Good gobble!

Sindhoor

2013-05-15T17:33:00.000+01:00

We've been swept up in a bit of a whirlwind of adoration for South Indian food of late. It all started with a single episode of Madhur Jaffrey's Curry Nation followed closely by the delicious Dosa Xpress becoming one of our favourite cheap eats in Manchester. After hearing a few shoddy reviews of Chennai Dosa, there remained just one South Indian eatery on our list to try out and that was

Olive & Thyme

2013-05-11T16:46:00.000+01:00

One of my favourite things to do on a Sunday is go for either a nice relaxing lunch or a leisurely stroll. Well on this particular Sunday we really were in for a treat as we had both of these activities on the agenda. We started our day's adventure with a trip to Chorlton Water Park - one of the best parks in Manchester if you ask me. Having fed the ducks and geese a load of bread crusts left

Foodies Festival Competition

2013-05-08T21:09:00.000+01:00

Good news everyone! The generous people at Foodies Festival have given us two tickets to give away to their splendid food festival. I say give away but we don't really like the idea of giveaways so I am afraid you are going to have to do a tiny little bit of work to be in with a chance. Not too much though... Foodies Festival is being held at Tatton Park this year on the 17th, 18th

La Pepita

2013-05-04T11:37:00.001+01:00

Our Barcelona eating decisions couldn't have been easier. We barely had to look for any restuarants ourselves as so many people gave us recommendations. My friend Abi who I used to work for at the 3 Punts art gallery, is a real foodie so I was reallly pleased when she gave me a long list of places to eat and drink in the uber chilled out and slightly-lesser-visited-by-annoying-tourists area of

Tickets

2013-05-02T18:00:00.000+01:00

Let's be absolutely clear here, I'm not a food expert. My love for good food has only flourished in recent years. As a child I grew up on a varied diet of microwave meals, cheese on toast (with brown sauce of course) and a creation of my own making where I mixed partly melted ice cream and crumbled up angel cake together. As a student I progressed from the microwave to the takeaway, I'm not

Mosquito

2013-04-28T18:41:00.000+01:00

If you live in the vicinity of Manchester and have ever visited the Northern Quarter then you will be aware of a tribe of people who frequent that locale known as hipsters. They aren't hard to spot with their neck beards, thick black glasses and their appreciation for craft beer. Although that last sentence accurately describes me I don't think I could ever be labelled a hipster as less than

Tamagoyaki and Cucumber Maki Bento

2013-04-27T09:13:00.001+01:00

By far my least favourite times of the year are those 6 dreadful Sundays when I'm preparing myself, mentally and physically, for going back to school after the holidays. I'm sure every teacher will agree but I bet none of them will be able to fully explain why. It is weird because even though I'm relatively new to the profession, even I already know that there's no need to feel so bad about it,

Bar del Pla

2013-04-23T17:36:00.000+01:00

UK tapas has got a bad rep. Probably deservedly so based on past performance. In years gone by I've sat in tapas restaurants and regularly heard the unmissable ding of the microwave moments before my overpriced, tasteless, soggy squid is slopped on to the table by a minimum wage teenager. Bad atmosphere, bad food, bad service. These were the cornerstones of British tapas until recently. Now

Caj Chai

2013-04-21T17:32:00.000+01:00

Caj Chai was another brilliant recommendation from my Barcelona connoisseur brother, who knows how much I love a good cup of tea for my brekkie. If you love tea as much as we do in the Morris family and are ever strolling around el Barri Gotic gasping for a cuppa, then this is the place for you. As soon as I walked through the front door I was in love with the mismatched vintage furniture

Takashi Ochiai

2013-04-20T10:25:00.000+01:00

Bailey had found the delightful Japanese patisserie Takashi Ochiai for our Barcelona eating list by clicking on the first link he found when he typed "best breakfast in Barcelona" into Google. Coincidentally it is located on my old road - Carrer Compte d'Urgell. I don't know if Takashi Ochiai existed when I lived there though, if it had I would definitely have gone there all the time. We

La Paradeta

2013-04-19T18:10:00.002+01:00

Hands up if you like consuming seafood!!! Hands up if you like consuming seafood by the seaside!!! Yeeeeeah! La Paradeta was a fantastic recommendation from my Barcelona expert brother. As a lover of consuming seafood and particularly of consuming seafood by the seaside, this place sounded right up my street. It is a a brilliant concept for a restaurant: you go in through the door where an

Rosa Negra

2013-04-17T17:37:00.000+01:00

Our first night of our Barcelona adventure didn't quite go as planned. For starters, far from being greeted by the beautiful sunshine we were expecting on arrival, it was so rainy that the Ryan Air pilot said "Welcome to the UK" over the tannoy. We also hadn't anticipated finding our evening's planned dining destination, Santa Maria, in the same state Manchester Foodies had found it in August

Linen Restaurant

2013-04-16T17:16:00.000+01:00

Gambling is a mug's game. Unfortunately I'm a mug so it's my game, I really do love a good bet! Whether it be the lottery, scratchcards, poker at home or even the odd sweepstake I certainly seem to have a lot of fun losing money. Where I draw the line though is the visiting of casinos. That isn't because I think they are houses of ill repute or that I will fall in to a gambling addiction, it is

