Saturday 8 June 2013

Byron hamburgers, Waterloo


This mouth won't wait for no photo.

Unfortunately, this isn't a post about the brand spanking new Byron hamburgers in Manchester city centre, but it is a post about Byron hamburgers on the Cut in Waterloo! A trip to London for bank holiday weekend saw a total of three burgers consumed, a feat I have not achieved since living above GBK for near on a year (OH, I miss those days).

Sitting on the sunny Southbank, drinking a bottle of Veuve my clever friend spotted in a local offy mispriced at £15.99, saw us very quickly in need of some grub. I remembered there's a supposedly decent gastropub nearby in the shape of the Anchor & Hope, but sadly found it closed. Lo and behold: Byron hamburgers sat directly opposite.

I've been to Byron before and happily found this visit as pleasant as the last. The interior is bright, the service speedy and friendly, and the food pretty damn good. I'd been to Meat Market the same weekend, and whilst I thoroughly enjoyed my double patties, I was secretly quite pleased to find a more refined affair. I can never resist a burger with cheese and bacon (as the bite mark in my photos evidences), and this one was as delicious as usual!

Burger, open. (2013) Please note: this image is due for submission in the Turner Prize 2014.

Possibly my favourite thing about Byron burgers is the MASSIVE gherkin that accompanies them beef things (saying burger over and over is getting repetitive). The piece of pickled cucumber you see before you is actually only 1/20th of the entire thing*. Immense. I think the burger was probably slightly more cooked than I would have eaten at home, but it was actually so tasty - slathered in mature Cheddar and bacon - that I didn't really notice. (Oh, and the booze again might have had something to do with it...)

Chips innit.
Skin on chips are usually a delight, and these were no exception. My friend and I shared a portion along with our burgers, and if your tummy has been filled with bubbles prior to eating, I'd say this is plenty. However if you're more of a Big Ma(n)c kinda guy or gal, then you might want a portion to yourself.

Not to forget this delightful bottle of house red, named on their list as "good" (the wines range from good to best, so the one we had was essentially their worst). At £14.95, it may be a little pricier than some expect for a burger joint, but it went down a treat. Having shared this bottle with just one friend, I'd perhaps recommend others don't: 375ml is quite a lot to consume with just a burger for company, and it resulted in me nearly missing my train back up north... The online menu suggests a great selection of bottled beers, which is music to my ears. Next time, I'll skip the overwhelming amount of red juice and opt for a Kernel instead.

The Byron I visited is located on the Cut, so it's a perfect spot for pre or post-theatre dining if you're visiting the Old (or Young!) Vic, and it's also handily located within walking distance of Waterloo - bypass the overpriced Upper Crust and get yourself a real meal if you've got time to kill round here.

I know Byron may not be as cool or trendy as some burger bars, and is probably a tad overpriced when you factor in fancy toppings like er, spicy BBQ sauce at £1.25, and chips at £3.25, but I like this place: I can visit Byron and enjoy a burger in a grown-up environment, without worrying about the sexist undertones of the menu. I also hear their milkshakes are winners (must work on increasing stomach capacity), if feeling adult ain't always your thing.

I'm yet to visit the new Byron site in Manchester, and sincerely hope I won't be disappointed. From reading Bacon on the Beech's write-up, it sounds like I'm safe. Phew!

*Note: this may be a slight exaggeration. I was suffering from cheap champagne induced sunstroke at the time.

Byron
41-45 The Cut
London SE1 8LF
020 7633 9882

Byrons on Urbanspoon

Thursday 6 June 2013

Brunch Club Recipe no. 1 - Earl-Grey Smoked Salmon

Smoking - best done outside

Whenever I read a piece about smoking foods, someone's always quick to evoke the addictive nature of this 'foodie' pursuit. They'll say things like: "you'll want to smoke everything, even the dog food"; "I can't leave for work without my smoking gun"; "Tarquin's only three but smoked hummus is already his favourite food". So is it all it's cracked up to be? 

