Around The World In 80 Meals! (part 5)

Nigeria - 08/07/09

On the menu at Cassava Cassava you will find such dishes as Puff Puff, Moi-moi, and Fufu (though sadly not other Nigerian favourites like Chin Chin, Kuli-Kuli, Dundun and Bunce Bunce). Equally sadly I'm not sure that this is a venue to which I will want to return...

Cassava Cassava is a Nigerian restaurant located on the upper reaches of Cheetham Hill Road. Looking for a Nigerian eatery we had chosen this place over a couple of rivals for two reasons: it had its own website, and I knew some people who had eaten here and survived to tell the tale. In fact, one had raved about the pepper soup. So four of us converged here - Paul and me, Simon, and my friend Laura who in less than a month's time would be jetting off to teach in Africa for two years. And at first glance the restaurant reassured us - it looked a lot cleaner and more hygienic than most places in Cheetham Hill, and the tables were impeccably laid out with pristine table-cloths, rattan covers, new leather table mats, and flower decorations. So far, top marks for presentation!

This was however let down by the staff. There was one woman in residence as combined hostess / cook / waitress / cleaner. No wonder she was so surly. She seemed annoyed by our very appearance, with a 'why do I have to put up with these idiots?' air. While she spoke English, she didn't really understand it enough to give answers to questions concerning the size of the portions, and whether a starter and a main would be too much for Laura. Plus, half the dishes on the menu seemed to be absent on the day we visited. Puff Puff? Off. Barbecue Suya? Off. Ewa Aganyi? Off. They also ran rapidly out of drinks. After two cans of Sprite, that was their lemonade exhausted. They were already out of Diet Coke, and so substitued Coke Zero. However, after two cans of that they were again exhausted, meaning that I was reduced (after first trying to order Sprite, and then Diet Coke) to having full-fat Coca-Cola. Already it was looking like it was going to be a night of second-bests...

The lady did get busy in the kitchen once we had finally compromised between what we wanted and what the restaurant had. The hum and ding of the microwave soon echoed from the kitchen door. Considering that there was only one of her I think she did quite well in getting all four of our starters to the table simultaneously. However she also brought all four mains at the same time, prompting a certain amount of swapping around and rearranging of dishes.

As we had been pre-warned, the Pepper Soup was not for the unwary. Even so Paul started spluttering after a spoonful. This was a brown, bitty concoction that was essentially ground black pepper in suspension, though there were a few other discernable flavourings in there too (like ginger). White fish had been added to the soup as well. It wasn't bad at all. The other starter ordered was Moi-Moi. This was a gelatinous plate-sized square of pounded and steamed beans. A hard-boiled egg had been attractively inset in the centre. To me it was overly bland, tasting only of plain bean. Laura decided that she quite liked it; however the size of the serving was pretty prohibitive. One between four would have been fine; two between two was excessive.

Laura was less impressed by her jollof rice. Paul in particular had previously found this a rather innocuous dish, but it did not find favour here. In fact it left her worrying whether she would be able to find anything palatable to eat at all in the two years she would be spending out in Africa! Perhaps it was the rather poor quality of the meat. I can vouch for this - my meal featured a large beef shank, but when I scraped off the sauce it turned out to be mostly one thick bone topped cauliflower-like with fat. There were only three fork-fulls of meat on it. In the absence of Suya I had ordered Efo Elegusi. My heart sank when I saw it come out. It was accompanied by a bulbous white mass. My heart quailed. However, thankfully my fears were not realised - it was not kenkey. It was instead pounded yam. This had a dense rather rubbery texture (a bit like a suet dumpling), with a flavour not unlike that of instant mash potato. Taste-wise it was nothing scary, though again due to its size it over-faced me a little. (This was something I have found repeatedly in my exploration of African foods - the meal is so bulked out with some form of starch / carbohydrate, be it rice, cassava couscous, kenkey, or injera flatbread, that it is hard to eat all of it). Next to the yam, and covering the meat, was a thick mustardy wasp-hued sauce. This had been labelled on the menu as a 'soup', but a sauce was much more accurate description. A key ingredient here was ground melon and pumpkin seeds. I find it hard to describe the rather bitter flavour, other than to say it tasted almost exactly how you would expect something made primarily from ground melon and pumpkin seeds to taste. Striations in the yellowy sauce were caused by stewed leaves. It was off-puttingly surrounded by a lake of orange palm oil. Once again, this was something I found that I would be able to eat if I had to, but probably wouldn't by choice!

Simon meanwhile had ordered Asaro - yam pottage. The menu promised ‘Cubed yam cooked in pepper, tomatoes and onion stew with crayfish and traditional African Spices’. The cubed yam was not in evidence. Nor, if I recall, were the crayfish.

