YEP it is everywhere. Brit-Americano.
Confidential understands that chickens were genetically modified in the battery farms of Chorley so they grew five wings on each side of their bodies because boy-oh-boy did people want lots of fried chicken wings piled in bowls.
If you stand in a Manchester street long enough with your mouth wide open someone will stuff a burger in it.
Not since goddam cup cakes has a food fashion invaded the British public's privacy so emphatically.
The burger breakthrough moment in Manchester came with Almost Famous Burgers about fifteen months ago.
The crazee, crazee boys there grabbed a burger, brioche-bunned it up, gooed and spiced it, and then rubbed it hard in the face of the trendies in the Northern Quarter
The trendies did not sneer. They paused, licked their smeared faces, then licked each others' smeared faces, and fell in love.
Pork scratchings in Dogbowl
Minutes later you couldn't move anywhere in the High Street/Thomas Street/Stevenson Square nexus for pulled pork, tacos and slaw.
Every single bar was creating a burger bonanza. There was probably a run on brioche buns. Mayonnaise stocks dipped nationally.
Confidential understands that chickens were genetically modified in the battery farms of Chorley so they grew five wings on each side of their bodies because boy-oh-boy did people want lots of fried chicken wings piled in bowls.
The weird and contrary thing about all this is that the slackers and opinion-formers in the Northern Quarter who usually profess hatred for the land of the free and the home of the brave proved their slavish adoration of everything Americana.
I reckon, if a bar were to provide wall to wall, twenty-four hour loops of Breaking Bad/Homeland/Dexter/Madmen (series 10,000 or whatever they're bloody on now) complete with mac'n'cheese, beef chilli and burgers (of course) then they'd clean up.
Fried wings - are they from Chorley farms?
Now we hear Byron, a stratospherically popular burger bar, is moving into the Deansgate space formerly occupied by the hapless, lacklustre and frankly dull Pesto.
Byron is London-based and maybe hasn't heard that nobody has been eating anything but burgers in Manchester for twelve months.
All this brings us to Dog Bowl and its nosh. Some bars aren't up to all the Americano pressure.
Functional but good for drip nosh
Dog Bowl, a bar, restaurant, and bowling alley, has an advantage because it's got a fine, fine chef.
This is Barry Gamble, formerly of Livebait. The Scot knows his menu and knows how to cook. When he says he'll slow-cook the pork then you know he'll do it right.
Gamble is Livebait's loss and Dogbowl's gain.
His DB burger for £15 is all you need to know about how to make a messy mountain of American-inspired food required Manchester eating - high fat, high cholesterol, high-protein, high, literally high, in terms of centimetres.
It comes in layers, like the geology of the Mojave desert, with 1lb of beef in the burger, a hill of pulled pork, stabilising beef brisket and a whole Piglet of smoked bacon.
A knife is skewered through this foodie still-life to make it stand. There are several onion rings tossed on top like a game of edible hoopla. The sauce and juices that pour from this delight leave the table awash with goo.
You might want to lick the table.
Of course, it's stupidly big as a burger but it's wonderfully right too, and emblematic of the quality Gamble's delivering in Dog Bowl, although some reports say he needs to make sure the other burgers are of the same standard.
That said, Gamble already delivers some of the best pork crackling (£3) around, complete with delightful spiced apple sauce, and an equally good bowl of excellent smoked nuts (£2) - home-smoked in Dog Bowl's hickory smoker, with almonds and peanuts, in something called ‘Bruce’s BBQ Rub’ too.
A quesadilla of southern shrimp for £4.95 shows Gamble can also do subtle but in this company the quesadilla was a bit boring. Fortunately tacos with pulled pork for £5.50 restored the more bullish virtues.
A Quesadilloh - as true Mancs call them
A pudding of churros, covered in chocolate and mountains of sugar, is special. Dentists would run a mile from this rotten wrong £4 Spanish dish of pure fat, but then they'd miss out on the type of candy floss experience delivered on sunny days in the fairgrounds of one's youth.
I love Blue Pig's churros on High Street in the Northern Quarter, I've got a Southern Quarter churros supplier now. That can make a man happy.
Churros
The only fail on the menu is the hot fudge sundae for £4.50; it looks dull and tastes dull. It simply isn't sweet enough, and all the flavours are a blur. Maybe the kitchen uses all the sugar up on the churros.
By the way the kids menu is a good deal; three courses and a drink at £6.50.
Everyday is like sundae
Dog Bowl is part of the Black Dog Bar staple of venues in Manchester. It has the best food of any of them. True, you have to be tolerant of the thwack of bowl into pin and the cheers of the gamesters.
But despite Byron's impending arrival, and the ubiquity of the burger in Manchester, Dog Bowl stands tall with DB burger. We're going to have to add that particular baby to our Best of Manchester Burgers list asap - click here.
Anyway beetroot, cupcakes, fro-yo, burgers...where next for food fashions?
PS. I'm feeling pleased with myself that I refused the urge to make any puns on Barry Gamble's surname. What were the odds of that?
You can follow Jonathan Schofield on Twitter here@JonathSchofield or connect via Google+
ALL SCORED CONFIDENTIAL REVIEWS ARE IMPARTIAL AND PAID FOR BY THE MAGAZINE.
Dog Bowl is at Whitworth Street West, 0161 228 2888.
Rating: 15.5/20
Food: 7.5/10 (DB 9, nuts 7.5, fried wings 7.5, crackling 7.5, quesadilla 6.5, churros 8, sundae 6.5, tacos 7.5)
Service: 4/5
Ambience: 4/5 (But you'll have to not mind the clack of the bowling balls)
