A Good Square Deal: Albert's Chop House Lunch

Confidentials 11 May 2016

MANCHESTER's Chop Houses should be about certainty in food. They shouldn''t be about fancy French flourishes but about robust, flavour-filled British blockbusters.

Corn beef hash, dripping, bacon chop, treacle tart.... John Bull would be proud

Albert Square Chop House is now offering an Express Lunch from Monday to Friday at two courses for £13.95 and three at £17.95. The menu is full of classics and comes in threes; three starters, three mains, three desserts.

This is also a very generous lunchtime offering in terms of the clock. You can chew on the deal anytime between noon and 6pm. An added bonus is the location. The building hosting Albert Square Chop House is one of Manchester's finest, the Memorial Hall by Thomas Worthington from 1866 designed in the glorious Venetian Gothic style.

A Manchester classic

The dining room

A cracking starter is the corned beef hash cake. This is crowned by a soft and gloriously timed poached egg and comes with home made brown sauce. The three elements work together well, with the egg breaking into the corned beef to add rich variety to the tastebuds. Get this with the beef dripping and bread and you're on to a real winner. The dripping is delicious, making the bread lubricious with meaty flavour.

The spring ham hock and spinach salad is lighter of course, but the pickled ham and grain mustard dressing add vigour and appeal.

Corned beef hash

Delicious dripping

The ham hock salad

The grilled bacon chop is the top dog in the mains.

The fine sturdy nature of the 6oz pork is bolstered by cabbage, peas and potatoes. Subtlety and extra flavour comes in the form of a fine mustard cream sauce. The Albert's burger comes second to the bacon chop but is a filler too with its bowl of excellent chips and premium British mince.

A treacle tart to finish is a dandy way to round off the meal. There's custard with this. The rice pudding makes for another good choice especially when a dollop of mixed berry jam is mixed in.

Just look at the words on this page, corn beef hash, dripping, bacon chop, treacle tart.... John Bull would be proud. He would be full too. Go get stuck in and forget thoughts of a measly Pret a Manger noodle salad.