Manchester House
Tower 12, 18-22 Bridge Street
Manchester
Date of visit: 6 September 2014
The first thing to get out of the way is that it's a Living Ventures restaurant. So it's blingy. There's a bar with lots of cocktails (though here on a different floor). The staff are trained to within an inch of their lives and only the best of them break out of the confines of appearing somewhat automaton-like with their scripts.
But for all that, it's an attractive and engaging place, both the bar and the restaurant. The most off-putting thing is the entrance, which looks like an entrance to any old office block (which is what it is, of course) and the woman gatekeeper on the desk at the entrance. Being challenged before even getting near the bar or restaurant itself is something I find particularly uncomfortable. When the bloom's worn off, they may regret having this barrier against any possible passing chance trade.
Having got past the first greeter (we had booked), we went up to 12th floor, as much because we felt we should, than any particular desire for drinks beforehand. We went on a rainy lunchtime, so the views from the bar, sorry The Lounge, weren't as engaging as I imagine they can be.
A couple of White Lady cocktails, however, were excellent examples. Though the excessively loud music playing in the bar was out of all relation to the number of customers (only us two while we were up there!).
White Lady cocktail
That's what you call a bar
Descending in the lift back down to the 2nd floor and the restaurant (all a bit of a faff, when you think about it: surely it would have been better to put them on adjacent floors, though perhaps they had to work round existing tenants and leases?) we met the third greeter of the day. It's worth saying that once we'd got past the gatekeeper at street level, the other two greeters knew exactly who we were and we didn't have to repeat our names at each floor.
The restaurant is chic industrial glam, and a little less glitzy than the bar. It's a big space and they must be able to seat a significant number of covers: it was empty when we went in, but full (having turned the odd table too) by the time we left.
The open kitchen and (because the bar upstairs isn't enough, another bar on the right)
Restaurant interior
One uncomfortable feature is that the tables are unusually large. Not just larger than normal (which would be welcome in many cases) but so big that you can't imagine coming to Manchester House for a romantic date à deux. You'd have to have long legs to play footsie. Indeed, the couple at the next table made a point of moving one chair and place setting so that they sat next to each other on adjacent sides of the table. All the tables for two would have been better turned through 45° and the diners seated next to each other.
Very much to the credit of both front of house and the kitchen, there was the merest hint of a batted eye at our decision that one of us would go à la carte (with the rather odd "A la Carte Extended" option) and the other would take the option of turning the 2-2-2 table d'hôte lunch menu into a six course tasting menu. Obviously, there was the occasional hiatus for one or the other of us, but the kitchen worked the timings well to produce a meal that flowed well for both of us.
Bread course
First to come was the bread: a feather-light brioche, served with seaweed butter, and (in a separate glass teacup Chinese mushrooms on which was poured some sort of (I think) dashi stock. I'm not sure about this trend to bread as a course in a meal. I can see the attraction for some chefs, as it both limits consumption and bullies those who'd normally ignore it into eating it. But I find it hard to think of bread as other than an accompaniment to a meal, preferably for the mopping up of sauces, which is something that many chefs forget entirely: which is curious really, as they spend so much time making excellent sauces, yet so often omit to give the diner any means to eat it all up, whether bread or spoon.
The "A la Carte Extended" seems to me mainly a way to charge £15 for three amuses bouches that would come under the category of "freebie nibbles" at many other places. Apologies for the vagueness of my descriptions of these "extended" dishes: it was difficult to catch everything the waiter said, as often when they're working from learned scripts.
"Extended à la carte" nibble 1
I didn't really catch what the first was but it involved peas and I think some sort of curd cheese on some sort of wafer. Quite Rogan-y in style, but not as well executed as the wafer was a bit soft.
"Extended à la carte" nibble 2
The second extended nibble was a sort of cold foie gras soup with foie gras & something else. Not sure what. But it was damn good.
"Extended à la carte" nibble 3
The third, and final, extended nibble was the weakest: cured mullet, ?sardine? caviar, confit tomato and a bouillabaise sauce. It just wasn't exciting and didn't amuse the bouche.
Crab risotto
The first of the courses of the table d'hôte tasting lunch was an excellent crab risotto with a thick slice of a confit Scottish cep on top. A terrific dish. Simple, classic elegance. And great flavours.
breast & leg of quail, foie gras torchon & chicory with pain d'épices
The second starter off the tdh was a very good breast & leg of quail, but however good the quail was it was completely outshone and made to feel quite otiose by the accompanying two thick slices of perfect foie gras torchon & some roast chicory with a pain d'épices crumb on top.
