Saturday Night on Burton Road, West Didsbury

OK: I know Saturday nights are probably the busiest going out night of the week, but it was very cold last night, and we are (as of Friday) officially in the middle of a recession. So I felt confident in ringing the Lime Tree at 6pm to see if they could squeeze us in. They could. At 10.15. Never mind - the Lime Tree is the best restaurant in the area, after all - we would simply take a cab up to Burton Road and see what took our fancy.

So after a couple of drinks in The Metropolitan (very busy, especially considering that two rounds of drinks in here cost roughly the same as a small car) we made our way to the very fine Rhubarb. Fully booked. Oh. Then the very charming Italian restaurant Azzurro. Very apologetic, but fully booked. By now I was eying up scabby dogs and cursing my choice of footwear - West Didsbury pavements were not made for spike heels.

Hurrah for the Namaste Nepal, where we were swiftly seated and served restorative poppadums. This curryhouse is massive though, and only twenty minutes or so after our arrival people were being turned away. I tried to look sympathetic rather than smug. The food here was brilliant as usual - the bringal (aubergine) side dish is unfeasibly good, as is the makhan fish which I always order despite promising myself I'll try something new. The service and the atmosphere is much, much better than at its sister restaurant Great Kathmandu, just up the road, where the waiters are sometimes surly and are prone to spilling food of the type that leaves permanent stains on you (well OK, that was just once).

The moral of the story? If you're going out and fancy anything other than curry, then book. The good folk of West Didsbury are gamely doing as Gordon Brown asks and are spending us out of recession.

Guilty Pleasures on a Sunday Night

I'm not really one for New Year resolutions, unless they are ones comfortably achieved during the darkest, coldest months of the year and don't involve giving up food or alcohol in any way. This year's pledge is to make more of Sunday evenings, too often wasted in general grumpiness at the thought of work the following day and spent wearing pyjamas and reading a trashy book.

So, working on the basis that weekends will seem longer if Sunday evenings are spent profitably in pursuit of nice things, three girls strapped on their finest shoes and ventured into Manchester (clutching tickets for Anton and Erin at the Bridgewater Hall, but that's another matter - no need to discuss that here) for an early dinner at Livebait. First stop was Beluga, on Mount Street just off Albert Square for a bonus cocktail - the bar was surprisingly busy, suggesting that perhaps lots of people have determined to make more of their Sundays.

Livebait was also quite busy, particularly since it was only 5.30, but the average age of the other diners (somewhere between 50 and 150) indicated that the business was perhaps down to the formidable pulling power of Anton and Erin. The restaurant is doing some pretty good offers at the moment though - you can download a voucher from their website worth £15 off the bill when two people order two courses from the a la carte menu during January, and there is also a very reasonably priced set menu available.

I chose the mackerel fillet (massive) with pickled cucumber (nice - like a slinky gerkin) and horseradish cream (a bit stingy on the portion size) at £5.95, and also snuck my fork into other people's calamari. The mains were slightly less inspiring than the starters, but the thai red fish curry was nice enough and pretty spicy (cue lots of wine for medicinal reasons). No time for pudding (sequins were calling us) but the bill came to a very reasonable £72 inluding service after the £15 reduction.

• Livebait is at 22 Lloyd Street (off Albert Square), Manchester M2 5WA, tel. 0161 8174110
• Download your voucher from www.livebaitrestaurants.co.uk
  

January Offers at Manchester Bars & Restaurants

Whilst it is very sad - not to mention quite sordid - to see folk rummaging around in skips to salvage the last of the Woolworths fixtures and fittings, it cannot be denied that there are some good deals around at the moment for those who wish to spend some money. Considering it my civic duty to keep the economy afloat by investing in goods and services, I shall be taking advantage of some of the following rather splendid offers:

• The Pitcher & Piano (branches in Manchester and Didsbury) is doing two main meals, sandwiches or salads for the price of one. The deal is on all day, every day until further notice, although some dishes such as the sharing platters are excluded. Whilst the food here is not exactly haute cuisine, they do serve till 10pm and the food is very useful for mopping up some of the alcohol deals they are offering - half price wine sale throughout January, or four bottles of Peroni beer for £10.
• If you fancy something more upmarket, Room restaurant on King Street, central Manchester, is offering 50% off all food until 12th February. You need to order before 7.30pm, and the offer isn't available on Saturdays. Discount cards need to be ordered via the restaurant website, but the card is valid throughout the sale period for parties of up to eight people. Full details at www.roomrestaurants.com.