 

Joking aside, it's a good idea to speculate whether it's worth making certain foodstuffs at home, and this applies equally to home-smoked goods. Several items at our Brunch Club have reached such pricey highs in the supermarket that we rarely buy them, preferring to make our own. Take granola for instance: oats, dried fruits, nuts and seeds, mixed together and toasted for more than a Bhutanese family spends on a weekly shop. The cons of making things yourself are usually time- and equipment-related; the pros are you have a better understanding of what's gone into your food and can produce a product that suits you. With our earl grey smoked salmon you get the added benefit of saving a shed-load of money.

Let's take a similar product as a comparison: Heston from Waitrose Lapsang Souchong Tea Smoked Salmon which sells for £4.99 per 100g. I went to Out of The Blue (preferred fishmonger alert!), purchased a side of salmon at roughly £9, cured it and smoked it, ending up with enough salmon to feed 8 people and plenty leftover to fit snugly into several cream-cheese filled bagels. (This said with the caveat that I purchased a smoking gun to facilitate the whole process; but if you can see yourself eating a lot of smoked food, then it's a worthwhile investment and a very fun toy.) Regarding the smoking, I found several recipes which state simply "light the tea leaves" or recommend heating in a wok until smoking. From experience, the former is actually rather tricky to do and produces very little smoke, as anyone who's ever tried to light a cigarette without drawing on it will testify; the latter is prone to filling your house with smoke, never mind the sucking power (ooh,er) of your extractor fan. And burning earl grey is particularly acrid, believe me.

So some sort of dedicated smoking device (a tin or a gun are the cheapest options) will stop your house stinking like Waynetta Slob's ashtray. (The aforementioned problems might be to do with tea so if anyone's got a reliable tea-smoking method do let us know). I don't want to get into the logistics of smoking here as I'm going to assume if you've got a tin or smoking gun then you've read the instructions. If not I'd recommend a blowtorch to get those pesky tea leaves to burst into flames. What I will say is that there are a lot of variations when it comes to curing and smoking times; and my advice is not to obsess about it. The longer the salmon is in contact with the curing mix the drier it will become; with the smoke, the smokier it becomes. Simple. Curing with a 2:1 salt to sugar ratio for 16 hours and smoking for three half-hour periods with fresh smoke gave us a very palatable product. Tea smoke is more subtle than the traditional oak so the salmon can probably take a little more.


Earl Grey Smoked Salmon


1 Side of salmon (approx. 900g)

Cure:
250g salt
125g granulated sugar
A few sprigs of dill, roughly chopped
Leaves from 1 earl grey teabag

For smoking:
Leaves from 2 earl grey teabags

1. Mix salt, sugar and dill together; and moisten the tea leaves with a little water.
2. Cut salmon in two if too large to fit in any container you own.
3. Spread a thin layer of curing mix on the bottom of a container.
4. Place the salmon skin-side down and cover with the moistened tea leaves then the remaining cure (spread less cure on the thinner tail-end areas to prevent over-salting).
5. Cover and place in fridge for 16 hours.
6. Rinse off cure and leave salmon uncovered in the fridge to dry for a couple of hours.
7. To smoke, place salmon on a cooling rack above a bowl of ice inside a large seal-able container (see picture).
8. Use your preferred method to light the tea leaves. Get a decent amount of smoke in the container then seal. Do this outside if possible!
9. Let smoke for half an hour then repeat.
10. Store covered in fridge and slice when ready to eat.

Notes:
- If you're going to the effort of smoking your own salmon then you might as well buy a side as it's more time efficient and the salmon will keep well
- If you do, however, buy a smaller piece just mix up less cure

The finished product

Tuesday 28 May 2013

Apotheca, Northern Quarter

Salted Caramel & Orange Rum Old Fashioned

It hardly seems a day goes by when a new bar hasn't just opened or a pop-up hasn't launched in the once-trendy, now over-saturated area of the Northern Quarter. Don't get me wrong: there's still lots of places I like in the area, it's just that I prefer not to have to wait in a queue of twenty-five people to get into a bar that used to be a lot less pretentious.

We recently reviewed Apotheca on Thomas Street for the website Social and Cocktail - and fortunately found out it's something of a pretence-free haven. To find out more about what we drank and thought, read our review here.

