SOMETIMES you just have to scratch your head.
Emma in the office says she likes Fanta, "Because it doesn't give me a headache like coke."
You're in a restaurant and the ground's shifting treacherously under your feet and you don't know what to do because the menu contains something deeply odd.
You look at each other and ask, "Is it even legal to put that on a menu."
This happened in the Hotspot Ess Paradies German restaurant in Chorlton on Saturday.
But we're not talking roasted starling, spleen of owl, or some unspeakable part of an anteater.
We're talking the use of Fanta as an ingredient.
Yep Fanta, the original taste of E-numbers.
Emma in the office says she likes Fanta, "Because it doesn't give me a headache like coke".
We think she's referring to Coca Cola not cocaine, but either way that's a bit of a negative virtue.
In Hotspot Ess Paradies they've got a Fantakuchen as a standard pudding. This is described as 'Popular German cake made with Fanta'.
On sampling it's a very sweet pile of sweetness combined with some sweetness and some added sweetness on layers of sweetness just in case the dessert isn't sweet enough.
Yet unbelievable as it sounds, the cake mix that the yoghurty cream with its tinned peaches sits upon, does have a Fanta tang. Or maybe a Tango fant.
Either way there's a palpable taste of sickly orange drink present. And you know what, it makes the hugely weird £3.50 pudding taste better. Or at least different.
The Fantakuchen could be come a cult.
There could be Fantakuchen themed parties.
It could also make you sick.
But it is definitely weird - although Confidential hardly thinks it's a traditional German meal, since Fanta was invented at about twenty past three on 17 June, 1978, as a by-product of Toilet Duck.
And the favourite quote at the Confidential tasting of Fantakuchen?
The chef said to us, "Hey, I can add more Tango or less depending how you like it."
"To be honest mate," we said. "We hadn't thought of using it in cooking a cake."
Still it really is very weird food.
Hotspot Restaurant Ess Paradies is at 372 Barlow Moor Road,
Chorlton Cum Hardy, Manchester. M21 8AZ. 0161 881 6881.
Fanta-stic food
Tinned peaches, fork ghosts and soft drinks
