The Unpronounceables At Damson.
To Damson, Media City, where Gordo’s pal and arguably the best sommelier in the North West, George Bergier, is overseeing the final black tie dinner for the, wait for it... La Confrerie Saint – Vincent et des Desciples de la Chante Flute Preux de Manchester. Don’t ask. Basically, it’s a society that bigs up Burgundy wines. Its been going for nearly forty years and the guys over here are all retiring.
Two wines were shown, a Mercury White, Domaine Faively Clos Rochette and a red, Domain Faively again, La Framboisière. Both were fab. Damson's Executive Chef Simon Stanley and the team delivered an outstanding four-course dinner, with an absolute star: a strawberry Pavlova with vanilla ice cream and strawberry sorbet. Matched with J.M. Gremillet Champagne Brut Rose, it sang wonderful things to Gordo.
The meringues were a delight, all chewy on the inside, as they should be. So many kitchens get them mortally wrong by overcooking them to powdered dust.
The night didn't end with such success. Gordo, instead of heading back home to Manchester from MediaCityUK, managed to get on the wrong tram to Eccles. Twenty minutes turned into an hour and a half. "What the Eccles!" Gordo bellowed to an empty tram station.
George Bergier Telling Lies
Melting Meringue
Twitter Fun
Whilst fuming on the tram, one of Gordo’s twitter followers, Nat, sends a message of condolence: “trams take forever… zzzz,” she said.
Gordo, checking her account, was gobsmacked to see that she had sent a staggering 63,000 tweets. Gordo replies: “I am concerned about you doing 63,000 tweets.”
Nat replies, with a one fingered emoticon: “*shocked face* I’m what’s known as a ‘comper’, AKA a geek who enters loads of competitions, hence the amount of tweets”.
Gordo whipped out his calculator. That's over 20 tweets every single day since Twitter was launched eight years ago. Wow. Gordo put back his calculator and realised he'd missed his bloody stop again.
Kate 'The Peach' Leech
Lobsters And The RBG Balcony
The Restaurant Bar and Grill’s balcony is doing great business. Every now and then, the Gaffer, Stephen Walker, comes back from the South of France and issues edicts. Gordo wants him to issue one to expand Piccolinos in Albert Square.
In the meantime, the Fat One sat down to tuck into the Lobster on said terrace, with Kate ‘The Peach’ Leech. The Lobster was a cracker, moist, melting and all tingly. With the sun out, there are few places in the city that can better RBG's terrace for an all round experience.
Franco ‘Nosy’ Sotgiu supplied them with an Inka grill a few months ago. The chefs have at least unlearned everything Nosy taught them and the steaks coming out are absolutely spot on. Keep it up team.
RBG Terrace Lobster
Marmite Bacon At Levenshulme Market
These guys came on as advertisers a couple of months ago, so Gordo was asked to go down and do a bit of tweeting. He’s since become addicted to the market. There are a number of truly fantastic food stalls there; Gordo can recommend Bobby’s Bangers for one. He started off with a few slices of streaky bacon and sausages, moving onto marmite bacon. Which is bloody fantastic.
The coup de grâce was four sausage rolls, unbaked. Gordo took them home meaning to eat one and freeze the other three. He polished them all off within 24 hours. They were fantastic.
Another favourite is Su Lee, who produces prawn, pork or duck spring rolls to her family’s secret recipe. They freeze really well, buy a few.
Robinson’s Bakers are on site, always a good bet, especially the Eccles cakes. Gordo’s mum Maureen is something of an expert in these matters and has stated that they are even better than the M&S version. Praise indeed.
Finally comes the cheese man. He has a never-ending supply of Montgomery cheddar, to Gordo, one of the very best producers. His homemade butter is class as well.
Get your arse down to Levenshulme next Saturday morning. If you spot Gordo, he may well buy you a drink. After he's finished his ninth sausage roll.
Sausage Roll - Greggs Go Weep
Hope For The Curry Mile
Confidential only promotes people they would spend their own money with. Four restaurants on the Curry Mile have been rejected by Confidential in the past six months alone, ranging from reasons of poor cooking standards to poor cleanliness. So it was with a big yawn that Gordo was asked by the sales team to go and try a newly opened Curry Mile restaurant, Ziya.
Opposite the only restaurant that Gordo rates on the strip, Mughli, operated by Twitter botherer Has, Ziya has been a long time opening. This is due mainly to the owner who suffers badly from OCD. Roy Crossley is your man, who’s day job is Gaffer of a long distance haulage company specialising in the Far East.
