Katsouris Deli and Café, 113 Deansgate, Manchester, M3 2BQ

The intense sunshine rendered Manchester completely unrecognisable. Tired and hungry after an active morning exploring the shiny MediaCity and The Lowry, and then enjoying a drink in the courtyard of Mr Thomas’ Chophouse, our stomachs were rumbling and we were in need of sustenance. Quickly.

I was still in the midst of my temporary vegetarianism, and beginning to get a bit fed up at the limitations this was imposing. We tried a high street sandwich chain, but the shelves were disappointingly empty given that it was far past lunchtime.

This turned out to be a blessing in disguise. Lee had a plan. With his trademark quick pace he decisively led us to Katsouris, which was a feast for the senses. The busy café had delicious looking food everywhere! Everything smelt so good and immediately we were overwhelmed with choice. There were carvery options, a huge salad bar, extensive boards detailing exotic sandwiches and behind the counter were a whole selection of sweet treats and cheeses. It was amazing!

Unsurprisingly this deli is a Manchester institution. It is close to Lee’s heart, having originated from the World famous Bury Market. The building looked grand on Manchester’s busy Deansgate, but the interior was functional. Normally huge queues snake around the large room, but here our lateness proved a real advantage as the queues were small and tables were not too hard to find.

It was the perfect place to take a grumpy reluctant vegetarian. Whilst the others went for hot meaty sandwiches (heeding the warnings that “a half is not small” and therefore spending only a couple of quid each), I splashed out on a Vegetarian Meze Platter for a princely £4.95.

I was rewarded with the largest plate of food that I have seen in a very long time. All my favourites were on there: grilled halloumi, Greek salad, spicy couscous, spicy pepperdews (my absolute favourite), stuffed vine leaves, hummus, tzatziki, mediterranean vegetables, sundried tomatoes, and olives. Vegetarian heaven! I couldn’t believe my luck, and hoped that I’d have space for it all, when suddenly there was the extra bonus of warm ciabatta added to my already heaving plate.

Needless to say, every item was full of flavour and tasted authentically fantastic. The value for money was astounding and the variety made me feel joyful.

I now wish I lived in Manchester. Katsouris absolutely made my day.

The Charles Dickens, 160 Union Street, Southwark, SE1 0LH

The Charles Dickens on Union Street is an unpretentious and unassuming real ale pub in central London.  It was the ideal place for a beer and bite before going to see Dr Faustus at Shakespeare’s Globe.

Whilst super close to the Tate Modern, it was tucked away from crowds, and pleasantly quiet when we arrived.  It was a warm afternoon, so discovering the small outdoor area at the back was particularly great.

The choice and quality of the beers was very good (a lemon beer being a particular highlight for D), which is to be expected given that we’d found the pub in the CAMRA Good Beer Guide.

Being a former English Lit student, I was admittedly a bit snobby about the quality and authenticity of the Dickens’ memorabilia.   But, this was saved by the food.  With all the meat provided from nearby Smithfield, the very simple British pub food, was totally in keeping with the atmosphere and feel of the pub.

Huge pie, throughly enjoyed by D's Dad

Fantastic chips with my chicken (above), and D's steak, (below)

Very reasonably priced with large portions, and fantastic quality, everything was good.   Service wasn’t always as attentive as it could have been, but it was friendly and little touches such as condiments being bought without us needing to ask, were definite plus points.  

If I had to mention a negative it would be the lack of dessert menu. 

Even with the Dickensian theme, this didn’t appear to be a pub that pandered to tourists, avoiding the prices and pretensions of most places in Central London.  Would certainly visit again!

Cake Glorious Cake! (The Beeches Cafe, Burnham Beeches).

I love cake perhaps more than I love anything else...

This interest stems perhaps from my student days in Durham, where truly awe-inspiring mammoth cakes of infinite variety were served up in giant slabs at Cafe Continental, and where cosy Wednesday afternoons disappeared a haze of tea and cakes in Vennel's.  Cake always succeeded in soothing our (constantly hungry) souls when faced with night after night of seriously disappointing College Food.

There's no time I crave tea and cake more than Sunday late afternoons (almost exactly from the point at which all shops close, making cake difficult to procure, especially when my baking skills leave a great deal to be desired).

