This & That

3 Soap Street
Shudehill
Manchester
M4 1EW

Rice and three curries: £4.80



This & That is one of Manchester's many curry cafes, serving large portions of cheap and generally authentic Pakistani food to the city's huddled masses from wipedown-friendly hole-in-the-wall premises.  Unlike other curry cafes, though, This & That (tucked halfway down an alley at the Shudehill end of the Northern Quarter) does not serve curries packed with the kind of flavourful spicing and distinctive flavours that are these cafes' hallmark.  Instead, I was served watery and uninteresting curries that had little to distinguish one from the next, were cooked to a uniformly mushy texture and were made from ingredients that were neither fresh or fresh-ish.

The saag lamb was mostly saag, which is not a bad thing when it is cooked with plenty of spices and has not been boiled into submission, a la Yadgar.  This & That's version leached an unpleasant amount of water onto the plate (as did the other two curries), felt slimy, and tasted of little more than over-cooked spinach way past its use-by date.  The two pieces of lamb were dry and tasted more of the saag than of meat.  The two meat curries - one chicken and one lamb - looked different but tasted the same.  The chicken, spongy and clearly reconstituted, had no flavour, and the curry reminded me of the sort of yellow stodge served in institutional canteens.  The lamb in the lamb curry was marginally better than that in the saag, but while the curry was orange-brown it could barely be distinguished from the chicken one. The heat on both curries packed a punch, disguising their flavourlessness.  This & That's website (yes, a curry cafe with a website! http://thisandthatcafe.co.uk/) describes their food as "unique." It is unique, because every other nearby curry cafe serves better food.

This & That, once many people's favourite, should be delivering better food.  On a Friday lunchtime just after Jumma prayers, it should be packed out with lunchers from the nearby mosques. Instead, it was me and a couple of men talking vividly about their friend who glassed someone. It could be time to call time on this Manchester institution.

Soup Kitchen

31-33 Spear St.
Manchester M1 1DF

Soups: £2.85 - £3.25
Soup and a Sandwich: £6


This post was meant to be about Koffee Pot, but as they were closing when we arrived (2:45pm), we ducked across the road into Soup Kitchen instead.

Soup Kitchen is cool. You only have to see the neon initials in the windows, the arty magazines on the walls and the stripped-down communal tables to know that you have landed slap-dab in the middle of hipsterville. Luckily, the style does not dictate the food. Hearty soups and sandwiches (bread should come measured in slabs not slices) rub shoulders with vegetarian tarts and meaty stews. If you have ever become despondent whilst choking down a limp and lifeless supermarket (or, God forbid, newsagent) sandwich, then you need to turn in whatever direction will take you to the corner of Spear Street and Hilton Street and run there as fast as your under-nourished legs will carry you.

Although I usually review places alone, this time I was with an American friend, a New Yorker nonetheless, from Brooklyn. Soup Kitchen was, therefore, the perfect storm of style, substance, and low low prices, a combination that everyone can appreciate. Between the spicy, tomatoey, comforting mulligatawny, and the creamy-yet-flavourful leek and potato, I was hard-pressed to pick a favourite. My friend's hummous salad sandwich was declared "nothing special" (the hummous had little to set it aside from the supermarket kind) but was saved by the inches-thick slices of multi-grain bread, which made it worth eating. The poppy-seed whole-grain roll that came with my soup was also a delight: a stretchy crust and dense insides soaked plenty of soup up with each dip, resulting in a spotless bowl when it came time for me to deposit it on the tray rack for collection.

Since it opened, Soup Kitchen has provided Manchester's workers with a port in a storm. Reasonably-priced food and large portions in a place that feels like a friendly local even if many of its patrons wear skinny jeans, is not something often found in the heart of Manchester. Soup Kitchen remains the cool yet accessible friend you wish you'd had when you were younger, but this time it's up to you to make the first move.

Yadgar

90 High Street,
Manchester M4 1ES

Rice and three curries: £4.70

The Northern Quarter's many rice-n-three-curries dives (and they are always dives, even if they get swanky new signage like Al-Faisal did) are famous throughout Manchester.  Shoppers, workers, mosque-goers, travellers, all pass through cafes of seemingly identikit functional uniformity in order to get a plate piled with boiled, fried or pilau rice (depending) and whatever curries are available on that day for under a fiver.  These places vary in quality and specialise in different areas.  One constant, however, is Yadgar's supremacy on the curry front.

