every week it seems. If you find a better burger, then I want that too.

Grinch Wine Bar, 5 -7 Chapel Walks, Manchester M2 1HN, tel. 0161 9073210, web address http://www.grinch.co.uk - go immediately.

Manchester University: Literature Live Events 2008

Some interesting events are scheduled at Manchester University over the next couple of months as part of their Creative Writing programme. These are all open to the public as well as students, and are mostly held at The Martin Harris Centre on the main campus on Oxford Road.

The first event was held last night, and featured readings from Jonathan Trigell and Clare Wigfall, two depressingly talented young writers who both studied Creative Writing at Manchester. Trigell read from his debut novel, Boy A, which was recently made into a film by Channel 4, as well as his new book Cham. Wigfall read a short story from her 2007 collection The Loudest Sound and Nothing. This was followed by a short Q & A session (including that awkward first half minute where no-one has a question) and then - best of all - a generously sized glass of red wine.

If the rest of the programme is as enjoyable as last night's event then there is much to look forward to, including Hanif Kureishi and Helen Dumore in future weeks. Most events cost only £3, or £2 for concessions.

More info at the University's website.

Restaurant Review: Jem&I, Didsbury

I'm not usually one to readily admit that I have been a fool, but in the case of Jem&I, I fear 'tis true. Despite the rave reviews this restaurant has garnered since opening, it has taken me several years to finally get through the doors.

There are three equally weak reasons for this:
1. I don't like its name
2. Before Jem&I, there was a really good caff here selling egg and bacon on toast at breakfast time, and I miss it
3. It is always, always phenomenally busy.

However, I finally overcame these (unreasonable) prejudices last Thursday. Admittedly, I was already weakened by a bottle of rose Moet which had been swiftly consumed in The Pitcher & Piano (January wine sale is remarkably still on), and the chances of me cooking my own dinner were small, so we made the very short journey to Jem&I to see what all the fuss was about.

The place was absolutely packed (see point 3 above), but we were given a charming little table located up above the main restaurant on a sort of mini-mezzanine level (beware if you are over about five feet tall - the sloping ceiling is very low up here). The waitresses couldn't have been nicer, and pretended stoically not to mind having to keep run up and down the stairs to us.

The food here is fairly traditional - we started with the chicken liver parfait (£6.50) and the squid (£7.25) - but beautifully done, and arrives in generously sized amounts. We followed this with duck breast served with duck spring roll and pak choi at £15.95 and a very tender rib-eye steak served with fat chips and sauce bearnaise at £16.95. Puddings were too nice to resist, so we also scoffed a sticky toffee pudding and a banana pavlova before our skirts became irredeemably tight.

The total bill, including a bottle of Bourisset Rose wine, came to £79.05, and I have already booked a return visit. Reviewing my three original objections, I find they are all still true, but I now feel ready to admit I was a fool not to come here sooner.

• Cafe Jem&I is at 1C School Lane, Didsbury M20 6RD, Tel. 0161 445 3996.
  

Tragedy for the Residents of South Manchester

A deathly silence descended upon South Manchester this week as the shock news emerged that Mr Khandoker is closing his restaurant for refurbishment for 6 weeks. The popular local curry house, "recommended by celebrities", will shut its doors from Monday 4th Feb until Monday 17th March to allow for a complete overhaul and extension of existing facilities. One Didsbury resident, too upset to be named, commented: "Its an emotional time. Obviously as a community we must come together to survive this tragedy and start to rebuild our lives." Locals were provided slight comfort by the news that the takeaway Khandoker is to remain open through this dark period.

• Readers who know the identity of these mysterious Khandoker-recommending "celebrities"are invited to enlighten us all by leaving a comment.