Sunday 26 May 2013

Brunch Club, Sunday 2 June

Pecan and salted-caramel rolls, croissants, and chorizo and courgette gruyere muffins

Sunday mornings should be about relaxing and eating. Well, we think so anyway... which is why we're giving up ours on June 2nd to make sure you can kick back and stuff yourself silly on a (posh!) buffet style spread of all the best breakfast items.

Near enough everything will be homemade, from the flaky, buttery croissants, to the Sourdough bread and the butter to go on top! There'll be sweet and savoury alike with chorizo and courgette muffins, and salted caramel pecan rolls. Not to mention our very own home-smoked salmon with the most decadent scrambled eggs.

For the full menu and to book your place go to Eventbrite.

Monday 13 May 2013

3twentyone: smokehouse, serving the best onion rings in Manchester

Best retrospective restaurant order ever made.

I've finally realised the purpose for writing this blog: to tell readers where to go for the best onion rings in Manchester. Not to downplay the other virtues of the newly opened smokehouse, 3twentyone, but damn, they were some good onion rings. We nearly didn't try them: when ordering, I told Jamie to stop being such a fattie and make do with chips. However, when he later spied them on a neighbouring table, he couldn't resist and quickly added them on to the order. Possibly the best move he's made in our entire relationship. Wonderfully crisp specimens, we managed to devour the lot of 'em, save a Siamese pair, which Jamie decided should be worn as goggles. Lottie Moore has the evidence (bet she was glad she shared a table with this unsophisticated pair!).

So 3twentyone officially opened to the public today, but we were lucky enough to visit on their soft opening, receiving a fantastic and complimentary meal. I cheekily e-mailed them when I saw a tweet asking for opening night visitors; they didn't know we wrote a food blog (unless they did an internet stalk) so we had intended to go for a night out, without thinking about what we'd write later. Turns out, the meal warranted a write-up because other people definitely need to know about this joint.

It would only have been appropriate to have cocktails in a 'joint' like this.

And it does have a feel of a "joint": the staff are suited and booted in 1930s style uniforms, with braces and all. The deep mahogany of the furniture, jazz tunes and beautiful back bar feel a world apart from the Deansgate pub, which is situated beneath the restaurant. It does make for an interesting experience when having to shimmy between a large group of football lovers when in need of a trip to the loo, but it hardly hinders the experience.

We started with cocktails: for Jamie, a sweet Manhattan, and I opted for the 3twentyone signature Martini. I just saw the words 'gin' and 'elderflower cordial' and was sold on those grounds, stupidly not realising it was going to basically be a gin martini. Despite Jamie suggesting it smelt like lime cordial, it was the first gin-no-juice-Martini drink I've managed to finish, so I say hats off to them! Top notch glassware too.

Rather fancy chicken wings, them.

To start, I really wanted the boneless, smoked chicken wings. Unfortunately, as Jamie is 'king of the wing' in our house, he got first dibs. I was bloody jealous when I tasted them too: the flavour was divine. My only disappointment being that they were boneless... sucking chicken juices off one's fingers is half the fun (oo er).

Excuse the shoddy photo quality here!

Instead, I opted for Mr. Holden's Manchester Egg. Not usually a fan of black pudding, the stuff here was bloody gorgeous, not cheap or 'gritty' tasting at all. I was slightly disappointed that the yolk was overcooked, but this was easily forgiven (because I was staring so hard at Jamie's wings).

He didn't look happy about being eaten.

You don't usually see a choice of four different kinds of fish on a 'smokehouse' menu. Some may say that it would be foolish to choose one of them when meat is clearly the speciality here, but I bloody love fish, and the idea of it cooked on a smoker style barbecue had me sold. It was incredibly tender, stuffed with dill and shredded fennel. It was served whole, but we were also informed that it could be served filleted if desired, perfect! They also offer salmon, mackerel and swordfish. We had balsamic roasted candy beetroots which were pretty tasty, and 'twice-cooked chips' to accompany our mains; the latter were average: maybe they'd been sat on the pass for a while. I hope they're usually better as you gotta have great chips with steak!

This was gone in about twenty seconds.