Even before you consider Yadgar's superior saag aloo or use of lamb that isn't 90% fat and gristle, it already has a couple of distinct advantages on the other rice-n-threes.  Rather than being located down a safety-defying back-alley (I'm looking at you, Cafe Marhaba), or on a corner that seems to sneak up on me every time (hey there, Kabana), it is right on High Street, is easily visible, and doesn't require a map or excellent memory to find. Secondly, it doesn't look too bad on the inside - it's bright, it's clean, and the water jugs on the tables are kept filled.  I'm a sucker for an obvious location and attention to detail, so Yadgar is ahead in my books before I've even sat down.

Onto the food.  The rice - boiled or fried basmati - is nothing special.  The curries, however, are.  The saag aloo, in particular, is incredible.  The saag is steeped in flavour, definitely plenty of garam masala and chilli, but also perhaps some lemon and coriander, too.  The lamb curry was a spicy sauce (lots of chillies again, but no overpoweringly so) with chunks of good-quality, tender, and flavour-packed lamb.  The daal was the least interesting, as it was a yellow-lentil concoction with more heat than flavour, but it was passable and bulked out the meal somewhat.  The portions could be more generous, but you get a large ladle-full of each curry, and the rice is the perfect amount for this.  You won't be left with any dry rice at the end, but you also won't be left with any stray pools of curry sauce.  Searching for good quality meal that will keep you going even through post-Christmas sales shopping? Go to Yadgar.

Lunches

I had a bit of an experiment going this week. I was working at Salford Uni from Monday to Friday, and with a tenner in my pocket to burn on lunch, decided to see if I could get good quality and tasty lunches for under £2 per day.  Salford's also a bit of a blank slate to me - I worked there for a few weeks about five years ago, but I haven't crossed the Irwell since.


Day 1: Adelphi Cafe.
17 Oldfield Road
Salford M5 4NE
Bacon on Toast: £1.50  (on a barm: £1.70)


Almost total unfamiliarity with the area around Salford Uni meant that some hungry striding ended up at the Adelphi Cafe (also a newsagents) for want of a better choice.  I was the only person there. I'd been drawn in by the possibility of "bacon toast £1.50" on the sandwich board outside, but was slightly put off by the packaged offerings in their counter. Luckily, the bacon sandwich was tasty, and they didn't skimp on the bacon. Thick slices of white bread, plenty of butter and four rashers = perfection.  The Daily Mail was gathering ketchup stains on the table  (I'll only read the Mail when it's a) free, and b) there is nothing else to read, not even a menu or the back of a fag packet) so I got to get myself all lathered up into a faux-frenzy over asylum seekers, Muslims, gays, women, the youth of today etc.


Day 2: Caribbean Flavas
New Bailey St
Salford M3 5FP
Jerk Chicken and Flat Dumpling: £1.80


Venturing further afield (0.8 miles, according to GoogleMaps), I went to a small Caribbean take-away that's slap-bang-next-to Salford Central Station.  It wasn't line-out-the-door busy, but is obviously a favourite amongst local office workers and the local population.  Caribbean Flavas offers a lot of food: jerk and curried chicken, two different kinds of wings, mac and cheese, roti and various fillings, and a lot more besides.  As my lunch choice was listed under the Sides section, I was preparing to have to splash some cash on something more substantial (or 50p on a Wispa).  When a man slapped down something wrapped in plastic that weighed only slightly less than a brick, I was intrigued.  In case I didn't like this hefty wodge, I went to eat outside in the freezing cold down by the canal so that I wouldn't embarrass myself in the shop.  I shouldn't have feared: my lunch was a dense flat-bread about the size of a personal pizza (the "dumpling") slit in half and stuffed with jerk chicken and generous lashings of sauce.  It was so good.  The chicken was recognisable as chicken (no reconstituted spongey stuff here), the sauce was peppery and sweet, and the bread was firm enough to not disintegrate but had enough give and a slight sweetness to make it interesting even in the parts the sauce hadn't reached.  I ended up only being able to eat £1's worth, but I didn't start feeling hungry again for about nine hours.  Bargain.


Day 3: The Farm
Corner of Church St and Birchin Lane,
Manchester
Spicy Tomato, Pepper and Chilli Soup: £2


I wanted to check out the student protest so I trekked up into Manchester.  I've waxed lyrical about The Farm before, so I won't take you through the litany of incredible things about it again.  I wanted one of the roast pork sandwiches, but as I was still a bit full from yesterday's lunch and it was a bit parky outside, I decided on soup.  The soup wasn't as good as I had been expecting.  It was tasty, with a nice tingle from the spices, and the tomatoes and peppers definitely taste-able, and the huge hunk of baguette was fresh and went well with the soup, but there was something missing.  Maybe it was because I deep-down wanted that roast pork sandwich.  Maybe it was that the portion size was a little too small.  I don't know.  I had a nice chat with the owner, though.  He's a nice bloke and will tell you the provenance of anything he sells.  I should have had that sandwich. 


