EN ROUTE to the Expo Lounge, the dread of my first Expo dining experience hit me, hard.
We washed it all down with a bottle of the fizzy stuff to toast Expo's first birthday, quite an achievement on Didsbury's Wilmslow Road, which has seen off a good number of operators recently.
Two weeks after it opened I'd dropped in for a hotdog. For months after I'd jolt awake in bed, screaming sausage horrors in a puddle of brine sweat.
But these flashbacks were alleviated last week the minute I walked through the door and a glass of bubbly was thrust in my direction. Peter, the new General Manager, was the one doing the thrusting, and whisked us away to the only available table in the bustling room
A plethora of tapas followed, not only centred around Spanish nibbles but a variety of small dishes with big flavours, three cold, three hot and two big baskets of ciabatta.
Expo Lounge
Honey glazed pulled pork with sweet five spice, slow cooked chorizo in red wine and some patatas bravas thrown in for good measure. The cold dishes were a match, edamame in sweet chilli and soy, a rich, oily homemade hummus dusted with paprika and a trio of chicken teriyaki skewers in sesame and mirin dressing - great for dipping.
This was just a small slice of the tapas menu, priced very fairly at £3.50 each or £9.25 for three dishes with a glass of vino.
We washed it all down with a bottle of the fizzy stuff to toast Expo's first birthday, quite an achievement on Didsbury's Wilmslow Road, which has seen off a good number of operators recently.
Good feeding delivered by attentive front of housers. Perhaps I can put the night time sausage horrors to bed.
Follow @LottieMorre on twitter.
Expo Lounge, 766 Wilmslow Road, Didsbury, Manchester, M20 2DR
