Food Roundup Wk 25: New Almost Famous, New Steak Restaurant, Nice Pics

Confidentials 21 June 2013

Huts, Grass, Food And Almost Famous On The Move

Beachclub from the Almost Famous boys and girls is open now in the open air theatre space at Great Northern Square. You'll find jolly beach huts providing a 'Mexican-American-fusion-happening' including burgers, shrimp (prawn) and beach-style cocktails plus loads of interesting sweet things. It all looks very pretty down there, let's hope for sunshine, floppy hats and frolics. And rude poems - see the bottom pic on this page.

Beachclub

Menu on a shack

Sweet Nothings

Meanwhile above Beachclub the Rekorderlig cider and perry bar is another weekend 'happening' in a series of huts - there's a garden centre somewhere doing very well. Rekorderlig is a Swedish product that's trying to do a 'Magners' and become something in the world of drinking for younger festival groovers. Shame then it is so sickeningly sweet, indeed it tastes like boiled sweets. Good look to Rekorderlig but at least one of the variants could have been a bit more masculine and dryer perhaps.

Rekorderlig

Crowed And On Top Of The World

Jamie Jones from Manchester has been ‘crowed’ (sic) the ‘world's best gin bartender’ after winning a global competition in France. Jamie is a bartender with The Liquorists in Manchester and carried the field becoming the G'Vine Gin Connoisseur 2013 at the annual Gin Connoisseur Program in Cognac, France. Good lad. Not sure what he had to do to achieve this but it sounds grand enough. Jamie was up against opposition from Cloud 9 in Melbourne, Quinary in Hong Kong and something called Cut by Wolfgang Puck in hazy Singapore. The talented Mr Jones also took first place in the hotly contested Cocktail & Spirit challenge.

Red Meat But No Red Wine

Rump’n’Ribs is now open on Oxford Street close to St Peter’s Square. The menu is shown below. All the steaks are halal from Aberdeen Anguses (or is that Aberdeen Angii?). There is no alcohol though and no bring your own policy. Steak and no booze. Wow. Interesting concept that flies in the face of received wisdom. Good luck to them.

'Manchester's premier halal steakhouse' - as opposed to all the others

Spanner Tightens Up The Kitchen At RBG

Great news this. Dave Spanner, ex-chef of Livebait and a man who not so long ago brought magnificently cultured food to the menu of the Lloyd Street fish restaurant is back in the city centre. He’s now leading the kitchen at the Restaurant Bar and Grill. Aussie Spanner is an interesting character who’s cooked all over the world and even on water when he headed up kitchens on luxury liners. Restaurant Bar and Grill are lucky to have him, he may well bring the kitchen a huge reputation.

Dave Spanner formerly of Livebait is now on the tools at Restaurant Bar and Grill

One Year Old And Going Strong

The Violet Hour in West Didsbury on Burton Road, of course, is celebrating its first birthday this week. To mark the event they’re launching a new cocktail and food menu. You can check out what the Violet Hour is planning here.

Chorlton Beans Get In The Spirit

Salon de Kahlúa, which took up a residency on NQ's High Street to promote the Mexican liquour is turning up in Chorlton as part of the suburb's Coffee Festival from 28-29 June next week. This is an initiative from Manchester's mixology wizards The Liquorists and Teacup on Thomas Street. The Salon de Kahlúa will take over the garden at Morley Cheek’s on Barlow Moor Road where the Liquorists will be crafting a range of exclusive coffee themed cocktails.

The Liquorists' Massimo Zitti whips up a coffee cocktail

Surprise, It's A 'Street Food Market'

The ‘Street Food Market’ at Piccadilly Gardens has launched. It will take place every Thursday, Friday, Saturday from 1pm-3pm. Little confusing this. Wasn’t there a food market there already? Anyway, according to the promo, ‘street food has taken-off around the UK and is currently undergoing a renaissance across Manchester’. This is rubbish of course, there’s always been street food, it’s just been given a new lease of life through marketing. Anyway if you can see through the ludicrous title then you’ll finds over 15 stalls selling food from around the globe including Middle Eastern wraps, dim sum, chow mein noodles, Italian pasta, ostrich burgers and African cuisine. Love this: ‘The launch of the market will also see the introduction of a loyalty card scheme providing regular visitors with their tenth lunch for free’. Ah yes very authentic, very ‘street food’, you see those loyalty cards all the time in the bazaars of the East.

Olive Oil In The House Of God

MY oleaginous colleague Neil Sowerby switched his attention from wine to olive oil this week. The extra virgin was flowing free at Gorton Monastery at a two-day olive oil conference featuring many of Italy’s finest producers, Neil can now tell his grassy Sicilian from his peppery Tuscan with his eyes closed.

One of the North West’s Michelin-starred chefs, Nigel Haworth of Northcote Manor did the cookery demo, proving you can make a risotto from cauliflower rather than rice and that peaches in olive oil can be a dessert. The conference was organised and hosted by Maurizio Bocchi from another Ribble Valley restaurant, La Locanda in Gisburn.

Major hiccup (apart from those induced by the no-spitting policy when tasting the oil) was the clash with Robbie Williams at the Arena, resulting in city centre hotels being block-booked. Still there is a God and the Italian visitors were eventually found far-flung lodgings.

Jesus Oilmighty

Nigel Haworth hits the bottle

Tartare And Offal And Italians

Excellent Northern Quarter bar and grill restaurant, Solita, is also celebrating its first birthday with the launch of its basement as a dining area and a new summer menu featuring: ‘DIY tartare, offal, seafood aplenty and dirty butter, a surprising range of salads and even something for vegetarians’. The name of the restaurant by the way is derived from its location 'South of Little Italy' because, you see, Ancoats was formerly the home of a thriving Italian community. Of course the title has nothing to do with the New York area with the same moniker.

Solita beer boiled shrimp (prawn) with dirty butter

Nice Pics Catch The Food Writer's Eye

A note to other restaurants and bars here. For their press release above, Solita provided us with drop dead gorgeous pics. So they have all been included. It’d be lovely if others could follow their example.