Day 4: Adelphi Cafe (again)
Same as before.


I was curious about the community-run Creation Cafe diagonal to the Church of St. Stephen and St. Peter on Chapel St.  I went in, opened the door to the cafe, and was greeted by what looked like a hundred pensioners playing bingo with the enthusiasm of someone who's stuck in a home.  I couldn't face it.  So I made my excuses ("Oh, this isn't Salford Uni," and the woman at the desk was good enough to say, "No, love, that's a bit further on") and went for a bacon sandwich and a read of the MEN.


Day 5: Shlurp
Brazennose House East
Brazennose St, 
Manchester M2 5BP
Large Lentil and Winter Vegetable Soup: £1.95


Shlurp's an on-and-off fave of mine.  Sometimes all I want is one of their thick and piping hot soups, other times I can't stand the smugness of their signs.  Today, all I wanted was something I could wrap my cold cold hands around, and maybe hold up to my cheeks when no one was looking.  The soup was delicious.  It smelled a bit gross in the bag, a bit like a stale fart, but once the lid was open the smell was the mingling of stock, lentils, root vegetables and heat.  I shlurped it down, and it wasn't too thin or thick, it actually tasted of the veg in it (potato and carrot, I reckon), and although there were no chunks of unidentifiable vegetables, it did its job of warming me up, brightening my day, and putting a hearty spring in my step.


So, at the end of the week, I'd spent £8.75 on five lunches at four different good-quality establishments.  Quite the bargain when you look at the signs a lot of places have offering fancy sandwiches for a fiver or salads with too many bizarre ingredients for three quid.  All of the places I visited are simple, friendly, and offer food that you want to eat at lunch.  Put down that portabello mushroom, tallegio and sundried tomato panini with aioli dressing, and get a heart-warming soup or bacon sarnie down you instead, you big jessie.

Kabana

Address: 69 Thomas St, Manchester M4 1LQ
Tel.: 0161 835 2447
Keema kebab, salad, naan: £3
Rice-and-three: Under £5


Kebabs shouldn't just be for messy drunks at 2am.  Luckily, Kabana (a rice-and-three place tucked down a Northern Quarter alley) recognises this, and serves up a keema kebab that would go unappreciated by lagered-up lads on their way back from a night out.


Kabana's keema is packed with spices: cumin seeds and chilli skins will get stuck in your teeth.  It also doesn't contain any of the gristly bits that squeak as you bite down on them, unlike the many other kebabs I have sampled elsewhere.  Furthermore, they are charcoal-grilled.  You can watch the chefs do it, should you not be trying to listen in on the clientele's possibly criminal conversations.  Best of all, it's served on a thick and pillowy naan that soaks up the keema's juices (and how juicy it is) and any of the yoghurt and chilli sauces you've ladled on.  The naan valiantly avoids disintegrating despite how long it will take you to work your way through the, count 'em, three keema kebabs you're given for £3.  This cafeteria-style hole-in-the-wall, inhabited by the dodgier members of society and containing only plastic picnic benches, serves up the best-value dinner or lunch I've yet seen.

Bread and Butter

Address: Tib Street, Manchester M4 1LG

Carrot Cake Cupcake: £1.50 ish

Guinness Cake: £1.50 ish

Diet Coke: £1 ish

Latte: £1.80

Panini: £4.20 in or £3.20 out

After Teacup had snaffled a good portion of our change, my friend Jess and I went on a hunt for cake that we could afford.  I'd heard of a café on Tib Street, near Rags to Bitches and with low expectations we hunted it down.  Immediately recognisable from its pink frontage, Bread and Butter looks like yet another tweeshop appealing to the middle-class indie set.  If you go inside and ignore the hipster clientèle, you'll be in for a reasonably price but unreasonably delicious treat.

As a Manc, the first thing I noticed was how normal and northern the staff are.  The interior may be artistically shabby, but the cakes and deli counter show you that good honest food is the name of the game here.  A huge slab of Guinness cake (chocolate cake containing Guinness to "bring the flavours out, according to the owner) was quickly plonked in front of me, a dense triangle of moist chocolate with a slight hint of beer and topped with a thick flower of cream.  The carrot cake cupcake was similarly tasty, with a thick layer of cream cheese icing and all the flavours of a normal-sized carrot cake.  Other cakes lined the window - large scones, strawberry cake topped with an inch of creamy icing and giant strawberries, a pear and banana concoction that needs to be tasted.  The drinks, like the cakes, were normal prices - a latte cost £1.80, while the cakes are all around the £1.50 mark for giant slices.  Around us, cool kids munched on chunky soups, mezze plates, and paninis crammed with fillings.  The small room was packed but didn't feel crowded, and the service was attentive but not overbearing.

