The team choose their favourite dishes from September
Another month, another round of dishes that held our taste buds to ransom. The Manchester Confidential team share their favourite dishes from September.
Grilled mackerel with fennel and orange salad, Queens Bistro and Wine Bar, Liverpool (part of set price menu)
I’m starting to bore myself at this point - bistro this, bistro that, “just give me 3-3-3”.
I recently visited Queens Bistro and Wine Bar off Castle Street for the lunch and early evening set menu, an exercise in glorious simplicity.
Laid out in a 3-4-3 that would have Johan Cruyff snapping his fingers like a slam poetry crowd, I’d say this menu (changing often, very total football) covers everything you’d want in a lunch. And with two courses for £20 or three for £25, it’s about what you’d want to pay for it as well.
The options for main course were an exercise in setting the parameters of a good fixed price menu; cauliflower cheese steak for the veggies (it can also be made vegan), pork ragu for the self-indulgent, bavette steak with frites and additional chimichurri (£4) for those wanting the full bistro experience, and finally a dish that written down was just too enticing and exactly to my tastes; grilled mackerel with fennel and orange salad.
I love mackerel in all its forms, but perhaps because it makes such a fantastic pâté or can be peppered through salads and lighter dishes for a bit of ballast it’s sometimes not given the stage it deserves. Dover sole has somewhat hogged the limelight.
This fillet was well seasoned and grilled, and not a great deal more. It doesn’t really need too much embellishment and a good cook knows how to harness that simplicity, as was the case here. It was a fantastically put together dish and I tore through it with happy abandon. The fennel was softened sufficiently but still lent a slight aniseed crunch, the oranges were bright and juicy and the smattering of mint leaves added a welcome and unusual top note to the whole thing. Underneath, the parsley sauce was mopped up more than diligently.
David Adamson @davidadamson123
Chongqing Wanzho, Mr Hong’s, Faulkner Street, Chinatown (£24.80)
Mr Hong is apparently the favourite Chinese restaurant of some notable chefs in the city. Restaurant authority and general good egg Thom Hetherington pointed me to Skof’s Tom Barnes’s comments here about the restaurant. On my visit the best dish was the Chongqing Wanzho (£24.80). I chose this because it made me nostalgic. In 2014 I went on a press trip to Chongqing which is a vast sprawling metropolis at the confluence of the mighty Jailing and Yangtse rivers in south west China. This is the piece I wrote about a visit which was exhilarating, sobering and entertaining.
The Chongqing Wanzho roasted fish at Mr Hong’s was exhilarating and entertaining too. This rocket-hot broth hosts white fish which had been salted and then roasted and stewed with the other ingredients in its big sizzling bubbling metal bowl. There was everything chucked in there, potatoes, mushrooms of various descriptions, broad flat noodles, more noodles, herbs, spices, peppers, onions and fabulous lotus root with its satisfying snap. Taken together the dish really was the sum of its parts and a stunning food experience.
Jonathan Schofield @JonathSchofield
Malaysian curry with beef, Chamber 36, Berry Street, Liverpool (£13.50)
On a recent visit to Chamber 36 in Liverpool, I couldn't decide what to have from the main menu, so asked the lovely server for recommendations.
"The Malaysian curry," she said without missing a beat, describing it as "not spicy, more aromatic."
I was sold. Malaysian curry with beef it was.
Served with fried rice, the Malaysian curry was presented in a matching bowl with high sides to stop the rich, golden sauce sloshing over the top, with courgette, white onion, broccoli and slithers of beef perched on the surface.
The server was right. 'Aromatic' was definitely the word for this dish. You can tell the curry had been bubbling away all day, gradually gaining more and more flavour as the hours go by.
Melded with the fried rice the flavours were muted slightly, but only slightly, you still get that punch tickling your tastebuds each time you get a mouthful of the curry sauce. The beef was incredibly tender after simmering away for a while and practically melted on contact.
I dipped a piece of my salt and pepper chicken (£7.70) in the curry sauce and audibly mmm'ed - something I don't do lightly, or ever to be honest. Perhaps I'd gotten a little too comfortable in my own company. Sod it - this combo was mmm-worthy anyway.
Harley Young @Harley__Young
Grilled lamb ribs, coco beans and sheep's yoghurt, Erst, Ancoats (£24)
Coming from five generations of Butchers, my lot had the pic of the chilled cabinet when it came to Sunday lunch.
My favourite? No roasted ribs of beef, legs of lamb. Oh no. Slow roasted breast of lamb, a very unfashionable cut which more often than not was the last available on Saturday evening to take home as very few people knew how to cook it.