Cheese and Pate at The Royal Oak, Didsbury

There are of course many downsides to having to go to work during the week, but ranking high on the list of inconveniences is the fact that The Royal Oak only does lunches Monday to Friday. Rather ironic, then, that the only chance to visit has been this week, during a month when my average daily calorie intake presumably nestles somewhere in the high thousands.

Never mind - take the chance to go when you can, even if this necessitates some kind of fraudulent time off work. The pub itself doesn't look anything special - a traditional boozer situated on the main Didsbury drag and populated largely by people over the age of 90. However, the real draw here is the legendary Cheese and Pate Lunch, served from 12pm - 2.15pm every weekday and costing a mere £5. For this you get half a loaf of soft, fresh granary bread and two choices from the vast selection of cheeses and pates spread out along the bar for your delectation.

There are several potential pitfalls here. The portion control is non-existent, and if you have a pleasant chat with the lovely lady, or eye up a cheese that is either rather unpopular or has around a portion and a half left, she is apt to pile even more onto your towering plate. You will now understand why the cutlery table by the bar also carries empty bags - these are doggy bags, to allow you to avoid heart failure by taking some home with you. The smart luncher opts for one pate and one cheese; bear in mind that cheese travels far better than pate. Above all, beware how easy it is to shove it in your handbag and forget all about it, only to discover a bag full of dolcelatte lurking in your Prada at an unexpected moment.

• The Royal Oak is at 729 Wilmslow Rd, Didsbury, tel 0161 4344788
  

Has the Credit Crunch Dampened the Christmas Cheer?

So, a Saturday night in central Manchester, just before Christmas. Everywhere should be full. Yet the normally jam-packed Christmas concert at The Bridgewater Hall was conspicuously un-heaving, with around 600 of the 2400 seats empty.

Is this because the prices at the Bridgewater are starting to look unreasonable in these money conscious times? The cheapest tickets for last night's concert were £18.50, with choicer seats costing upwards of thirty quid, an outlay that gets pretty prohibitive if you have a large family or are on a tight budget.

That said, the concert was as good as it is every year, allowing cheery souls full of mulled wine from the nearby Christmas Market in Albert Square to sing along with Christmas songs in a suitably undignified manner. And where else could you see a full orchestra and a couple of highly esteemed West-End singers performing songs from Slade?

Manchester Christmas Markets 2008

Are the Manchester Christmas Markets as good as usual this year? As I look forward each year to their arrival with breath that is actually bated, I am loathe to be the one to voice doubts, but it just all seems a bit too samey this year. The stall selling mulled wine or hot chocolate with brandy and whipped cream is as good as ever (and particularly heavy-handed with the brandy this year, ideal in all this cold weather we've been having), and the hog roast stall is still doing a roaring (oinking?) trade, but the problem is that all the other stalls are selling the same stuff as well. There are the lovely steel clocks, one of which already sits proudly in my living room; the frankly bonkers hand puppets that so charmed my nephews a couple of years ago; the slightly over-priced but rather lovely amber jewellery - it's all here again, just as it was last year, and the year before, and the year before that. As I've already bought the choicest items in previous years, either for myself or my loved ones, the Markets are no longer the easy option for Christmas shopping that they once were - please can we have some new stalls?

As a social occasion, the Markets remain as irresistable as ever - just try to feel bah humbug when you're clutching a cup of mulled wine and listening to the brass band playing carols. But the stalls need an injection of new life... and that Father Christmas atop the Town Hall in Albert Square looks way too much like a big scary Zippy in a santa suit.

Morrissey Comes to Manchester

Hurrah - time to fill your pockets with gladioli and rush to the Manchester Apollo to book your tickets to see King Mozzer himself. The singer will be appearing on Friday 22 May and Saturday 23 May 2009 as part of his "Tour of Refusal" (nice to see he hasn't changed) and will no doubt be playing plenty of songs from the album "Years of Refusal" that will be released on 16 February.

Tickets are already on sale, priced at £32.50, and are available from the usual places online (try www.ticketmaster.co.uk) as well as by calling The Apollo on 0161 8321111.

Expect to see plenty of misty-eyed nostalgic folk of a certain age, wearing faded Meat is Murder t-shirts and burbling on about "back in the day".