But, I no longer need to worry!  I have found a place!  A place that can give me a glorious cake fix, as late as 6pm on a Sunday!

It's hard not to like Burnham Beeches (especially when you live as close to it as I do).  Despite being owned by the ominous sounding 'Corporation of London' it's really lovely woodland area.  Visiting late on a sunny Sunday afternoon, you can have the place mostly to yourself (and a few squirrels and the odd bunny rabbit in clearings that would make amazing picnic spots). 

But really, the main reason to visit, is for the Beeches Cafe.  Whilst Sharon's extolled the pleasures to be found in their flapjack, on each visit, I've been unable to pay any attention to anything but the small variety of ever changing, wonderful looking home made cakes!  On the last visit Coffee and Walnut cake ruled supreme - this visit the choice was between an elegant iced cake, a sumptuously sticky looking tower of zesty lemon cakes, or, the choice I finally made of the carrot cake beauty below.

It was everything you could desire from a cake.  Moist and light.  Lovely nutty texture.  Icing that was the perfect balance between sweet and tangy.  Blissful, and bargainous at only £1.90 for each generous slice.

The cafe itself serves from a hut in the centre of an open grassy area with outdoor seating - perfect for catching the late afternoon sun.

Highly recommended!

Chez Marianne, 2 Rue des Hospitalières Saint-Gervais, 75004 Paris

As a child I was frequently told off for being impatient. I still struggle with it. Waiting for a table isn't something I do well, particularly as was the case at Chez Marianne, when faced (quite literally) with an array of pastries (pictured below), just inches from my nose, on one side of the queue, and a counter of take-away falafel on the other.

We looked enviously onto those lucky enough to have tables in the tiny dining room, the walls filled from from floor to ceiling with wine bottles (is there a better way to decorate a room?), trying to spot the people nearing the end of their meal, mentally urging them to leave.

My resolve weakened a number of times, as I debated internally on the likelihood of whether the queue would operate in a fair and proper manner. About 15 minutes into our wait, I even suggested that maybe myself and Pam should cut our losses, and opt for takeaway falalel instead (we'd sampled the best takeaway falalels I'd ever had, just round the corner on a previous visit to the Jewish Quarter a couple of years ago). Pam assured me that I wouldn't want to miss the delights on offer at Chez Marianne, so stomach rumbling (my hunger slightly surprising given the huge freshly-baked crossiant (avec extra beurre) I'd had for breakfast just a couple of hours previously) I took a quick walk round the block in a hunt for a cash machine, in the gorgeously cold but sunny weather, in the hopes that we'd have a table by the time I returned.

A short while later, we were intriguingly tapped on the shoulder by a waiter who gestured that we should follow him outside. "Great" I thought. "We're being forcibly ejected for being too hungry looking."

But all was well! We followed him outside and were led to an entirely separate dining room a little further down the street - how wonderful! Busy but feeling more roomy. No wine bottles decorating the walls, but mandolins (not bad). The food is Middle Eastern/Jewish/Kosher and mezze seemed to be a fantastic plan for lunchtime.

The system was for a plate of 4, 5 or 6 mezze choices each (or 10 for two people sharing) from a list where everything sounded delicious.

Sadly they were out of mushrooms, but I was still very utterly delighted with my plate when it arrived. My choices: falafel (just fried, so wonderfully hot and crispy), hummous and tzatziki (a joy to eat with the hot flatbread) and heavenly aubergines. Pam's plate varied from mine slightly with her pastrami and feta options.

The huge portions meant that we struggled to finish the misleadingly named 'petit' plates, but also resulted in really very good value for money. There was no space at all for any desserts (especially as we knew we had an afternoon at a spa ahead of us), but my day had already been made, and I was most definitely in agreement that this had been well worth the wait.

Nostalgic Trip to Wimpy, High St, Marlow - 3rd January 2010

"I'm worried you might be setting yourselves up for a huge disappointment" - my words of warning to my over-excited sisters as decided to revisit our youth in the Wimpy in Marlow. The majority of Wimpy Restaurants in the UK became Burger King in 1990, but in Marlow-on-Thames, it staunchly remained. (A Burger King in Marlow dahling? How preposterious!) Throughout the nineties and and noughties it existed in its own bubble of 80s decor, until a revamp about a year ago.

