RUMP’n’Ribs has one of the best locations in Manchester.
The recently opened steakhouse has a vast potential customer base. There's the horde of people passing down Oxford Street towards the station and the universities, and the horde of people passing up Oxford Street into St Peter’s Square with its tram station and the main city centre beyond.
Despite this, when we visited Rump'n'Ribs it was mostly empty.
This was a dream cut, helped along by my choice of a bizarre but not unpleasant chilli sauce in a side dish, and a really very good garlic mushroom collation
Not that it didn’t attract lots of punters. That foxy, saucy, name, Rump’n’Ribs was proving irresistible.
Rump'n'Ribs
Couples and groups rushed in excitedly, yearning for steaks, faces flushed expectantly. Then something remarkable happened. They sat down, spoke with the waiter or waitress for a shade under 43 seconds, stood up and hurried out, wearing the inane grins of the genuinely surprised.
They all had an alcohol problem.
The problem being there was no alcohol.
Rump’n’Ribs might slap and tickle with its title but it’s not budging on its alcohol ban. It won’t even let you bring a bottle of your own stuff. Alcohol is the devil and we ain’t getting in. Get thee behind me Sir Gin.
So alongside the trumpeted Aberdeen Angus prime steaks there’s a choice of coke, diet coke, sprite, water and sparkling water. Grim.
The reason for the literal lack of spirit if not spirituality is religion. Islam has a prohibition on booze: a prohibition not observed particularly well by the restaurant management in Rusholme and the 'Curry Mile' which encourages punters to consume every week a whole Carlsberg brewery of cooking lager. And then some. Alcohol after all usually makes up a large part of a restaurant's profit margin.
At Rump'n'Ribs the alcohol ban is complete, so a reviewer with a grog blossom nose has to lump it. In compensation a reviewer gets the steaks. And they're excellent.
Fillet - a cut above
The steaks are dry aged Aberdeen Angus numbers. Dry aging is great for quality fatty marbled meats, letting, as decomposition sets in, the minerals to morph and swirl and the meat to be flooded with rich flavours, tenderising it at the same time.
The 9oz £21 fillet came perfectly medium rare as requested and cut beautifully. The flavours were full and the texture was buttery - see the main picture at the top of the page. This was a dream cut, helped along by my choice of a bizarre but not unpleasant hot chilli sauce (£1) in a side dish, and a really very good garlic mushroom collation.
The description on the menu said the fillet was 'matured and cut by a traditional specialist'. That's the way I like my steak specialists.
A couple of sides of chips were shocking though.
They were horrible oven chips whiffing of McCain's and tasting like the end of hope and the retreat of reason - I was probably missing the wine when I wrote that analogy in my notes. Rump'n'Ribs needs to sort those horrors out.
A 10oz sirloin at £18 also requested medium rare, was apparently excellent too. I say apparently because my dining companion wolfed it down. "Hungry," he said, paused, filled his mouth and then said, "not any more."
A salmon at £12.50 was tangy in a lemon and butter sauce. It was all right rather than good. The same goes for the grilled prawn starter (£6) which came in the same anonymous sauce. Maybe the traditional specialist had been off the day the sauce for the prawns had been made and the shy specialist was in.
The decor of the place is functional livened by the repeated red logo and big windows. The service was scatty rather than efficient, but the waitress, after she'd been reminded to smile by the manager, eventually came through and was attentive.
Salmon in a sauce of sorts
Back to Halal food. Meat in particular. This being a steakhouse focuses attention on the abattoir more than say a classic curryhouse would.
We’ve already mentioned Rump’n’Ribs on several food and drink roundup articles on Confidential. Some people have written in to complain about Halal food saying things like ‘don’t give this cruel process of slaughter airtime’.
The idea of that bright knife applied to the neck of the unstunned beast - the Halal method after a prayer has been said - offends many who belive the principle of stunning before killing seems more humane. Kosher meat is also slaughtered with the knife applied to the neck of the conscious beast.
Where did all the sirloin go?
Having read into the subject I personally can't see how animals will be less afraid before the moment they are stunned and then killed, than before the moment they are killed outright.
The issue of pain following the incision and before death is another point of criticism but again conclusions are varied. To my mind a death is a death and as long as the treatment has been as good as humanely possible up to the termination of consciousness, then both methods seem valid. Inspection is the key to ensuring correct processes are pursued in all abattoirs.
Of course the thing about Halal and Kosher is that adherents to those food regulations believe their actions are God's work, whereas government regulations about stunning beasts in non-ritual British abbatoirs are the Food Standards Agency's work.
This compromise is part of what makes the country such a rich and modern culture: a mutli-layered place where secularist and religionist can rub shoulders together. Rump’n’Ribs with its saucily inappropriate lap-dancing club name is part of what makes Britain such a decent place - decent as in aspiring to tolerance, as in allowing people the opportunity to develop how they want, as in the correct application of a flexible rule of law that moves with the times rather than being as inflexible as a dogma written down in ancient books.
That rule of law and its flexibility means that we accept, if conducted hygienically, both the State's notion of slaughter and that of Halal and Kosher. That's the sensible pluralist path to pursue, the exciting one, giving variety to culture, avoiding conflict. Indeed for secularists, an eternal truth might be that while a person may vehemently disagree with another's beliefs, as long as the latter are conducted within the rule of the law, then they should be defended.
Rump'n'Ribs' adds to the Manchester variety. Despite the loss of income with the alcohol free status it will probably pick up lots of custom from people who from conviction will avoid the demon drink.
The steaks are high, the chips are down
It needs to expand the drinks range though, there are excellent non-alcoholic cocktails out there, there's lassi, and juices too. The restricted range at present is silly and unimaginative, austere. Meanwhile the menu needs bolstering with a couple more starters and cuts of meat.
Smoak, Gaucho, The Grills do a broader range of steaks and crucially for me, I can also get booze there as well.
I'm pleased Rump'n'Ribs has opened.
I'm pleased it has the confidence to feel it can prosper in such a prominent and presumably expensive location without alcohol. Still I miss partnering a fillet steak with a rich Burgundy as heavy as Marie Antoinette's jewellery box so I'll most likely be taking my custom elsewhere. But that's all part of this nation's happy pluralism. We make our choice and spend where we please.
You can follow Jonathan Schofield on Twitter@JonathSchofield or connect via Google+
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Rump'n'Ribs, 1-2 Peter House, Oxford Street, Manchester, M1 5AN. 0161 228 2284
Rating: 13/20
Food: 7/10 (Prawns 6, Salmon 6.5, Fillet 8, Sirloin 8, mushrooms 7, chips 5)
Service: 3/5
Ambience: 3/5
Prawns with the shy specialist's sauce
