The North Pole comes to Manchester

More festive news, this time alcohol-related (bravo!). A new bar has sprung up next to Urbis in central Manchester, and is described as the city's first "pop-up" bar and restaurant - in other words, it's in a marquee, and it's temporary. The bar has a capacity of 300, and will serve suitably wintery cocktails (mulled wine, anyone?) as well as a comfort food-laden menu specially created by top chef Robert Owen Brown. The food is great value, with stews costing just £4.95, and you can choose from the following rather mouth-watering options:

• chicken with slow-roasted tomatoes
• bacon and wild mushroom
• garlic and rosemary spiked mutton with jerusalem artichoke
• slow braised beef with caramelised onions and Guinness (this one gets my vote)
• creamy chicken, tarragon and leek
• vension with claret and juniper

A vegetarian option - winter vegetables and barley with Cheshire cheese dumplings - is available at £3.95.

The bar is open until New Year's Eve.

Manchester Christmas Lights Switch-On

Yes, I know it's only the beginning of November, but the Christmas lights in central Manchester are being switched on this Friday, the 7th November. And which glittering stars have we secured to turn the lights on? Erm... Ditchy and Salty from Century Radio (even their names scream "local radio") and X-Factor winner Leon Jackson, whose current single charted lower than a spoof song by a man from Bolton wearing a ginger wig.

Also present will be Alesha Dixon, performing that new song about a boy not washing up, which sounds suspiciously like the Lou Bega song that Channel 4 used to have as the music to the cricket highlights. Traditionalists will be pleased to know that Father Christmas and Frosty the Snowman will also be appearing.

All this jollity will take place in Albert Square between 6.30 and 7.30, and is free.

Bonfire Night 2008 at Platt Fields, Manchester

This Wednesday is Bonfire Night, hot on the heels of Halloween as the second of the two nights per year you definitely don't want to spend at home. Admittedly, on Bonfire Night you won't get your house egged by hooligans just because you pretended you weren't in, but it would still seem preferable to wrap up and brave the cold rather than listen to the loveable local scalliwags letting off fireworks in the street.

Wednesday night is a rubbish night for Bonfire Night, but if for those venturing forth a number of organised displays are scheduled for the Manchester area. IMHO the best of these is at Platt Fields, the park located rather incongruously slap bang in the middle of Rusholme - perecptive souls will immediately realise that one of the draws of this particular venue is the obligation to go for a curry afterwards, not to mention a cockle-warming brandy at Hardy's Well directly opposite the park.

The display starts at 7.30 with the lighting of the bonfire and is free, but there will be plenty of charity buckets around for donations to local worthy causes. A temporary funfair will have appeared as if by magic across the other side of the park, so after the oohs and aahs of the display itself, don't forget to consume a couple of toffee apples and try all the rides until you feel a bit sick.

Full details of all displays can be found at the Greater Manchester Fire & Rescue Service website.

Manchester Christmas Markets

This year's Christmas Markets will be bigger and better than ever, with organisers confirming that the stalls will run until Sunday December 21st after complaints last year that the market finished too early. There will also be six sites this year instead of five, with Exchange Square hosting stalls for the first time. Otherwise, it will be business as usual for this increasingly popular annual fixture, although apparently the main site in Albert Square has been redesigned to ease congestion (not before time - last year, the Albert Square site attracted an average of 43000 shoppers per day, most of whom seemed intent on jostling my drinking arm as I was trying to slurp the mulled wine that is pretty much compulsory at these events).

The Market begins on Tuesday 18th November (some kind of feigned sick-leave perhaps required), with Albert Square hosting the European Market, St Anne's Square the German Market, Brazennose Street the World Market, Arts & Crafts on Exchange Street, and additional stalls on New Cathedral Street and Exchange Square. One can almost hear the brass band warming up and smell the brandy-laden hot chocolate already...

12 Hours in Liverpool

A brave move perhaps, but what with Liverpool being current European City of Culture it seemed a shame not to venture west simply on the basis that Liverpool is full of Scousers. So we boarded our train at Picadilly on Saturday morning, and less than an hour later we were at Liverpool Lime Street Station, touristy map clutched firmly in hand (and handbag tucked even more firmly under arm).

First stop, the Liverpool Tate Gallery on Albert Dock. The docks are extremely impressive, and bring a nostalgic lump to the throat of anyone who fondly remembers Fred the Weatherman leaping about on his polystyrene map back when Richard & Judy were in charge of This Morning. Before embarking on any actual culture, we steeled ourselves with hot chocolate and toast in the Tate Cafe, and then dutifully examined three floors of modern art. To be fair, there is not much installation-style what-the-hell-is-that-meant-to-be art on show here; the Andy Warhol room is worth a look, and there are also works by Picasso, Degas, Henry Moore and Bridget Riley on show. Not sure about the huge furry body on the ground floor though.