Fat Loaf Restaurant Opens in Didsbury

Well yes, I know what you're thinking, if there's one thing Didsbury was needing it was another restaurant. Strictly speaking, though, this is a replacement restaurant, opening up on Didsbury Green in the old premises of the now defunct Didsbury Village Restaurant.

The Fat Loaf already has a couple of other restaurants: one in Altrincham and one in Ashton-on-Mersey, and has already attracted some loyal followers. The menu looks pretty tasty, with starters such as Bury Black Pudding with Old Spot sausage, wilted spinach,
poached hens egg and tarragon sauce (my husband appears to be getting his shoes on already) and mains including Slow Cooked English Lamb Shoulder with minted new potatoes, parsnips and lamb gravy (£11.50).

The prices look reasonable, with starters around £6 each and mains starting from less than a tenner, but is it different or special enough to stand out in a location already overcrowded with restaurants? Time will tell.

• Fat Loaf is at 846 Wilmslow Road
  Didsbury
  Manchester
  M20 2RN
  Tel: 0161 438 0319
  didsbury@thefatloaf.co.uk

Jade Garden Chinese Restaurant, Didsbury

Yes it was very cold last night, but being made of hardy stuff (and bolstered by the consumption of a bottle or two of red wine) we donned our gloves and scarves and made our way in to Didsbury to celebrate the visit of a friend up on a cultural visit from the South.

If there are quite a few of you, then one of the best places to eat in Didsbury is Jade Garden, as they are very accommodating and will give you the best table in the house - the big round one with a gigantic Lazy Susan in the middle. You can amuse yourself with this for some time, by spinning it at such a speed that your friends will simply watch helplessly as the food sails past them (note -some people will not find this funny).

The menu is slightly bewildering, as it seems to offer every kind of meat/fish/vegetable/sauce combination under the sun, so the safest (and easiest) option is to go for one of the banquets. Banquet D at £25 a head is our favourite - crispy duck with pancakes, then a generous platter of ribs, wantons, samosas, fish cakes, and sticky chicken skewers. At this point, you will have already eaten sufficiently, so ask for a break before the mains come - all are delicious but the fillet steak in cantonese sauce is the best, so make sure the waiter puts this one near you.

Whilst the food last night was as good as ever, one tiny gripe. The duck came with 12 pancakes. There were five of us. We asked for 3 more pancakes, which came a little grudgingly, and then appeared on the bill charged at an extra 60p. This seemed a little miserly, particularly as we had already spent plenty on food and wine, so we were equally childish and reduced our tip by sixty pence. Ha - that'll teach them.

• Jade Garden is at 743 Wilmslow Road, Didsbury M20 6RN, tel. 0161 4456979.
  

Outdoor Ice-Skating in central Manchester

For the last couple of years, an outdoor ice rink has appeared in Piccadilly Gardens, full of rosy cheeked souls bundled up against the cold as they burn off the calories from all those mince pies. This year sees a change of venue, as the rink has moved to Hardman Boulevard at Spinningfields, just off Deansgate, where it will remain until January 4th (I am idly wondering how long you have to skate to work off a box of Celebrations... a day?)

Early birds can take advantage of reduced rates - an hour's session costs just £5 if you go before November 28th, after which time the prices will go up to £8.50 an hour including skate hire. If you are not naturally gifted on ice, then a six week "learn to skate" course is offered from November 30th at £60 (£50 for under 13s). Anyone who feels that a 6 year course would still be insufficient to achieve proficiency, such as myself, will be staying well away.

Full details at www.spinningfieldsonline.com.

Two for One Cocktails at The Pitcher & Piano, Didsbury

To be fair, The Pitcher & Piano is not necessarily the first place you'd think to visit during a credit crunch. Many a time has my husband looked balefully at the moths escaping from his wallet as he is informed that, yes, that round of a couple of beers and a bottle of wine really does come to 25 quid. However, one thing the P & P does do well is weekday offers - the current deal is two cocktails for the price of one all evening from Sunday to Thursday. The cocktail list is pretty exciting, and as most cost around £5.50 it makes it eminently justifiable to have a couple under the 2-for-1 promotion....

Bridgewater Hall Christmas Concerts 2008

Hurrah - it's nearly that time of year again, when you can throw aside good taste and all feelings of cynicism for a few hours and sing along with Christmas songs played by an orchestra wearing furry reindeer antlers. Yes - it's Christmas Concert time at the usually genteel and refined Bridgewater Hall.