Jamie went for the rib-eye, medium rare. I'll assume he enjoyed this as his usually chivalrous self made a dash for the nearest exit (fortunately located nearby) and he neglected to offer me a taste until he was down to his last mouthful! He later tells me that it was slightly overdone, but this obviously didn't hinder his experience at the time. There's a selection of sauces to choose from at an additional charge (£1.25) and J opted for the chimichurri. Jamie later managed to make room for a blueberry cheesecake, which was also gone in seconds. Jesus, that boy can eat.

Looking at the menu I'm already planning a return trip (on my own, so I can have the chicken wings all to myself with a side of onion rings). They have a great selection of steaks including ones at lower price points (both the flat iron and hanger are just £11.95), and the burgers are all under a tenner. They're not doing anything crazy or particularly different, but they're doing 'normal' rather well, in my opinion.

The interior is quite swanky for a restaurant above a pub, and they also have a gorgeous looking roof terrace. Our waitress was brilliant, and even Jamie admits that it was amongst the best service we've had in Manchester. All that, and it was only opening night? I've worked an opening night in a restaurant before, and it didn't bloody go like that! If that's how things have started at 3twentyone, then I'm looking forward to seeing more of them very soon.

3twentyone (up the stairs in the Deansgate pub),
321 Deansgate, Manchester

3TwentyOne on Urbanspoon

Thursday 9 May 2013

Italia, Manchester

Business is booming

It's a gloriously sunny Wednesday evening in Manchester city centre. The unexpected rays have sent the populace into a booze-fuelled frenzy (yours truly included) and everywhere with an inch of outside seating is rammed. Lurching from one over-capacity establishment to the next, we eventually stumble half-cut into an almost deserted Italia. To a soundtrack of Blink 182, we are seated by an authentic-sounding waiter, complete with 'ragazzi' and 'ciao'. So far so swings and roundabouts. Looking past the empty tables, I spy a trio of chefs staring out from the pass, visibly willing us to order pronto just to have something to do. The boredom is palpable; the atmosphere is slim to none; and as Mark Hoppus chimes in with "What's my age again?", I think "Shit! What have we let ourselves in for?"

When it came to writing this review, I took out my notepad to find that I'd only written one 'sentence' consisting of two acronyms: 'AC/DC WTF?' A helpful reminder that the conversation mainly revolved around the mind-boggling music choices. Driving down the highway (to hell) in a convertible and an Angus Young guitar solo would be just the ticket; in a quiet Italian restaurant, not so much. And pop-punk from the early noughties? Maybe at 42nd Street. I can only assume the playlist was dreamt up by the alarmingly young staff members; it felt as though the boss had gone off to sun himself and left the kids in charge. Italian kids with a penchant for rock.

Wine will save us. The waiter recommends a Chianti Classico from the specials board. I'm on a bit of a Chianti trip at the moment (thanks Dr. Lecter) so take his advice to save any faffing around. It hardly seems worth mentioning at this point that service is quick (I think there are five other diners) but it is also friendly without the machismo that you get at San Carlo, where I feel less like I'm being waited on and more like I've walked into mating season at the zoo, where the gorillas have just revolted, got hold of some suits and then decided to make some (delicious) pasta. Long-winded metaphor, I know. Anyway, the wine is a great example of a Chianti - bone-dry with plenty of acidity and ripe fruit flavour. Things are looking up.

Nduja pizza

And when the food arrives my worries are laid to rest. My dining companions are hungry so we order a starter of polpette (pork meatballs in a rich tomato sauce) to see us 'til mains. Yielding, moist, and flavourful, they fit the 'just like your mama used to make' bill; if only we were Italian. Anticipation for the main courses is now anxiously high. I fancy a pizza and opt for the 'Nduja' with spicy Calabrian sausage and peppers while the others go for pasta in the shape of Arrabiata and the seafood linguine (calamari, shrimp, tuna?!) special. The pizza is easily one of the best in Manchester and a must if you want to eschew the chains. The pasta dishes were confirmed to be nearly as good - though mussels would certainly have worked better than tuna in the special - and, considering the dishes were all around £10, the portion sizes are generous.