Time for lunch: a fillet steak sandwich with fries at The Pan American Club on Albert Dock, a couple of minutes from the Tate. Thus restored, we tackled the impressive new shopping centre Liverpool 1, housing all the shops you might expect as well as an enormous John Lewis where we booked in to have our make-up done at Bobbi Brown (cunning - get nice lady to scrape off evidence of tiring day and replace with flattering new make-up). Many thanks to the lovely Angela who did such a good job on us.

Dinner was booked at Negresco, a modern Italian on the trendy Lark Lane - about £6 in a taxi from the shopping centre. The decor is stunning, the staff friendly and laid-back, the cocktail list ginormous and the food delicious - I had duck liver pate for starter, fillet steak for main, and finished with cinnamon creme brulee with sable biscuits. Prices are very reasonable, andthere is apparently a Negresco in Manchester which I shall duly investigate as soon as humanly possible.

Watch out for the 9,55pm train though - it's more like a bus than a train, rendering sleep impossible, and full of over-excited teenage girls (likewise). It got us back into Manchester around 11.15, safe and sound (slight pun intended).

Review: Shakespeare's Othello at The Lowry, Manchester

Teachers bring much of the stress they so frequently purport to suffer from upon themselves, doing such foolhardy things as booking tickets to see Othello on a Thursday evening. After teaching for six hours - including an hour on Othello - said teacher can think of few things she would rather do less than drive to The Lowry and sit through a couple of hours of Shakespeare: opening a bottle of wine and watching America's Next Top Model clearly being a preferable option.

I did, however, dutifully drag myself to The Lowry, and I am extremely glad I did. Frantic Assembly's current production of Othello, which finishes tonight, is the best interpretation of a Shakespeare play I have ever seen: genuinely ground-breaking without losing the power or the beauty of the original language. The setting has been updated to take place in a Northern pub called The Cypress, a witty reference to the section of the play that has been largely omitted from this production where Venice goes to war with Turkey over Cyprus, and the staging revolves (literally) around a pool table upon which much of the key action occurs.

The acting is without fault, with a particularly menacing Iago and a delightfully chavvy Desdemona standing out from an excellent cast. Don't be put off by the slightly scary fact that Frantic are exponents of "movement theatre" - all this means in practice is that the choreographed fight scenes are stunning, and that the energy of the performance never flags.

If you get a chance to see this production, then do: I can offer no better praise than that the theatre was pretty much filled with sixth form students (some of them mine) and they remained transfixed for the whole two hours - a feat never achieved by any of my lessons.

Special Offers at The Didsbury Pub, Didsbury

Maybe it's the threat of a credit crunch, or perhaps the prospect of the entire population of Didsbury retreating into hibernation, but The Didsbury pub has wheeled out a selection of pretty good food offers for September.

The (ironically?) inappropriately named Summer Menu offers good value at £9.95 for two courses and a glass of house wine. The menu offers a decent selection of options, none of which is remotely summery - I had the rump steak burger followed by a cheese plate so generous even I couldn't finish it, and Mr Liz had gammon, egg and chips followed by steamed treacle pudding and custard (summer menu indeed). This offer runs from Mondays to Thursdays until the end of September and requires a voucher.

Another tempting prospect runs next week only - two main courses for £10. Again, a voucher is required - these can be obtained from the pub's website.

The Art of Tea, Didsbury

Every so often, you come across a venue that is so perfect you feel slightly embarrassed never to have been there before, as well as grumpy at the thought of so many missed opportunities. The Art of Tea is such a place: an independent cafe and cake shop, tucked away on Barlow Moor Road just off the main Didsbury drag, just on the right side of scruffy with its polished floorboards and mismatched 70s-style chinaware. The menu is small but tempting: breakfast options include toasted tea-cakes, scrambled eggs and smoked salmon bagels, although these are thankfully available all day. There is also a decent range of sandwiches as well as a daily soup option; I had the sausage and red onion marmalade sandwich on toasted ciabatta (£3.80), while the husband had a bagel off the specials list, stuffed with salami, cheese and gerkins (£4.20).

The selection of teas is not as extensive as the name of the cafe suggests, but there's a good selection of coffees and smoothies as well. The home-made cakes are particularly delicious: we shared a triple-chocolate brownie and quite frankly wished we'd had one each. Then , just as you've wiped the crumbs from your mouth and have paid your modest bill, and you're thinking the place couldn't really be much better, you notice that at the back of the cafe lurks a second-hand bookshop, occupied by possibly the friendliest and most helpful man in existence. I feel ashamed I have not been here before and will attempt to rectify this error by coming here every Saturday for the rest of my life.

• The Art of Tea is at 47 Barlow Moor Road, Didsbury, Manchester M20 6TW, and is open Monday - Saturday from 9 till 6, and from 10 till 5 on a Sunday.
  

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