Langoustines and carrots
Off the à la carte came a good starter of a pair of stunning langoustines served with a multitude of carrot preparations and spherified olives. A good dish, but it somehow didn't hang together as well as the two table d'hôte starters.
lobster & chicken lasagna
lobster & chicken lasagna: so good, it's worth another look
Lobster & chicken lasagna revealed. Look at the work in that!
The first table d'hôte main course was an absolutely stunning lobster & chicken lasagna that came with charred lettuce & lobster tail. Without any shadow of a doubt, this was the star dish of the meal. The amount of work in it was remarkable. Really delicious, perfectly executed and remarkably generous, particularly on a table d'hôte lunch menu. It's remarkable to get lobster and all the more so that much of it on a £22.50 for 2 courses menu. (Since this visit, the lunch menu has gone up to £27.50 for 2 courses, but it'd still be a bargain.)
Poached chicken, gnudi, chanterelles
The second tdh main was poached chicken, gnudi, chanterelles & clever little puri-like baked potato shells. It was good but very definitely in the lasagna's shadow.
Rose veal fillet with cacao beans and foie gras mousse
The à la carte main was less successful. A somewhat insipid dish of lovely Cumbrian rose veal fillet served with cacao beans and foie gras mousse. It needed more salt and more maillard reaction on the meat.
Lemon cheesecake, blackberries
We split the desserts off the table d'hôte. A very technically involved dish involved lemon cheesecake wrapped in a blackberry gel cannelloni and served with a sorrel sorbet and various textures of blackberry.
We'd had the flight of wines by the glass with the table d'hôte: most had been solid matches, through drawn, I think, only from their regular selection of wines by the glass. However excellent the lemon cheesecake and blackberry concoction was, the Recioto di Soave that was served with it was a terrible match that detracted from the dessert. It might have been the best match from what they'd got to play with, but it was a very poor match.
Gingerbread, plum, pear & chocolate
The second dessert was a terrific, restrained dish, involving gingerbread, plum, pear & chocolate. By complete contrast to the other dessert the 10yo tawny port served with this was a fabulous match.
Top espresso (a massive single!) in a cup and a half
Espresso was superb and a single was remarkably large. Apparently those cups cost £80 each! It's worth saying that all the crockery and cutlery was not merely good, but also very impressive. No slates either!
Macarons
With coffees came a wooden box containing a kaleidoscopic selection of very good macarons. Some of the flavours were good, others less clear. Although not perfectly matched (something highlighted by them all being presented lined up next to each other), there was a pretty decent uniformity too. Accomplished.
The Curry Mile is not somewhere I'd ever have rushed to normally. I'm not a huge fan of Indian food, finding it too often too heavy and formulaic, and designed for post-pub alcohol mopping up. I don't really get on with lots of chilli or a heavy hand with spices generally.
But a few months ago, Mughli suddenly burst onto my radar, and then, lo and behold, while I was watching Nigel Slater on the telly, even he suddenly appeared at seeking advice on spice at Mughli.
The sudden burst of recommendations on twitter tended not to mention curries, but other more interesting sounding dishes. Looking at the menu online, my attention was particularly drawn by the words "charcoal pit" and the mention of lots of street food, snacky type things. Talking with the owner (one of the owners?), he even suggested he'd prefer if people stuck to the street food and charcoal grilled stuff, rather than the normal curries.
You certainly can't miss Mughli on Manchester's Curry Mile: the facade is about as subtle as Jay Rayner going undercover to play D'Artagnan in a Bollywood version of the Three Musketeers. Inside, it's a bit more discreet. It looks dark and a bit canteen-like at first, but it isn't. There is an open kitchen area which contains the charcoal pit (actually just a charcoal grill rather than anything especially pit-like, I think), with another kitchen with the stoves and ovens beyond.
There seemed little point messing about, as it was the street food that we'd really come for, so we just ordered the lot. It amused me that, rather than writing our order down, the waiter just stuck the menu in the kitchen's tab grabber.
The charcoal pit
The chef looking very smart in his whites and toque
In general, I thought it was terrific, with a judicious, skilled use of the various spices employed.
Onion & spinach bhajis were one of the weakest of their streetfood selection we thought: a bit heavy and lacking the sophistication of some of the other dishes. Still better than some though.
Onion and spinach bhajis
Chicken pataka - "firework" chicken supposedly (according to the menu) tossed with sesame seeds, though I can't say we particularly detected them. But it was good & tasty, although might be improved with slightly larger pieces of chicken.