My sisters and dad had been struck with the idea that they wanted to celebrate the start of 2010 with a family trip there. We hadn't visited in years and years, and despite my slight cynicism, I allowed myself to be dragged out of bed early on Sunday to join them.

And I'm glad I did...

The table service and proper cutlery and crockery makes it a pretty civilised affair. The service was really quite exceptionally friendly. The food portions were big, well presented and very tasty. No one was disappointed. I don't normally write about chain restaurants on here, but for this one I will make an exception.

Satisfyingly large pot of tea each, marred only by the fact I wasn't able to drink much of it after my dad managed to drop a baked bean in the milk (I won't be bringing him again).

We were offered a variety of condiments - condiments are good.

My dad's immense all day breakfast. He doesn't like beans - he was trying to give them away, hence the bean/milk incident.

And now...Wimpy even serves booze! What's not to love?

L'Artista, 61 The Parade, Watford

The usual high street pizza chains leave me craving flavour - I'm almost always dousing my pizza in their lacklustre chilli oil. But despite the restaurant quickly filling up after our arrival, making for a busy and slightly manic atmosphere, L'Artista in Watford has food with the most intense flavour. Initial frustrations of being slightly ignored by frantic looking staff soon dissapated once the starters arrived.

Tomato garlic pizza bread was perfectly crispy with a decadently garlicky tomatoey topping. The Aubergine Parmigiana was equally flavoursome - the roasted aubergines were amazingly smokey and the mozarella perfect.

The main courses were huge. The Americana pizza was robustly delicious with plenty of chillies. The Diversa pizza was partly pizza and partly calzone (which reminded me of the 'La Raqueta' pizza I had at Starita in Naples - best pizza in the world, AND it was shaped like a tennis racket)! My pizza had yet more roasted aubergines, red chillis and hearty herby italian sausage. I didn't have to reach for the chilli oil once.

The rigatoni was perfectly al a dente and the roast vegetable garlic and tomato sauce had really deep and satisfying flavours.

Overall - This place is very busy for a reason, good food, low prices and huge portions (we had to take some of it home). Full of big groups so service can be a bit slow, and it would be a terrible place for a romantic meal, but for cheap and cheerful and very very intensely flavoursome Italian food, it completely beats the High Street chain pizza places.

The Stag, Stoke Poges, Sunday 13th September

I firmly believe that Sunday afternoons were made for discovering new country pubs; the more adventure required to find the place, the better. It was the first weekend in my new flat, and time to start finding pubs that could approximately be described as 'my local'. A lack of lovely pubs in the immediate vicinity means that the definition of 'local' needs to equate to a couple of miles into the countryside. We decided Stoke Poges would be the village, and a quick Google and look on Beer In the Evening revealed there were at least three pubs with potential, so we decided to drive in that general direction until we found a suitable location.

Off we went following signs to Stoke Poges. All was going well until the signs stopped. In the spirit of adventure I carried on down single track lanes and very large houses. Things didn't look good. There were no pubs in sight. The moment we decided I should turn around and head back, we found ourselves at The Stag. A quick look inside and discovery that there were Sunday Roasts on offer with no less than four types of meat (pork, lamb, turkey and beef - we were apologetically informed that there was no vegetarian option, but we assured them this was definitely not a problem), confirmed that this would be an ideal place to spend the afternoon.

A wonderful thing about this pub is the lack of pretentiousness and the sheer friendliness and helpfulness of the person who served us all afternoon (I should have found out her name so I could specifically mention how great she was!) There were a good number of other customers enjoying huge Sunday Lunches, but the atmosphere was very casual and relaxed. We contemplated sitting at a huge boardroom style table, before settling for a more cosy table looking out onto the large garden.

Going back to the lack of prentension, there was no real ale or gastropub type offerings, but there is Thai menu (and takeaway service), and the sunday lunches are great value at less than a fiver each. The four meat options proved difficult to decide between, but Lewis and Claudia's burning desire to have two different roast meats on each of their plates was met with no problems at all, and before too long we had huge platefuls of food in front of us.