Bread and Butter should be on every cake-loving Manc's list of places to munch.  Any disappointed Teacup-goers should go round the corner to Bread and Butter instead.  Better food, better drinks, better prices.

Teacup

Address: 53-55 Thomas St, Manchester M4 1NA

Mungo Jerry Smoothie: £3.95
Blues Brothers Smoothie: £3.95
Americano coffee: £2

I loved the Northern Quarter long before it needed shop signs to tell you it was "alternative."  In between the clothing wholesalers, the dodgy pubs tucked down back-alleys (how do they stay in business?), the endless "quirky" clothing shops, and the trendy bars there are some gems to be found.  Sadly, Teacup is not one of them.

Teacup, owned by erstwhile Manc DJ/lenged Mr Scruff, looks nice, smells nice and feels nice.  After it's done nicely pocketing hefty chunks of hard-earned cash, however, the niceness wears off pretty quickly.  I was there with a friend from London. London friend (we'll call her Jess) gasped (no, really) at the prices on the menu.  "You couldn't even get away with these prices in London," she said as she stabbed her finger at the coffee menu where an Americano (normal coffee, to non-coffee drinkers) is two quid.

All juices, smoothies and milkshakes are £3.95, as are most slices of cake listed on the menu.  Unless they're giving me a full quarter of the cake, that's not a price I want to be paying.  Forking over almost £4, I expected a giant (maybe a pint, or a tad less) Blues Brothers smoothie, thick with yoghurt and berries.  What I got was a slightly watery affair in a normal-sized glass.  It was tasty, but it wasn't worth the money.  Jess felt the same.

With bright light bulbs hung low enough to bang your head on, the subsequent daylight robbery feels a bit like paying for the privilege of an interrogation in a twee tearoom.  Teacup appears to be catering to the trendy-hipster crowd, with its cooler-than-thou staff and faux-cutesy décor, but to everyone without a trustfund it is unaffordable.

Vnam Cafe

Address: 140 Oldham Rd, Manchester, M4 6BG
Tel.: 0161 205 2700
Pho: £5.50


Considering the depths of despair I plumbed following my last foray into pho, I considered consigning my love for this Vietnamese super-dish to memory only.  I could stick to my South Asian and British favourites and forget the love affair my taste buds have with Vietnam.  But, while trying to find Bubble Café's address for the last post, I stumbled upon a glowing review for a small café straddling the cultural divide between the Northern Quarter and Ancoats.


Opposite Wing Yip's cash-n-carry megastore and the Royal Mail sorting office  is a curious string of shops.  In between signs only in Chinese, hairdressers, salt-of-the-earth sandwich shops, and windows filled with electronic goods, is Vnam Cafe.  Its small sign gives little away, "Authentic Vietnamese and English Food," but the menu in the window hints at the extent of the chefs' culinary prowess.  Ignore the prosaic lunchtime sandwich offerings geared towards those whose jobs don't allow them to luxuriate in a bowlful of just-right noodle soup for lunch.  Due to my pho fixation, I did not venture to try any of the large number of barbecue dishes on the menu, but I will absolutely be returning to eat my way through the listings.


I ordered the pho bo (beef pho) for a very reasonable £5.50.  What arrived fifteen minutes later perked my spirits up no end.  It was the pho I had wanted when I made my ill-fated trip to Bubble Café.  Crunchy noodles covered with coriander, onion and bean sprouts, with a plateful of coriander, bean sprouts and sliced hot chilli on the side.  The beef was sliced thin and was tender from the burningly hot soup.  Although the beef seemed to have been cut roughly, it added a great meaty flavour to the spiced broth.  The noodles were al dente and did not descend into a mush at the bottom of the bowl, and I made sure to eat every single one. Rather than lime, a single wedge of lemon came with the dish, which was a drawback in some respects (as I like pho with a citrusy tang), but the piles of coriander, chilli and onion that were available meant that little other flavouring was necessary.


As a future lunchtime haunt, Vnam Café checks every box.  Cheap, clean, friendly and delicious, with an extensive menu that demands I return, I certainly will be venturing down the unfashionable end of Oldham Street again soon.