This is how all takeout food should be. You can get delicious chicken slices for £95 or two for £1.60, chicken tikka sandwiches for £2, fresh rolls, muffins, and juice: heaven has found its way into Manchester's city centre.

Of course, Three Cooks isn't the kind of place to sit down and lounge with a cup of coffee and a book for long hours--there's a Starbucks right behind the library on the other side of St. Peter's Square if you're looking for that sort of joint. For one thing, Three Cooks is a bakery in every sense of the word: delicious pies; pastries; pasties; and most importantly, no tables and chairs. Besides, even if you could sit down with a cappuccino or espresso, you probably wouldn't want to. I've tried the coffee, and, to be fair, it was really bad.

Bad coffee and lack of seating, however, are the only real problems with Three Cooks. The food is to die for and quite possibly habit forming. I am absolutely addicted to the chicken slices, which are flakey pastries wrapped around chicken in a cream sauce that makes your average chicken pot pie seem bland by comparison. As an American abroad, the stereotype is that I should lose about 20 pounds while I'm here, but with Three Cooks less than a block away from my office, there's no chance in that happening. Delicious food that's a steal: there's no way to keep the weight off now.