Huge plateful of sunday roast

It's difficult to believe that after eating quite so much, that we felt the need to eat anything else, but we had spotted the dessert menu...

Dessert board

.

Showing some restraint we waited an hour or so before we dived into dessert time. We opted for apple crumble, treacle sponge, spotted dick and chocolate sponge, which were difficult to distinguish given the vast amounts of custard!

Graham loves custard

Claudia doesn't like custard, but Lewis was gallant enough to eat through a layer of custard for her.

Overall

Atmosphere - Incredibly laid back and relaxed pub where you can easily (as we did) spend hours. There were plenty of people but it certainly didn't feel overcrowded.

Service - Amazingly friendly and helpful service which makes this a lovely place to spend a sunday afternoon.

Food quality - Although not anything particularly noteworthy the portions are huge,

Value for money - High on the cheap and cheerful rating!

Overall: 7/10 - Wonderfully friendly and relaxed pub - I'd be quite interested in trying the Thai food next time! And there certainly will be a next time!

The Regency Club, Edware, Middlesex (UPDATED)

First impressions can be misleading. I originally posted about The Regency Club a few days ago - but after re-visiting last night, here follows an updated review (this time with pictures!)

The menu is extensive (and laminated). The food is not usual Indian-Restaurant fare. It would be far better to think of it as Indian Pub Grub - inexpensive, no-nonsense stuff with a lot of the qualities of home cooking. The main one being authenticity.

The previous visit was on a Tuesday night where the atmosphere was frantic and sports-bar like. Unexpectedly, on yesterday's Friday night visit we found the place had a far more relaxed atmosphere, (perhaps as there was no sport in sight). It felt like a lively pub - busy but not hard to find a table. The service was also far better (don't visit on a Tuesday as we did last time - it's the day off of the person who gave us really fantastic service)!

It would be a crime not to have starters here. The amazingly juicy and succulent chicken wings were as fantastic as last time. The mogho (fried cassava chips) we enjoyed last time were good, but this time we were recommended the garlic mogho instead, which turned out to be absolutely fantastic. The crispy freshly fried chips have an amazingly tasty seasoning - not just garlic, but a wonderful combination of flavours.

I was so pleased with the mogho and the chicken wings, I was almost reluctant to taste the third starter ordered - shish kebab - but this was just as delicious and well-flavoured as the other two dishes.

Then onto main courses - firstly murry chicken (chicken curry with loads of black pepper). I love this dish as it has such a different flavour to normal indian curry dishes. The pepper gives the chicken a really distinctive aftertaste. It was great with naan, but a little bit too spicy for me just with rice (I regretted not ordering the chilli paneer to go with it this time, as the sweetness of that dish would have been helpful to counteract the spiciness!) We also had 'handy' chicken (a special of the day - chicken currry cooked on the bone, which made it extra succulent. My dad loved this dish - it tasted just like my mum's cooking, which proves the authenticity of the food here. The vegetable dish we had, okra (also known as ladyfingers), was once again wonderful, and I actually preferred it to they way my mum makes it at home! High praise indeed for indian food, which I usually always enjoy in restaurants as it can't live up to her cooking!

To finish we shared a pistachio kulfi (indian ice-cream) - which I could only manage a few spoonfuls of having eaten so much, but needing something to counteract the spicy food. It was good kulfi - creamy and with a good flavour.

Overall:

Atmosphere: Relaxed and laid back. Pubby. Not very sports-bar-like this time, so a vast improvement on last time.

Service: Attentive and efficient. The food did come very quickly, but we were hungry and so this was most appreciated.

Food quality: Exceptional. Every single dish was quite fantastic. It was spicy, but with lots of flavour and not just heat. The authenticity was amazing.

Value for money: Three of us ate a huge amount of food, and had plenty to bring home with us in a doggy bag, for about £15 a head including drinks. brilliant value considering.

Overall: 8.5/10 - I will be trying to get my friends to come here.

Taj Mahal, Dubrovnik Old Town, Croatia

"Taj Mahal...You guessed it, the Old Town's only Bosnian Restaurant." ('Dubrovnik in your pocket' Summer 2009).