Chicken Pataka
Tamarind masala-battered fish was terrific: pieces of very good haddock deep fried in a masala batter and served with a chilli, tamarind and lime dressing. A nice light, beautifully spiced batter. This worked really well, and it's worth saying that the size of the pieces of fish were just right so you got the perfect balance of fresh clean fish and crisp, spiced batter.
Tamarind masala fish
I loved the pani puri: little crisp hemispherical puris, filled with chickpea and potato chaat and served with sev, yoghurt and pomegranate seeds, and a sort of tamarind(?) water dressing to spoon over. Such fresh, bright flavours. Why would anyone have poppadums when you can have these?
Pani Puri
Halloumi Menander - slices of halloumi, in a spiced batter - were one of real highlights of the street food menu for me. Admittedly a very similar (if indeed not the same) batter as the haddock, and really just as good. The halloumi was firmer than the haddock, so it didn't feel like the same dish. The halloumi also avoided any trace of squeakiness.
Halloumi Menander
Samosa chaat is weird but very moreish. A vegetable samosa topped with chickpea & potato chaat, tamarind, sweet yoghurt and crisp sev so that the samosa goes soggy. The idea of piling stuff on top of a crisp samosa until it goes soggy seems very strange to my eyes, but the flavours are great, and the soggy samosa itself is curiously moreish too.
Samosa Chaat
I've never had anything quite like the samosa chaat before. Genuine question: is it an actual Indian dish, or the rather fortuitous result of the Mughli team playing with their food as children?
Gunpowder chips are sweet potato fries with chilli salt & lemon. Crisp on the outside but almost marshmallowy inside. Stunning and very, very addictive. I had to slap myself to stop myself ordering an extra portion on the way out to eat in the car on the way home.
Gunpowder chips
Obviously I couldn't avoid the charcoal pit. Meat+charcoal=lust. So there came some excellent charcoal-grilled lamb chops (easily the equal of the possibly unjustifiably famous Tayaabs in London) and charcoal-grilled huge king prawns, looking liked small children's fists that have been skewered and marinated. Two separate dishes, I should add. The lamb chops were amazingly good. But I thought the king prawns had just been a little over-basted with the marinade, which meant it ended up masking the flavour of the prawns.
Lamb chops from the charcoal pit
Giant king prawn from the charcoal pit
Chicken lollipops were something that was not currently on the menu, but on a specials menu that seemed to be somewhere between imaginary and invisible, but ultimately on its way eventually should they get round to it. These were juicy chicken thighs, on the bone, deep fried I think. Sort of like a cross between American fried chicken and chicken piri piri, but nicer than any of either of those I've ever had. Sort of like a Nando's lorry and a Kentucky Fried Chicken lorry crashing into an Indian restaurant, but better than you'd imagine.
Chicken lollipops
Chilli okra fries: in Mumbai batter apparently. This was the poorest
dish. It had decent flavours but the okra were dried out, rubbery and very
chewy. This was the only thing we couldn't finish. We pointed out they were a bit rubbish, but on reflection we should simply have sent them back.
Chilli okra fries
Chicken kati roll was a roomali roll filled with good tandoori chicken pieces, fresh spinach and red onions. Good, but a poor relation of the tava roll that came next. This kati roll was almost too packed with chicken, making it a bit monotonous to eat. Reasonably tasty, but it really needed some chutney or yoghurt within the roll to add moisture: the dressing provided on the side, didn't quite do that.
Kati roll
The tava roll didn't need anything else though: excellent juicy, spicy lamb kofte wrapped in a butter basted roti strip.
Tava roll
inside of the tava roll
Indian restaurants don't normally do desserts. I thought Mughli was the same, and when some kulfi lollipops were offered, I assumed that was that. But I see from other reports of meals at Mughli there may be a bit of a dessert offering, which - given what I had - it might be worth leaving room for.
Kulfi on a stick (chai flavoured kulfi, I think)
Back home where I live, all the Indian restaurants are strictly moslem, with no alcohol (not even BYO) allowed. So a particular note for the cocktail list at Mughli. Some really interesting, and extremely delicious cocktails, including a number of non-alcoholic versions for drivers. I liked the watermelon lemonade mocktail, but commented that it felt a bit sweet. When I ordered another, it was adjusted to be less sweet. That's good service. A delicious drink, with some ginger adding a hint of fire. I must try engineer being able to try the alcoholic version (with gin) some time. I had a quick taste of a Goan Martini (lychee, guava, vodka, lime) which was extremely delicious: you could so easily find yourself on the fifth or sixth one of those!