The Milestone

2013-04-15T17:14:00.000+01:00

I'm not sure how I feel about Gordon Ramsay and that's probably because he has become the most heinous of all pantomime monsters paraded around on reality shows that couldn't be further from reality. As far as TV chefs go they don't come more 'TV' or less 'chef' than Gordon. Some people say that Jamie Oliver should wear that particular label, they also say he is 'just a cook', 'a one pot wonder

SMOAK

2013-04-14T14:19:00.000+01:00

Tradition is a wonderful thing and the old traditions are the best. The groom carrying the bride over the threshold, the regular coming together of families for Sunday lunch in the home, leaving cookies out for the ever peckish St Nicholas, the hiding of Easter eggs in not too hard to find locations and the spending of millions of pounds of taxpayers' money to bury a Prime Minister who

Jamie's Italian

2013-04-03T16:21:00.002+01:00

The other weekend my fabulous friend, the illustrious Miss Hannah May was to be visiting Manchester. She and her friend Cheryl had booked a fancy pants appartment out for the weekend, and invited us to join them for a Friday night dinner at Jamie's Italian. Now, I'm afraid to say Jamie's Italian had been struck from our 'to do' list a few months earlier when I'd been told that it just wasn't

Levenshulme Market Launch

2013-04-02T09:37:00.001+01:00

Jules' dad often tells us that when he was a boy growing up in Mitcham (located in SARF LANDAN) he would be regularly lambasted by his mum for eating his fish and chips on the street corner instead of bringing them home to be eaten with a knife and fork. Roy was always a little bit disappointed with this as it meant the food was a little cold and soggy when it hit the plate but more importantly

Easter Egg Pops

2013-04-01T16:00:00.000+01:00

This year we have spent a lovely Easter weekend with my mum in Sheffield. She has been really excited for a while now since discovering a recipe for Cake Pops in Waitrose, which would go perfectly with the Easter tea she was planning. I had never made cake pops before this occasion. I was a bit scared of them, they looked so complicated. However, looking at this Waitrose recipe my

Seaweed Tofu Cakes Bento

2013-03-25T21:11:00.000Z

My latest bento adventure comes in the form of a Seaweed Tofu Cakes lunchbox, accompanied by some lovely sticky rice, potatoes and even a little dessert of some healthy strawberries. Definitely much prettier than my last bento attempt, this time I was incredibly lucky indeed to have some extra bento treats to play with. Thanks to the amazing Tokyo Purple Girl, who very very kindly sent me

Easter Afghan Biscuits

2013-03-24T10:23:00.000Z

Last Sunday I was desperate to try out my new Aldi food mixer that lovely Bailey had snapped up for me on a recent visit - an absolute bargain at a mere 35 quid. I decided I would try out an intriguing recipe from the Primrose Bakery - the unusually-named Afghan Biscuits - apparently a popular treat in New Zealand and Australia. Apparently no one knows why these bad boys are actually called

Pho 68

2013-03-19T18:05:00.000Z

Last week I was on a course in Sheffield on a day that was so very cold, the water on the 'Cutting Edge' sculpture by the train station froze. After my course I met my mum for some shopping and a catch up. It was so cold that the actual marrow in our bones started to hurt, so when thinking up a location to to meet my dad for dinner, it had to be somewhere cosy where we could thaw out.

Oreo and Marshmallow Chocolate Cupcakes

2013-03-17T08:49:00.001Z

During my recent baking adventure with Eilis, we had a very important job to do and that was whipping up Kat's belated birthday cupcakes. We chose a recipe from the Primrose bakery as usual and this was a particularly chocolatey, Oreoey, marshmallowey one which we thought work work as Kat and Eilis are part of a family of big chocolate fans. Plus, everyone loves an Oreo! We found these

El Rincón de Rafa

2013-03-16T10:32:00.000Z

Our foodie 'to do' list for Manchester is huge. No matter what we seem to do it is always growing rather than shrinking as we seem to add places onto it more often that we cross them off. This does at least mean that we are able to be very selective about what goes on said list, and hearing anything but 100% glowing reviews is enough to get a place struck off for good. El Rincón de Rafa

The Liquorists Ceylon Arrack Trail

2013-03-13T18:23:00.000Z

We had tasted the sweet sweet booze provided by The Liquorists once before and since then had tried to go along on their tequila trail but didn't get round to it, there were also a few events around Christmas that also looked great and the odd chat about sorting out our own trail but none of it worked out for us. Life is hard. Luckily life is also full of nice surprises and just the other week

Luck, Lust, Liquor & Burn

2013-03-12T17:56:00.000Z

At the weekend the lovely Blob was over from Sheffield to help Bailey with a task that has been taking up much of his time and energy of late: building a wood-fired oven in the garden. As you can imagine this is thirsty work so the gents needed a night of good food and booze to prepare themselves for the hard graft ahead. Of course I wasn't about to let those two go and have all the fun so I