'DID you know', said the chatty menu at Podium, 'that Beetham Tower is visible from ten English counties on a clear day, and that it is exactly 168.87m tall and has 47 floors.'
I did know the second set of facts as it happened, but ten counties?
There was also the issue of Iain Dowie, ex-Oldham Athletic manager, looking right over my shoulder and telling me the Everton v Hull score.
I counted them: Greater Manchester, Lancashire, West Yorkshire, Derbyshire, Staffordshire, Cheshire, Merseyside. That's seven counties. I can't believe you can see it from Shropshire, and you definitely can't see it from Cumbria or South Yorkshire. Maybe they mean Flintshire or Denbighshire, but they're in Wales and not in England and that still only makes nine.
Of course I don't like to be a pedant - I bloody love it.
Beetham Tower visible from lots of counties and Old Trafford
Counting counties took my mind off the menu pricing system - plus the person I was with loves me reeling off administrative districts on my fingers.
The pricing system is one course £17, two £22, three £27. Fair enough as long as you don't want a starter, but then the apparently logical system breaks down because you have to pay extra for sides, £3.95 a shot, and loads extra for anything from the grill, £12 more for a mixed grill for example.
So say you went for a starter, a mixed grill, a side and a dessert you'd not be paying the heavily promoted £27 at the top of the menu but £27+£3.95+£12. In other words £42.95. Wow. Oh and sauces are another £1.75, so that'd be £44.70.
That wasn't the only problem at Podium.
There was also the issue of Iain Dowie, ex-Oldham Athletic manager, looking over my shoulder and telling me the Everton v Hull score.
Podium - too much Iain Dowie
There's a projection as big as a house over the bar at Podium that dominates the restaurant. It's visible from eight English counties and one Welsh one. Strangely enough nobody was watching Iain Dowie and chums as they mouthed the football scores. It was on in the background, an irritant, people kept glancing up at it and forgetting to converse.
Running a restaurant where a meal for one without drinks costs up to £50 and putting a massive TV in the room is plain wrong. You don't go out for a TV dinner.
As for the food it was fine, not sing-it-from-the-rooftops but very good in places.
The butternut ravioli with sage cream and toasted pinenuts was lovely, good textures, cracking cream but not enough. There was only one ravioli - or should that be one raviolo. Mean.
The trio of fish was decent too. Mackerel pate, smoked salmon, cream cheese, smoked haddock, with the latter the best, all delicate textures within strong flavours.
Podium - Trio Of Fish
The pan roasted cod with clam and mussel broth, kale and Parmentier potatoes promised so much but the cod had been overdone and that overshadowed the evident talent in the clam and mussel broth. In fact the dish was chaotic rather than cohesive with too much going on. If the cod had flaked as it should then that might not have been underlined.
The steak was best, cooked medium rare as requested, chips excellent, onion rings just as good, great Bearnaise sauce. Nothing wrong with this but also nothing particularly special. Then again a properly timed steak is a properly timed steak and a comfort in a cold world.
Podium - Steak Winner
The stuffed apple with almond crust and lemon curd was a clumsy dish. The almond crust looking like termites had built a nest on the apple, although when the apple was reached it was beautiful. The lemon curd was odd and didn't fit the dish.
Wine, Aussie Chardonnay and a Rioja, brightened the meal, but there was a strange lifelessness to the whole experience. The room doesn't help with this. I like the design from a purist point of view, very sharp, very Modernist, but the scale of the space overwhelms any atmosphere that might build. Maybe that's why Iain Dowie and his big face had been invited along.
Restaurant, bar and big projection
When David Gale was chef at Deansgate Hilton a year or so ago, the menu had flair, it made going for dinner an occasion, not any more. I feel the present chef could be so much better, you can tell there's real quality there, but he needs to be unleashed and that bloody massive projection should be re-positioned urgently.
You can follow Jonathan Schofield on Twitter @JonathSchofield or connect via Google+
All scored reviews are unannounced, impartial, paid for by Confidential and completely independent of any commerical relationship.
Rating: 12.5/20
Food: 7/10 (ravioli 7.5, trio of fish 7, cod 6.5, steak 7.5, stuffed apple 6.5)
Service: 3.5/5
Ambience: 2/5