As I understand it, this was the space that the Midland Hotel originally wanted Simon Rogan to take over, but a bit of clever bargaining meant he got The French as well, which was where attention was focussed, and which opened first.
I haven't been to The French: it's easier for me to get to the mothership, L'Enclume in Cartmel, than the French, so I just don't see the point of collecting Rogan restaurants purely for the sake of it. I'm also not sure what I think about the complete makeover of The French's decor, given that it's a restaurant that holds many memories.
The last time I was in the space (and it's definitely more of a space - a very big space - than a room) that is now Mr Cooper's House & Garden, it was when the great Nico Ladenis opened Nico Central at the Midland in the 1990s, with Clive Fretwell in the kitchen.
Mr Coopers must be the airiest restaurant in Manchester, with massively high ceilings and a light cool interior, particularly in the garden section (the restaurant section: the bar that's key to a Manchester restaurant's success is in the house and library section of the House & Garden). I'm not entirely sure about the use of garden furniture, but it was on theme and wasn't uncomfortable.
The menu is clearly Simon Rogan stretching his legs beyond the narrow focus of British ingredients, and there's a lot on the menu that I find attractive. Actually, that's not correct. I've just looked again at the menu online, and there's nothing on there that I don't find attractive: I'd happily order the lot.
At a recent meal, the starter of anise crusted sweetbreads with saffron risotto and fried leeks was excellent. I don't think I've come across the combination of sweetbreads and anise before, but it worked so well, and also then in combination with the saffron risotto. A great dish, but not perfect. I'd like larger pieces of sweetbread - fewer naturally in a starter, but it would also make a great main course if scaled up a bit. When asked, the waiter responded confidently that it was veal sweetbreads, but the smallness of the pieces made it difficult to confirm, and I wondered if it wasn't a bit of a waste chopping a veal sweetbread up like that when you could achieve the same result with lambs' sweetbreads. The fried leeks were beautifully crisp without tasting overcooked, though so crisp in fact that one speared the top of my mouth and I had to pull it out with my fingers! Not very elegant, and if you happened to witness this, sorry.
Anise crusted sweetbreads with saffron risotto and fried leeks
A steak main course, served with truffle pudding and purple potato latkes was an excellent piece of steak, perfectly cooked and with a good flavour. The truffle pudding - essentially a bread pudding along the lines of a German Semmelknödel was exceptionally good, definitely threatening to overshadow the steak. The latkes were a disappointment, however, and again it was an issue of size: they were just too small, which meant they became a tiny potato fritter garnish (you can just about see I think three of them on top of the steak in the photograph below) and lost all latke characteristics.
Cumbrian rib steak, truffle pudding and purple potato latkes
My dessert was White chocolate cake with pineapple-cardamom compote. A warm, moist sponge filled with a layer of pineapple-cardamom compote & then a generous amount of foamy white chocolate sauce. Of course it was sweet: it couldn't be anything else with white chocolate and pineapple to the fore. But the balance of flavours - again an unusual combination, I think - was excellent, and there's no doubt it was a well-conceived dish.
White chocolate cake with pineapple-cardamom compote
Service throughout was excellent. The style is so different to L'Enclume that it easily repays the trip.
Here's something a little different, that I came across in an email archive earlier today: two old reviews of Manchester's Yang Sing.
These come from the times when nobody had heard (or even thought) of blogs, and even Google didn't exist. Incredible to think that there are people out there, who can't remember the world before Google! Actually, by the time of the second review below, Google existed, but was still waddling around in its nappies, being just 8 months old.
Nobody then, apart from publishers of cookery books and magazines, had thought of taking photographs of the food that came to your table. So, unsurprisingly, there are no pictures to illustrate this post. Here, then, are the reports I submitted to the Good Food Guide on Manchester's Yang Sing in 1997 and 1999.
From: Stevenson A
Sent: 13 February 1997 16:55
To: 'Good Food Guide'
Subject: New Year's Eve at the Yang Sing, Manchester
Chinese New Year's Eve that is.
Last Saturday a sudden craving for dim sum came over me and there was nothing for it but to get in the car and head for Manchester, pausing only to collect my father on the way for a dim sum lunch at the Yang Sing.
It was busy, though not as busy as one might expect for the eve of Chinese New Year - perhaps the Chinese community were saving themselves for the next day's festivities. Having said that, we got the last table available. Shortly after we sat down queues started to form, with at one point around 20 people waiting for tables.
The dim sum are a mixture of trolleys (stationary, unlike some of the London establishments) and kitchen prepared. The menu advises you to order from a waiter as "you may have difficulty in making yourself understood in Cantonese to our trolley girls"!