Sated and pleased with the food, the initial misgivings are far from my mind. The food at Italia has had its plaudits and rightly so (even though the influential Franco Sotgiu has since parted ways with the business) but they really do need to sort that music out. Maybe Bacon on the Beech can give them some tips.

Italia,
40-42 Deansgate
Manchester
0161 834 1541

Italia on Urbanspoon

Tuesday 7 May 2013

Dog Bowl, Manchester



Jamie and I were recently invited to enjoy lunch, drinks and a game of bowling at Black Dog's new venture, Dogbowl. I've always been a fan of Black Dog's late night burgers & deep fried gherkins, so was keen to find out whether the bowling alley's grub would be up to standard in the middle of the day. Given that we were booked in for 2pm on a Wednesday, the venue was hardly booming and it certainly lacked atmosphere, although I imagine this is easily rectified once evening falls and beers - and bowls - are sunk.


Having read good things about the quesadillas from Bacon On the Beech, we opted for the veggie version with onions, potatoes and peppers to start, as well as some of their BBQ Shrimps from the little plates section. When these arrived, we started to worry. Up 'til now, the service had been of the hipster calibre (see Good Gobble's description for background reading), and these 'starters' weren't doing much for us. Though the portion humungous, the tortillas were a little bland; I really felt they would have benefitted from a dollop of salsa or guacamole on the side. Perhaps we should have gone for one of the meat options, though as these are the 'base' recipe, I would have expected them to be decent. I'm also not sure what was 'BBQ' about the shrimps, but all we could taste was ginger - perhaps our palates were fooling us, but these weren't particularly good.


Feeling altogether uncomfortable with our awkward/hipster/hungover service and average food, we concentrated on our drinks, which at least, were better. I'd opted for a Mint Julep (bourbon, crushed ice, mint & sugar), and Jamie for a Maple Bourbon Smash (essentially bourbon & orange). Heady stuff for a Wednesday lunchtime, but it felt in fitting with the heavily American menu.


On to the mains and Jamie decided to go out-and-out gross with a Sloppy Joe. We've all heard of these on American sitcoms and shows set in high schools, though up 'til now, I'd never actually seen one. Fortunately, it was light on the 'slop', and was actually pretty tasty: served on Texas Toast (essentially extra thick white bread), the chucked beef 'chilli' was a little on the sweet side, but when eaten with the smoked brisket and beef gravy, it was all pretty good. Excellent chips too!


I've been meaning to make short ribs for a while, but have been lazy about sourcing them, as they don't seem to be an item available in most butchers (probably just because they're actually called something different over here - still trying to work out what that is!), so when I saw them on the menu, I ploughed straight for it. One huge rib, tenderly cooked and dry smoked in the house rub, this was one tasty beast. It came with both chilli and blue cheese sauces, though I would have just preferred more of the gravy that was dripping off the top of it - that was tasty. With fries as well, I struggled to finish this, but it was a tasty main.



Barely able to move after consuming all that food, we managed to burn (almost no) calories with a game of bowling. It'd been bloody ages since I'd last switched my loafers for a pair of bowling shoes, but sipping on a Tijuana Sling (tequila, cassis, ginger ale), I felt as confident as my 12 year old self when the bumpers were first taken off. By the end of the game, I realised not playing for 10 years doesn't result in improvement - though I did manage a strike - and Jamie had me beat by thirty points! The lady on the bowling desk was lovely and a great improvement on our waitress whilst dining. I should add that whilst she was by no means rude, she just wasn't very friendly and I've had much better service elsewhere. Overall, I'm sure many people will visit Dogbowl and have a great time with their mates, nipping in to the restaurant as an add-on to their bowling night out. Certainly, when I compare the Wimpy in the bowling alley I went to as a kid, the food here is much better (though I did love their spicy bean burgers), I just wouldn't recommend making a trip to the restaurant without a game of bowling planned.

Oh, and just in case it wasn't clear, this whole thing was a freebie, but I think it's pretty obvious that we haven't been paid to be nice, just honest!

Dogbowl
57 Whitworth Street
Manchester, M1 5WW
0161 228 2888


Dog Bowl on Urbanspoon