He knows his stuff.
The first thing Roy did, after introducing Gordo to his Chef, Mr. Khan, was to take him to the toilets. Ooer. Roy is inordinately proud of them. They are immaculate. Then Gordo was taken through the kitchens and down into the storage rooms. Again, immaculate.
Gordo was impressed, but not half as impressed as he was with Chef Khan’s tuck. It’s blinding. Gordo authorised the advertising account after just one Mushroom Pakora. Gordo then took his companion, The Scot, unannounced the following Saturday to see if it had all been a dream. It was great. There's a few pictures here, it’s a definite Gordo Go.
Ziya Lamb Khorma
Pakora By Ziya
Rice Pudding And Mango By Ziya
Best Steak In Town.
After the BBC's Restaurant Wars on the TV, you could be forgiven for overlooking Simon Rogan’s second restaurant at the Midland Hotel, Mr. Coopers House and Garden. It has a great bar, and three separate themes to the restaurant, Gordo’s favourite being the leather booth area.
The key thing is the food, superb quality Rogan dishes, but far more accessible; very much of the starter/main course/pudding format. The point of this note is to say ‘go and eat the steak’. A Rib eye, with a ‘truffle bread and butter pudding’ along with a fabulously sticky, unctuous gravy.
Go. Now.
Rib Catches Gordo's Eye
Aldo Zilli's Fish Kiss.
Aldo Zilli Seduction Master ClassAldo Zilli, Gordo’s drinking buddy and formidable Italian TV chef and newspaper columnist, is at the Ideal Home Show at MediaCity this weekend (6-8 June). He came up to San Carlo a couple of weeks ago to buy the media a drink and show them how to make a pizza, which, of course, Gordo excels at.
If you want to see him at the show (sexy Aldo, not porky Gordo), click here, he's doing master-classes. But don’t let him kiss you. Gordo discovered he likes it too much.
M&S Cheese On Toast
Gordo came across his 'Best Shop-Bought Food Product' for awhile, 'Posh Cheese on Toast’ at M&S. OOOOOooooooh, this is good.
Get yourself some nearly stale white bread, toast it, spread with Lurpack, then smother the posh cheese spread all over and pop under the grill for two minutes, BOOOOOM. If you’re dead hard, spread marmite after the butter and before the cheese mixture. Lea and Perrins doesn’t go amiss either.
Sexy Cheese On Toast
Best Chips
It’s a bit of a moving feast this one, but up on the roof of Manchester House, the home of Restaurant Wars star Aiden Byrne, the bar snacks are prepared by the team cooking their bums off downstairs to try and win a Michelin star.
Gordo fell in drunk one afternoon and decided to try a burger. Good burger; but the thick cut chips haven’t been bettered this year. Phwoar.
Best Chips
Simon Rogan’s Fera At Claridges
A long, long time ago, before bloggers became ultra-beings who know everything, Gordo was staying at Claridges. He was full of himself having re-printed The Sunday Times Complete Cookbook, clocking up over 100,000 hardback sales. Gordo had earned himself a fortune, leading to Gordo’s first publishing business.
Therefore, a suite at Claridges was the order of the day.
Fattie (very fat then at 21 stone) was bowled over when a butler appeared and put coal on the fire, lit it, took Gordo’s suit away and reappeared twenty minutes later asking if Gordo needed help dressing. Gordo refused, mouth wide open.
He returned a few weeks ago as the guest of Simon Rogan for the opening of the magic chef’s new restaurant, Fera. Another great occasion.
Fera is special. Several top courses were woofed down followed by a pub crawl for the rest of the afternoon with Thom Hetherington and Lottie Moore as we waited for the train cheap seats. A couple of the dishes are shown here somewhere. It’s another Gordo Go.
Raw Beef
Herdwick Hoggett
Best Pudding
Gordo took Les Sharrocks to the delightful family-run French restaurant, 63 degrees, on Church Street in the Northern Quarter. You, dear reader, should not let the likes of The French, Manchester House and Michael Caines blind you from this little star. The rest of the table concurred; this is up there with the very best in the city.
There is a chocolate pudding that comes as a hollow, spherical ball. Eric Le Chef comes out with it, places it in front of you, then pours hot chocolate sauce on top which melts the roof of the sphere to reveal little balls full of nectar inside.
Tissues, anyone?
Pudding - It's Going...
...It's Gone
Happy Trails,
Gordo