It was this bizarrely incongruous description in our free tourist guide, which drew us to this restaurant in Dubrovnik's Old Town. The previous evening we'd dined at an overpriced, mediocre tourist trap about a minute from our apartment (the danger of heading out after a few too many drinks), so we were keen to try something different, and Bosnian food sounded just that.

But alas, it seemed we weren't the only ones with that idea. On Friday evening we were turned away with a 40 minute wait (there are only a small number of seats - all outdoors, bar one tiny table). We headed elsewhere, making plans to get there early for lunch the following day, as seeing the menu had whet our appetites even more!

There's a lot of choice on the menu. A lot less choice if you, like me, are a non-beef eater. I was quite amused to find that even a turkey dish was 'stuffed with beef'. No sacred cows here then...However, this was far from being an issue, as there are vegetarian appetisers and side dishes, and it made choosing what to eat less of a dilemma!

I opted for the aubergines stuffed with spicy cheese, along with turkey skewers with spinach, red peppers and mushrooms (one of the two non-beef main courses), which was served with a perfectly baked potato, filled with sour cream.

It was simple but everything tasted fresh and cooked to perfection. I loved the aubergine dish - auberines are quite amazing, but coupled with the tasty, slightly spicy cream cheese it was a sumptious dish.

I still had some space for dessert, so I shared a portion of baklava with Siobhan, and it was easily the best i've ever tasted - very moist, and although incredibly sweet, the combination of the finely ground nuts, honey and syrup combined to produce something quite amazing.

It was so good in fact that we decided there and then, that we would return for lunch again the following day, as there was more on the menu we wanted to sample.

So we did return and chose even better dishes second time round... Siobhan's mushrooms were the best food she'd eaten during the whole holiday - they definitely deserved praise - plump and juicy and cooked to maximise their flavour (no garlic or chilli needed!)

Myself and Louise opted for a starter of Fritters with Kaymak (a gloriously salty cheese) which complemented the doughy, freshly fried fritters perfectly. They tasted amazing, but we had such generous portions, we couldn't finish them.



For our main courses, Siobhan and Louise went for Chevaps - small grilled beef sausages, served in thick, fluffy bread. I went for the (only) other non-beef option, lamb 'kebob'. There was no description of the dish, but I was very pleased to find it was served with thick slices of roasted aubergine, and potatoes too. A dash of tobasco added a kick that made this dish delicious.


Overall:

Food quality: The quality of every single dish could not be faulted. The freshness of the ingredients and perfect cooking makes this amazing. Even when I ordered a lemonade I received a freshly squeezed one!

Atmosphere: The small number of tables in a quiet back street just off the main tourist throughfare, made this feel like our hidden gem of a restuarant both lunchtimes. The shaded outdoor tables were a very welcome escape from the intense heat of the day.

Service: Efficient but not friendly on our first visit. Very smiley and pleasant on our second (I think we were served by the chef on the second occasion!)

Value for money: Very good and in some cases brilliant - some dishes are huge but its not obvious from the menu which ones these are! The main meals are actually cheaper than the starters.

Overall: 9.5/10 If you go to Dubrovnik you need to go to this place. It's not spicy food, but it is amazingly tasty and fresh, and you'd be mad not to try it.

Gourmet San, Bethnal Green Road, London

I love my friends. I love them even more when they introduce me to their favourite hidden-gems of local restaurants. Fia and Jerome first introduced us to Tayyabs, and they'd also a couple of months ago taken us to an amazing Korean place - Myung Ga (okay, it's in Soho so not their local and not really hidden, but we were the only non-Koreans in there, so it felt like a hidden gem). This time it was Laura and Ruari's turn to impress us with their very local Szechuan restaurant, Gourmet San.

As much as I like Chinese food, I'd yet to find somewhere that was exceptional. But I had high hopes knowing that this place would have to be pretty authentic to live up to Laura's standards after her year in China. As I mentioned in the previous post, my love of online restuarant research had found me this review, which amused me and had given me an idea of what to expect, but when I arrived, I really was taken aback by how not only was this a 'shabby on the outside' place, it was not looking good inside either! The restuarant was small and crammed full of people, and as I headed up the steep narrow stairs to the first floor, I couldn't help but notice the worn carpet and generally dilapidated interiors.

