SleuthSleuth is a sideways glance at the city every week, it's the truth, but Sleuth's truth. He's several people all at once. We give £25 for every story/rumour and piece of absurdity you find for us to publish. Sleuth sometimes even gets serious. We ask for the money back if any legal action follows. Follow Sleuth on twitter @mcrsleuth
Red Arrives In Livebait
Livebait is dead, ribs are arriving - according to the rumours Sleuth's hearing. The handsome old shipping agent's property is going to host Red's True BBQ, a Leeds based operation, with a name that might not play so well with half of Manchester. Reds appears to be something akin to an Almost Famous from Leeds but broader. It does steaks, ribs, sandwiches, burgers and all manner of messy, sticky, gooey Americana very enthusiastically. The description for the gigantic Alleluia is: 'All steak, all good. Sliced brisket, pulled pork, melted Jack, dill pickle, salad, dirty sauce, American mustard. All stacked on a glazed artisan burger bun. With fries.' The Alleluia burger is bigger than France. Since we've started to bury burgers at Confidential it's good there's more choice in one of these restaruants - the suckling pig banquet sounds promising.
Livebait
The Solita Marketing Machine
Franco at Solita in the Northern Quarter is a one man marketing machine. He's now invented Lancashire Calamari, using tripe rather than squid. He's Youtubed it too, see below. Sleuth loves tripe, he loves eating it, he loves talking it. A bit like Franco.
Robinson's Jazzes Up
Traditional family brewery Robinsons, based in Stockport, is to spend £3.5m on 30 rundown 'community' pubs. Good thinks Sleuth, part of the reason pubs have closed in towns and suburbs, has been their shocking state of repair particularly in the loos. £3.5m should go a long way to improve the situation for the Robinson estate of boozers. Although in the city centre that amount of money stretches only as far as one new restaurant, Manchester House - the creation of which has cost more than £3m. Forget your 30 venues, we're talking fine dining. Great loos as well.
The Lounge at Manchester House's spic and span and strange toilets
Sleuth And Steamy Movies
Sleuth went to Stalybridge Buffet Bar on Wednesday. Charming place, great beers, decent wines, room after room of delight including a back room set for the sweetest Brief Encounter afternoon tea imaginable. The affable bar chap said to Sleuth, "Stick around and you can watch a black and white movie with the Laurel and Hardy club, or maybe come along tomorrow when we host Steamy Movies." The latter sounded a better bet, but then Sleuth twigged. "You mean movies about steam trains, don't you?"
Waiting room for steamy movies
The Correct Use Of Vulviform
Sleuth was at the launch of Simon Rogan's Mr Cooper's House & Garden on Thursday. It was the hot ticket of the evening - packed out. Adam O'Riordan, the Midland's poet in residence and general good egg was present and read his poem Oysters from his wonderful anthology In the Flesh. Uniquely in a Manchester restaurant opening he made use of the word 'vulviform'. The excellent Oysters is reproduced below.
Back from the fish market's opening exchanges,
We spill our cache across the kitchen table.
First we discard the dead, those that will not give
Or acquiese, hoarding pearls in hoods of flesh.
Knuckles flecked with ribbons of red, we attempt
To shuck those left, unversed in this undressing
Not knowing the balance of force and finessing.
Until you twist a blunt blade and the adductor severs
And light moves in the darkened chamber.
Naked on its bed of bone, you offer it; vulviform, raw, exposed
I swallow an ocean into silence and peristalsis
It hangs like a four letter in my gullet.
Sleuth's Slap On The Back Of The Week
Well done to the Midland Hotel for even having a poet in residence. Very enlightened. Somebody has to give the buggers a job.
Mr Cooper, Mr Brown, Mr Stripe, Mr Rogan, Mr Eel, Mr Pig
At Mr Coopers House & Garden Sleuth got talking to the chef of the moment Simon Rogan - see Good Food Guide story here. Simon told Sleuth how he'd fallen in love with Manchester when taking a walk around the city centre and nipping into a pub to find Stone Roses' frontman Ian Brown having a drink with all his mates. "Seemed such an exciting city," he said. "It is. D'ya want a drink?" asked Sleuth, a famously generous gent. "I'll have a Red Stripe," said Rogan. A couple of days later Sleuth was enjoying in Mr Cooper's one of the dishes of the year, the 'smoked eel torte, lovage and pork belly'. The finesse of the chef in producing this wonder didn't quite tally with his chosen tipple, Red Stripe, the White Lightening of the lager drinking classes.
Utterly beautiful food
The Dubious League of International Levitators
Sleuth is alarmed by the number of levitating people in the world. It's getting out of hand especially since they all appear to levitate using the right hand on a pole mechanism. Rome and Manchester levitation stunts are shown below. It's a job, guv. And a con, thinks Sleuth, the first amongst the kids to say, "Father Christmas isn't real, you know?"
Manchester levitation
Rome levitation
Sleuth's Astounding Wall Decoration Of The Week
Every seven days or so Sleuth is stopped in the street and asked by policemen, concierges, suckling pig chefs, Mr Cooper, Mr Brown, Mr Stripe, Mr Rogan, Mr Eel, Mr Pig, and all the people in the world who float several feet above the pavement: "Where in Manchester can I find a jewel-like interior inside a church that was painted in less than three months and thus makes me feel very surprised and delighted by its freshness and beauty and also the fact that nobody else knows it's there?"
"Why," says Sleuth. "What about the Ukranian church in Cheetham Hill, a sweet little chapel made remarkable twenty years ago when in three months Ukranian artists covered it in glorious decoration."
And to prove this he showed the policemen, concierges, suckling pig chefs, Mr Cooper, Mr Brown, Mr Stripe, Mr Rogan, Mr Eel, Mr Pig and all the people in the world who float several feet above the pavement, this picture.
Ukranian Church, Cheetham Hill