The first one to get excited about is White Christmas on Saturday 13th December, a concert promising a whole range of cheesy favourites such as Santa Baby and All I Want for Christmas is You (you KNOW you want the chance to sing along with these); the second highlight is the more traditional Christmas Gala on Wednesday 17th December, which this year is presented by Angela Rippon (one can only hope she throws in a few high kicks). Full details are available at the Bridgewater Hall website.

Anyone feeling reticent about entering into the spirit of these joyous evenings is best advised to visit the Christmas Market first and consume a large amount of mulled wine. Otherwise, stay at home and Bah Humbug to you.

Didsbury Beer Festival Nov 21st - 22nd 2008

At last! Not only is Didsbury having its very own beer festival, but the organisers have very kindly selected a venue a mere stone's throw from my house (as I write I am ignoring sound of husband pacing up and down awaiting start of festival). The event will run over two days - Fri 21st and Sat 22nd Nov - at St Catherine's Social Club on School Lane (LOVE the idea that St Catherine may be nodding in approval at all this) and has been generously sponsored by local businesses who have stumped up £100 each to become stakeholders in the festival.

If you are one of those fortunate souls who knocks off early on a Friday, the doors open at 6pm and will stay that way until you are forcibly ejected at 11pm, all for a measly £4. Hardened drinkers who can cope with beer during the day can partake of the festival between 12pm and 5pm on Saturday (£2), and the rest of us can go between 6pm and 11pm (£3). A limited range of food will be available to soak up all that beer (the organisers have sensibly gone for hotpot), and you can drink to musical accompaniment from Swingin' Affair, an Irish Pipe band, or the Cheesy Weasels depending on what day you go.

All the beers on offer will be local (furthest flung being from the Lake District) and there will also be a selection of ciders available: for a full list, visit the festival website.

Yang Sing is Britain's Best Chinese Restaurant

Congratulations to Manchester's Yang Sing, which has been declared the best Chinese restaurant in Britain at the Tsingtao Legacy of Taste competition. They beat off five other finalists, each representing a different region of the UK and originally selected through a public vote (does anybody remember this? I would have voted for Lotus takeaway if anyone had asked me my opinion).

The award is a presigious one, but may come as a surprise to Manchester residents as the increasingly widely held opinion locally seems to be that the Yang Sing is not quite as good as it used to be. Still, look out for the tourists posing for a photograph alongside the rickshaws that seem to be permanently cluttering the pavement outside the restaurant.

Restaurant Review: Azzurro, West Didsbury

Manchester is very well served for pretty much any type of restaurant you care to mention: Indian, Chinese, French, Turkish, Japanese, even English. The one thing lacking, to my mind, is traditional Italian, by which I mean poky little local places where the tablecloths are made from plastic printed with red gingham, and candles are stuck in fat-bottomed Chianti bottles wearing little grass skirts. The sort of place where you can get drunk on slightly rough red wine of dubious provenance, and eat an enormous calzone pizza for about six quid. If you know of any such place, please let me know immediately.

Meanwhile, I have had to make do with an altogether classier place: Azzurro, on Burton Road in West Didsbury. This is a clean, bright restaurant (no dingy corners here), with neat wooden tables and a simple menu, and a charming owner by the name of Emil. Continuing evidence that people are simply ignoring the credit crunch is that the place was full on a Thursday evening, so that poor Emil had little chance to chat, which he will do quite happily on a quiet night.

The pick of the starters are the mozzarella al forno - a huge ball of cheese wrapped in parma ham - and the chicken liver crostini - smooth pate served with hefty wedges of toast. There are always a couple of fresh fish specials on the blackboard - last night they were mussels in a tomato and garlic sauce, or grilled sardines. For mains, a range of pasta dishes is available: I would suggest the seafood linguine if you are fishy-minded, or if you are staunchly carnivorous then you can choose from several meat options including steak, chicken and wild boar stew.

None of this comes particularly cheap, with starters between £5 and £6, and main courses from around £14 and upwards. However, if you sign up to their mailing list you will receive special offers via e-mail, and can eat your meal smug in the knowledge that you are paying less for it than other, less-special customers!

• Azzurro is at 242 Burton Rd, West Didsbury, Manchester M20 2LW, tel. 0161 4480099, www.azzurrorestaurant.com