But I wasn't worried. I could see the huge dishes of food on the table, appealing to my every sense. As is our custom when someone takes us to their favourite restuarant, we let Laura order for the table, and we weren't disappointed. Instead of the usual Chinese-restuarant fare we were treated to incredibly flavoursome and authentic dishes. We had an aubergine, potato and green pepper dish with lots of garlic (all wonderful things, which worked really well together) , spicy fried chilli chicken, sweet potato noodles, kung po chicken with lots of cashew nuts (as Laura said "made how it was supposed to be" and it certainly tasted so much better than I'd had at other chinese resturants, and the Pièce de résistance; a huge tray of giant pork kebabs - amazingly tasty and really tender from the marinade.


We couldn't believe it had taken us all this long to find this place - as cheap as Tayyabs, but with a much larger menu and huge portions, and food with flavour that would not be matched. They even do home delivery (and I was very jealous that I didn't live in East London at that point). I enjoyed every dish I sampled, and the atmosphere in the upstairs room was laid back enough for us to take our time and not feel at all rushed (unlike Tayyabs where the staff are efficient to get you out and get those queuing seated).

Overall:

Food quality: Amazing. Everything was full of flavour, at the right level of spiciness without being overpowering. The food seemed truly authentic.

Atmosphere: It was packed and manic downstairs, but we were a group of 10 in a small but more light and airy upstairs room, so noise level etc were all about right.

Service: We didn't see staff too often so we were able to have a leisurely meal once we'd ordered, which suited us perfectly.

Value for money: We paid £11 a head for food and drink and the portions are huge. The value for money couldn't be any better.

Toilets: I can't remember them so they must have been fine (which is a really positive thing, considering that the place is really not very visually appealing).

Marks out of 10: 9.5/10 - I really loved this place. The food was the best and most authentic Chinese food i'd ever had.

Reasons to love New Tayyabs (4th May 09)

It's been a good Bank Holiday weekend in terms of food...

Lunch today was at a very regular haunt for me and the ex-Durham gang: New Tayyabs in Whitechapel, East London.

Tayyabs is a curiously comforting place for us - everyone needs to have somewhere they know they will get large amounts of consistently tasty and authentic food, for very low prices. You can even bring your own booze, although this is often a hangover-curing (hence why it is comforting), late-lunch venue for us. It's always busy here, but we're such regulars that we've learnt to either get a big group together and book in advance. or eat at slightly odd times to avoid the queues. I wouldn't recommend eating here from about 7pm in the evening - the queues snake the whole way around the restaurant, which doesn't make for a relaxed eating experience. Afternoons however are pretty busy, but not rushed.

Today, I went in ahead after finding that our favourite Whitechapel pub The Good Samaritan didn't open on Bank Holidays. I didn't have to wait more than two minutes for a table for 5 people, and although the others didn't arrive straightaway, I was able to sip a sweet lassi and read my Jasper Fforde novel until they did. The waiter was able to memorise our slightly complicated order, and we soon had plate fulls of sheekh kababs (90p each), and garlic naans piled high, as well as an assortment of curries. My keema was perhaps not as spicy as it could have been, but the kebabs were juicy and flavoured to perfection. A really big plus point for me, is that the food is authentic enough not to use any pre-mixed curry powder, as I'm very allergic to fenugreek which is a major ingredient in curry powder, and has stopped me being able to eat in a large number of Indian restaurants (although this is Pakistani rather than Indian).

Tayyabs may not be great if you arrive at a busy time and need to queue, or if you like very spicy or innovative food, but in terms of a cheap and cheerful place to have a lazy lunch, it can't really be beaten.

Atmosphere: There were plenty of people here even though it was after the lunch rush, but the atmosphere is relaxed and it's light and airy inside the restaurant.

Service: Very efficient order-taking, although food doesn't always arrive at the same time. Waiters are friendly.

Value for money: Excellent. You can eat a lot for about £10 a head, and you can bring your own booze with no corkage charge.

Marks out of 10: 8/10 - We keep coming back here so it must be good. Not the most sophisticated food but consistently pleasing and we always leave satisfied.