London - Yum Cha

As a student, it doesn't get better than the promise of half-price dim sum.  Yum Cha in Camden offers just that until 7pm, meaning that semi-adventurous lunches and early dinners can be had for little money.  Their dim sum menu is fairly extensive, covering the usual dumpling fare to more intriguing cold dishes such as Jellyfish and Sliced Smoked Pig's Knuckle.  They have a few nods to other parts of East and South East Asia, but the main focus is on mainland China and Hongkong.

When I went with my friend Sarah, we were both hankering after as many dumplings as we could fit in our hungry mouths (and neither of us like jellyfish).  The dim sum dinner menu is packed with different types of dumplings, and we tasted almost all of them, from the gelatinous Crystal Scallop and Prawn Dumpling to the hot and soupy Minced Pork Shanghai Siew Long Bao (normally known as xiao long bao or "xlb") to the steamed and meaty Pork and Prawn Shumai, as well as a good number of others.  With four dumplings per serving with each dish priced around the £3.80 mark, the 50% discount really makes a difference, giving penniless students the ability to eat their way around China's favourite snack foods.

Properly meaty, full of ginger and garlic flavours, their skins just the right thickness and texture to firmly hold their ingredients, the dumplings were a joy to keep popping into my mouth.  My favourite were the Siew Long Bao as there's something deliciously raffish about sucking the hot and juicy soup out of the skins.  The Panfried Shanghai Pork Dumpling were also excellent, the bottoms slightly thicker and a little charred from being fried, giving them a sticky texture that contrasted nicely with the filling.

There were two let-downs. The Honey Roast Pork Buns could have been so much better had their fillings not been so cloyingly sweet and if the puffy white shells had been freshly prepared - biting into these buns should be akin to biting into a pillow made of savoury marshmallow not like fluffy sawdust. Similarly, the ingredients of the Chinese Prawn and Chive Dumpling tasted stale.

For cheap Chinese that tastes like Chinese food in an area trying so hard to be pretentious that having a sleeve tattoo is mandatory, Yum Cha is the place to visit.  To maximise your potential for eating your way around China, it is best to go when their very generous deal is on.

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.