Service is more civil and good humoured than many Chinese restaurants, though on Saturday's showing male waiters wearing glasses are the best bet if you want something.
Prawn and crab parcels come deep fried with a succulent prawn, but rather tasteless and sparse crab meat. Deep-frying was clean and crisp.
Cheung fun filled unusually with carp were a good specimen.
Deep fried cuttlefish balls with coriander were startlingly good. A fresh flavour and great combination of flavours and textures.
Beef rolls with yam Shanghai style had a mixed reception. They were shreds of beef wrapped in bean curd, steamed with a pureed yam sauce. The rolls themselves weren't bad, just a bit unexciting, but I found the bright yellow yam sauce really quite unpleasant. My father on the other hand liked it, and went so far as to say that if he'd come up with something like that in the kitchen he would have been very pleased.
We were sat at a window into the kitchen, behind which were hung all the roast ducks, suckling pigs, char-siu pork, chickens etc, of which there was quite a rapid turnover. We could resist no longer and ordered a portion of duck. Unlike most other Chinese restaurants I've been in (mainly London) this arrived boned, rather than hacked into slices through the bone with a cleaver, leaving shards of bone to attack the inside of your mouth. This was - to clarify - boneless. It was also succulent, beautifully flavoured, with a nice crisp skin. Served with the usual sort of soy sauce broth over it with the addition of some good crisp peanuts, which did absolutely nothing for the duck. I suppose it just made it in marketing-speak a value-added duck.
Fried dumplings with wind-dried meats and chinese greens were nicely done and an explosion of flavour. The (shallow) frying adds a nice degree of crunch to the outside of the dumpling, but without going the whole hog of deep frying.
We had other dim sum as well, but they have disappeared into the haze of my memory.
We finished with deep-fried custard filled bun things. Wai Kong Bau they may have been called. On the menu they're down as steamed, but vastly improve when deep fried. The flavour and texture are not unlike hot fairground doughnuts, but with a delicious thick eggy custard in the middle.
Chinese tea (the pot refilled once) and a brandy for my father who's still not entirely sure about the effects ethnic food might have on him brought the final bill to £32.
A Chinese horoscope came free!
From: Stevenson, Andrew
Sent: 11 May 1999 20:43
To: Good Food Guide (E-mail)
Subject: Yang Sing, Manchester
A new dim-sum menu. Gone are some of the old favourites and in come things like steamed seafood and yam tarts with coconut sauce. The tart base was made of the same dough the little white steamed buns are made of, and the coconut sauce was delicate and fragrant. The seafood comprised queenies and king prawn. And the whole thing worked marvellously - even for someone who doesn't like coconut and doesn't like steamed dim sum. There were some little wind-dried oyster and char siu pasties with feather light ultra-short pastry, deep fried sesame chicken cakes - the chicken minced, reformed and coated in sesame seeds and poppy seeds before being fried. Crispy fried stuffed chillis, plus a few more.
And to "pander" to (or rather tease) one of the party who generally much prefers a roast dinner, we worked our way through the major part of the roast section of the main menu. Some excellent suckling pig, similarly good roast duck and some soy roast chicken. The latter, like most of the roasts, appears twice on the menu: once in the roast meat section and once in the rice section, the difference being that the latter are about £2 cheaper than the former. We took the soy chicken with rice, and it would be difficult to imagine that there could possibly have been more chicken in the version without rice!! This was the first time we'd tried the soy chicken, and we were surprised at just how succulent and chickeny it was.
I do hope that the Yang Sing will be able to make it back into the GFG next year (although they are still supposed to be re-opening in the old premises), and with the rating it deserves - which is a good 5 or 6. It has the benefit of consummate reliability and high standards, which many other Manchester restaurants only seem to be able to dream about.
Andrew Stevenson
Interestingly, in response to the 1999
email, I got a response thanking me for my report. The response came
from no less than Jim Ainsworth, the editor, and indeed in my view
probably the last really good editor that the Good Food Guide had.
The Yang Sing has had its ups and downs over the years, but in my experience more often due to the vicissitudes of fashion, something which is particularly fickle in Manchester. It had been dropped in 1998/99 because of the fire and the relocation to temporary premises. Once again, the Yang Sing has been inexplicably dropped from the Good Food Guide's 2014 edition. A quite bizarre decision, from an increasingly bizarre and partisan guide that has lost its way. If anything the Yang Sing is better today than it was last year, or even 16 or so years ago, when the Good Food Guide described it as probably the best Cantonese restaurant in western Europe (I may be paraphrasing, but they certainly said something very much like that).
