THE DOCKYARD delivered me of the best Scotch Egg I've ever had and I'm partial to a Scotch Egg.
The Dockyard captures something of the feel of a pub rather than a bar, despite the scale. It delivers an excellent experience
The egg was fresh and sweet as a nut. The yolk ran like dawn breaking on a beautiful day. The sausage coating was staunch, vital, rugged, herby, seasoned by a sausage meat artist to deliver just the correct bite.
It came with HP sauce from the bottle. This was a good call. Why craft your own potentially bland thing when the familiarity of HP makes it more desirable? As welcome as favourite gloves on a cold day.
A tough, cleverly designed space
The Scotch Egg at The Dockyard summed up the virtues of this welcome new space in MediaCityUK.
The menu echoes the design aesthetic of big girders and massive timbers as though the building were a warehouse built for strength rather than, as it is on the exterior, a childlike 21st century office block. The internal design with its big mirrors and pictures of hefty chains and longshoreman paraphernalia works totally, although I'm never in favour of screens as big as the one here.
Dockyard's at the bottom of the overhanging building
Still, during one of my visits it was amusing to see Mad Men playing with the sound turned down. That tale of excess in the sixties ad industry provided background to an unwitting and unwatching audience of mainly BBC folk coming off shift.
The media and the ad industries are related of course, selling fantasy or at best, an interpretation of reality. Both professions are famous for their alcoholic consumption, a tradition we vigorously support at Confidential. From the activity at The Dockyard it's good to see the BBC with all its compliance regulations does too.
The Dockyard
Mediafolk make for good people watching. And good eavesdropping.
As I walked past a couple of middle-aged women, one said to the other, "He's past it now you know, been on too long, everyone thinks we need to let him go."
I racked my brains about who they could be talking about then realised Match of the Day was filmed in MediaCity. Was the woman talking about Gary Lineker? Or maybe Brucie was for the chop from Strictly? About time for both of them.
Pies are the thing
Back to the food.
The pies are a big feature in The Dockyard and come in at the excellent price of £6.95 including potatoes, peas and gravy. I've had the lobby pie of corned beef, onion and potato and the three bean diablo chilli pie. The lobby slaughtered the diablo with a filling that was magnificent in its own right but better when doused in gravy. The diablo had no devil at all and needs more heat, it was dull.
The smooth and creamy mash that came with both was as perfect as the Scotch egg. The gravy was rich and meatily aromatic. The pastry, despite the diablo filling, was skilfully assembled, with just the right forgiving texture when hit by the gravy.
A rhubarb crumble (£2.95) was a splendid thing when combined with the little pot of double cream. It had that welcome honesty of homemade food. Loved it.
Excellent rhubarb crumble but not good-looking
None of the food looks good. Like lamb curry, pies are as easy to photograph as cowpats.
The management probably don't care.
The theme is the tough dockyard and this carries over into the appearance of the food. The concept's been taken too far with the enamelled tin plates. The knives and folks slide into the food too easily.
I'm of the opinion that plates like taps, should be restricted to one design on Planet Earth. I'm certain that if uniformity of tap and plate design could be achieved we would pass into a Golden Age free of war and conflict where the peoples of the world would know exactly how to negotiate sink hardware and be liberated from the anxiety of watching fork handles smooch lovingly into gravy.
The bar
But plates aside The Dockyard is a superb addition to The Quays area generally and MediaCityUK specifically.
It's what the place has been waiting for. Before The Dockyard the post-work and lunchtime drinking areas were the dreary bars of the Holiday Inn, the Lowry and the lacklustre Lime Bar.
They felt forced, this feels right.
The Dockyard captures the atmosphere of a pub rather than a bar, despite the scale. It delivers an excellent experience with the cracking ales (I had a lovely Maverick ale from Brightside in Radcliffe), the strong bin-end range of wines and the properly sincere pub menu.
Oh and a single female friend said after her visit she reckoned it also delivered a better quality of potential date material with all those BBC bods. Thought you might want to know. I like to spread the love. Who knows, you might even snag Brucie or Gary on their leaving bash?
Remarkably good value but very simple menu
And finally:
Why is a Scotch Egg called a Scotch Egg?
Best place to keep your eggsI've asked lots of Scots about this while also asking every Scot I know whether they're in favour of independence. The answers have gone "I don't know" and "no" in that order every time. So I looked up the origin of the name in the textbooks.
According to Alan Davidson's fine Penguin Companion to Food the origin is unclear but could possibly be 'a descendant of a form of Indian kofta'. Apparently the oldest reference comes in a book by Meg Dods (1826) 'where it is being eaten hot with gravy'.
One odd suggestion is that Scots used to keep the tasty morsels in their sporrans. An old slang term for testicles is 'eggs' and thus due to proximity with that part of the man's body and the sporran the Scotch egg got its title.
Of course that might be a load of bollocks.
You can follow Jonathan Schofield on Twitter @JonathSchofield or connect via Google+
ALL SCORED CONFIDENTIAL REVIEWS ARE IMPARTIAL AND PAID FOR BY THE MAGAZINE.
The Dockyard, MediaCityUK, Salford, M50 2EQ. 0161 359 3848
Food: 7/10 (lobby pie 7.5, chilli pie 5, Scotch egg 8.5, rhubarb crumble 7.5)
Service: 3/5
Ambience: 4/5 (best just after work when all the media are in)