But my dad did. Well-seasoned, maybe some fresh rosemary and roasted. Crispy on the outside, in the middle the bones would just slip out leaving meat and fat for which the word unctuous was coined.
Lots of northern gravy, made from cabbage water. I know, trust me.
Last month I had a quick lunch with my pal Howard at the resiliently brilliant Erst in Ancoats, along with the wine-bothering Neurologist Jon Sussman.
The lamb dish arrived. Described as 'Grilled lamb ribs, coco beans and sheep's yoghurt' I instantly recognised the cut my Dad used to cook over 60 years ago. The ribs weren't as far south as a full breast of lamb, but the skin was the same crunchy crispy salty glorious experience delivered all those years ago. I dealt with the bones on behalf of my guests to help distribute the crunchy skin and the lush, fatty, banging with flavour meat to fairly (well nearly) distribute between the three of us.
Sat on a cassoulet-like stew of beans and gorgeousness that I once drooled over in a backstreet cafe in the foothills of The Pyrenees, and a big dollop of the yoghurt, the cooling acidity of which counteracted the fattiness of that glorious cut of lamb; My Old Man would have approved.
This is a hardcore dish that is immensely difficult to get right and Erst’s kitchen warriors have nailed it. I am warning you Will, take this off the menu and you will suffer consequences.
Mark Garner @gordomanchester
Yamato fillet steak with fried onion, Tampopo Albert Square (£19)
Who needs carbs when you have a side of deep-fried crispy onion? Tampopo has had a bit of menu revamp recently, and I fully approve. Normally I can’t help myself and I always end up ordering a Pad Thai when I go but this dish stood out like the north star in the clear night’s sky and it had to be ordered.
Naturally I love a good carb, and I couldn’t help but order some fries but obviously that was a ridiculous thing to do as quite frankly this dish didn’t need anything adding to it. The steak was cooked to medium rare, no need to hack through it, the knife went through like it would butter. It was seasoned well, not overpowered by garlic and no need to ask for salt and pepper. And then for the side star, a deep-fried crispy onion, oh the flavour and the crispiness was the perfect partner for the fillet steak, no need for those fries – even though they got hoovered up as well. I’ll never be one of those gym types who can say no to carbs.
Georgina Harrington Hague @georginahague
Fillet of Sea Bass, The Fisherman's Wife, Whitby (£23.95)
Gordo finally let me have a week's holiday, and after moving house, I need at least two years to find my passport, so Whitby presented a good destination. Restaurant offerings are largely limited to fish and chips, which is great, but you soon feel like you've been trying to digest a bowl of Captain Cook's cannon balls. Finding something lighter but made with the same pizzazz was high on my foodie itinerary.
The Fisherman's Wife is an absolute beaut of a restaurant with tables overlooking the sea and top-notch service; friendly and generously accepting of our slightly piddled second visit when I was brave enough to try something a tad more adventurous than cod and chips (I'm something of a seafood-a-phobe).
I enjoyed the meaty king scallops and sweet potato pomme purée starter, but my main dish filled me with the most joy; a background of heavy savoury flavour comes from the red pepper sauce and basil oil which balances its richness with the delicate and fresh sea bass. The silky-skinned new potatoes are a wholesome alternative to a daily prescription of starch-overload chips. All gobbled down too quickly with a bottle of lively Esk Valley Sauvignon Blanc. This was everything a great restaurant visit should be.
Martyn Pitchford @Pitch_Blend
The Bing, Bada Bing, Northern Quarter (£12.60)
Bada Bing is back! With big bites and bold beginnings, they are buzzing to be back. Beloved by many and bringing back bangin’ fan favourite hoagies to the block. (That was my attempt at using a shit tonne of B letters as possible).
Due to a scheduling clash, I couldn’t get down to Bada Bing for the opening. Each day I didn’t go I felt my jealousy rise, 'The Bing' sandwich is one of my all-time favourites and seeing people hold it aloft like a newborn baby hundreds of times over 72 hours was my undoing. I had to go the second I could.
The Bing consists of gabagool, pistachio mortadella, spicy salami, fennel salami, provolone, mayo, giardiniera and maybe some of the most underrated bread in Manchester. The Bing is weirdly nostalgic for me and reminds me of trying out something new with some work pals for the newly deemed 'Instagram reels’ in 2021. It tastes exactly how I remember and without adding too many superlatives, HOAGIE MOTHER OF GOD, The Bing was bang on.
Hayden Naughton
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