"SO why the name?" I say.
Man Bites Frog as a name suits a venue for which the usually irritating and over-used epithet 'quirky' seems to have been manufactured
"There's the movie, Man Bites Dog, so we thought we'd call it Man Bites Frog because the menu is French-based," came the reply.
"Are there frogs legs on the menu?"
"No."
"Ah."
"But we are a bit French."
Naming venues is always a fraught business. The ultimate give-up in creativity was the naming of the John Dalton Street rendezvous Restaurant Bar and Grill in the early noughties. That's the extreme of calling a spade a spade, at the other end of the spectrum we have inexplicable names. This week Grafene opens which refers to graphene, the world's thinnest material, for which Manchester-based scientists won a couple of Nobel prizes. And whilst they appear to have done a decent job turning round the old Brasserie Blanc site, it's unlikely the name will bear any relation to the food, unless of course the menu is sponsored by Weightwatchers.
In some ways Man Bites Frog, as a name, suits a venue for which the usually irritating and over-used epithet 'quirky' seems to have been manufactured. The service is keen but frenetic with waiter and barman jumping into the kitchen to help out when required. The interior is bric-a-brac central with a mish and a mash thrown in. There is a table football machine on which I beat my son 9-8 (or was it the other way round)?
The food was good. Some excellent 'Mad Green' olives (£3) started us off along with properly goaty Chevre cheese, hot crostinis, all peppery and herby. Leaves and tomatoes accompanied the crostinis to decorative effect more than anything else.
Then it was pots all round for mains. This is the Man Bites Frog signature. We had the rabbit bourguignon with wild mushrooms and Malbec (£11), chicken potage with smoked bacon, mustard and white wine (£9), sausage ragout with Comte cheese (£9), black eyed beans, chickpea and vegetable tabikah (£7).
They were all very good value and all attractive collations, if samey. It was a bit like being in a Gallic Tampopo where you couldn't order anything other than ramen. Nothing much wrong with any of them though and this solution works well for a tiny kithcen.
Chicken potMine was the best I reckon, but then Oliver thought his was, so it was a battle between a chicken and a rabbit, which in nature only rarely happens. Both were distinguished by entertaining flavours bunched up together in a lovely pot with a handsome lid and delivered decent amounts of meat. A comte cheese sprinkled on the top added a flavour boost. Ralph was disappointed with the amount of sausage in his ragout but otherwise approved, and the lady of the evening craved more spice in the tabikah, but thought the mix of ingredients heartwarming on a fresh July evening.
A house red worked well enough at £5.20 for 220ml but the Mount Mosaic (£3.60) beer from Great Heck Brewery in Yorkshire was bitter beyond balance for my tastebuds. I love one of the beer gurus notes online about this beer: 'Big mango/apricot & mosaic rubbed sage aroma; taste is very mosaic, herby & sagey, v light malt backbone; long herby mosaic finish'. To which one can only say, 'eh?' Or 'fuck off'.
Man Bite Frog fits into Chorlton-cum-Hardy's homely platter of neighbourhood restaurants seamlessly. Not sure anybody would cross the city especially for a visit, but if you find Chorltonistas taking you there for nosh and drink then you won't come away too disappointed and your wallet will applaud.
Man Bites Frog, 378 Barlow Moor Road, Manchester M21 8AZ. Tel: 07984590778
Rating: 12.5/20
Food: 6.5/10 (olives 7, crostini 7, chicken pot 7, rabbit pot 6.5, sausage pot 6, tabikah pot 6.5)
Atmosphere: 3/5
Service: 3/5
A bit of mish and a bit of mash
Chevre crostinis
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