I JOINED the queue for the counter about a mile out, close to Salford Crescent and finally dined at dawn the following day. Katsouris, I concluded, is a very, very popular lunchtime destination. Perhaps the most popular in this area of the city centre for that combination of take-aways and stop-ins.
Customers at Katsouris can sidestep all the health food and diet fadism and stuff their faces with great gobfuls of hot meat sandwiches and piles of cream addled cakes.
There are three reasons why.
Starting to get busy, early doors
First off it offers something a little different, with far more meat. Instead of the usual array of soup/ sandwiches/ wraps/ fruit salads and yoghurts in Pret or Philpotts (even moreso in newcomer Wahu), customers at Katsouris sidestep all the health food and diet fadism and stuff their faces with great gobfuls of hot meat sandwiches and piles of cream addled cakes.
There are crazy paellas too (which aren't really paellas but have a passing resemblance to the famous Spanish dish) plus lots of lush desserts incuding baklava revealing the Greek origins of Katsouris (a company, incidentially which began on Bury Market several decades ago).
Then are a more straightforward pair of reasons to the popularity. The prices are low and the portions are huge.
Katsouris
I went for the paella (that isn't a paella) with onions some 'hot sauce' and a massive sliced French garlic sausage (£4.50) the old Benny Hill programme would have loved. There are several other varieties of sausage available from the deli counter for taking with your paella.
My-oh-my this was one hell of a plate of food. I couldn't finish it. Didn't get near finishing it. It was a belly bothering full-on gut groaner. Turned out I was a wimp, nearby people were sighing, patting their bellies and then wiping their mouths after completing the challenge.
The sausage was decent, the onions added more ballast, the rice was great but could have come from an Uncle Ben's sachet. The sauce was a strange goo which did a fine job of adding fire.
Do another four or five people want to help me with this?
I've been told this 'paella' is a superb hangover cure, carbohydrates and fatty things are always popular in that capacity and are invariably more diverting than alka seltzer, so, yeah, I'm prepared to believe that. But I'd say stick with the hot pork or lamb sandwich for the same price and size - you get better flavours.
A rumbaba dessert, a vast pastry, suffused with alcohol, and smothered in cream topped by a cherry for about £2, was another unfinishable product. This was as big as a softball and for those with the sweetest of sweet tooths.
Katsouris seems to be saying with all the food, forget the finesse, observe the scale, feel the width.
Do another five or six people want to help me with this?
On the way to the vast queue I'd met a friend who'd said, "I come here for the bread which they get from the Barbakan bakery in Chorlton. I can't eat anything like Warburtons."
It was a wonderfully bourgeois moment but I understood her completely and it underlines the deli nature of Katsouris, with the range of cold meats, cheeses, canned products, cakes and so on.
A proper deli too
By the way the handsome sandstone building that hosts Katsouris dates from 1876, although some of its fancy gables were blown off during WWII bombing. What makes it sort of distinctive is the cute statue of Queen Vic on the exterior.
She apparently loved a Katsouris beef sizzler (half £3, full £6).
"Prince Albert was always very kind and used to bring me a full beef sizzler at 1pm prompt every afternoon," she would remark.
Something like that.
As for service forget about smiles from the staff at busy lunch times. If you've ever been in a deli in New York with the staff snarling and shouting, this place matches that. The man who served me - and looked like the manager or supervisor - had either just received some very bad news or eaten a whole nest of wasps.
"Sparkling water, cabinet on your left, get it yourself. Who's next?"
It made me laugh.
You can follow Jonathan Schofield on Twitter @JonathSchofield or connect via Google+
ALL OUR SCORED FOOD REVIEWS ARE IMPARTIAL AND PAID FOR BY MANCHESTER CONFIDENTIAL. REVIEW VISITS ARE UNANNOUNCED AND COMPLETELY INDEPENDENT OF ANY COMMERICAL RELATIONSHIP.
Rating: 12/20
Food: 6/10 (paella 6, rumbaba 6 - marks awarded for scale and value)
Service: 2/5
Ambience: 4/5
Can you spot Victoria?