A final surprise came when we were ready to leave.
"Could we have the bill please?"
"£42."
No bill, no itemisation (which was okay as we still had the menus on the table, and it seemed accurate), just a total to pay. It was hardly customer service to win over diners. On the whole I think it is this that was most off-putting. The food was not great, but the service was awful. We just got the feeling that our custom was, at best, being (barely) tolerated. I don't think that our visit to Cassava Cassava is likely to be repeated...

(Other Nigerian restaurants include Royal African Cuisine on Stockport Road in Levenshulme – supposedly owned and run by a genuine Nigerian prince. There is also a buffet that runs at the Nigeria Centre, Appleby House, Platt Lane, though I have not heard particularly good things about it…)

Nepal – 10/07/09

And so I accidentally had a Nepalese meal…

I mean, having a Nepalese meal was always part of my plans. It just happened at a time when I was not expecting it. It was a lazy Friday evening and the plan was to meet up with Ross and Laura (who had been partially traumatised by her Nigerian meal two days earlier) for a couple of beers, a DVD and a take-away curry. However, we were in Didsbury, so I should have know that our curry would be a Nepalese one. I don’t know why – maybe it is because Indian restauarants are just not exotic enough for upwardly-mobile Didsbury – but the area has become something of a Nepalese ghetto. Wilmslow Road in East Didsbury hosts The Original Third Eye, Palatine Road in Northenden Jai Kathmandu, and Burton Road in West Didsbury has no less than three Nepalese restaurants – Gurkha Grill, Namaste Nepal and the Great Kathmandu.

It was to the latter that we were going. The smart pink-tied waiters showed us through the diners to a desk at the back where we could place our order for collection. We were told that there would be a twenty-minute wait – enough time for us to head out for another drink.

The smells wafting from our take-out as we headed back to Laura’s were quite intoxicating. However, upon opening the bags we hit a snag. Not being familiar with Nepalese food it was a struggle to work out which carton contained which dish – the odd scribble on the lids was not particularly helpful. We were able to make out our starter however – a Kathmandu Mixed Shashlik to share. This was a grilled kebab of lamb, chicken, king prawns, tandoori chops, onion and peppers. And it was fine, but of the standard you would expect from any decent curry-house. There was nothing that would set it apart as being particularly evocative of Kathmandu – and certainly not the king prawns! What I would say was that for £9.75 it was not good value, even considering the free poppadums they had included. Between the three of us it amounted to £3.25 each, and I’m not sure any of us got more than, say, two pieces of meat.

The main courses were more interesting. In particular dishes tended to be more subtly spiced (i.e. not as ‘hot’) as the Indian dishes I am more used to, and they often came ‘dry’ and not in a ghee-based sauce. For example Ross ordered Chandane Dry Fry (£7.10), a vibrant concoction of chicken stir-fried with ‘herbs and spices in the Nepalese style’ (certainly a touch of chilli and a sprinkling of ginger). To contrast I ordered Bhaktapur Chicken (£7.30), which came in a makhani-like butter and cream sauce. Laura’s choice was lamb karahi for £6.95, rich in onion, capsicum and tomato puree. Add in two portions of pillau rice at £1.90 each and we had a perfectly decent take-away meal for three for £35.

With its rather dated décor Great Kathmandu is not the flashiest Nepalese restaurant around – that title would probably go to Gurkha Grill orThird Eye. But it has a devoted following who choose this little place over its rivals time and time again, whether for eating in or taking out. And while I think the mixed shashlik starter very overpriced for what we received, I have to say that the three mains were both tasty and competatively priced (for Didsbury). And in the Chandane and Bhaktapur dishes they showed us something a bit different from the usual curries on offer at every tandoori up and down Britain. All credit to the Nepalese chefs (Chandra Kumar K.C. and Dhurba Bahadur Dangol). I would be happy to eat here again.

Myanmar - 14/07/09

There are no Burmese restaurants in Manchester. I am aware of one in London (Mandalay), but I think that is a lone example in the UK. Once an integral part of Britain's Indian Empire (and scene of some of the most furious fighting in the second world war) Burma / Myanmar consciously turned its back on the West following independence in 1948. Now it seems to revel in its status as a pariah nation. No surprise then that bilateral links between former imperial overlord and repressive military junta are so few and far between.

What was a surprise was that Burma visited me at work. On Tuesday 14th July the canteens at work was taken over by a 'Saffron lunch'. I work at the head office of The Co-operative, Britain's fifth largest supermarket chain. Since its foundation in the 19th century it has taken a firm interest in a wide variety of ethical issues - it pioneered Fairtrade, has firm commitments to animal welfare and marine stewardship, believes in supporting British farmers where possible. It also supports other campaigns such as (most recently) Amnesty's celebration of the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and schemes to reverse the decline in numbers of bees. Currently The Co-operative is supporting the release of the film Burma VJ, a documentary about Burmese 'video journalists' exposing the true face of the military regime in their country: Members of staff were supplied with slips to add their voices to a petition calling on the Burmese authorities to release the imprisoned VJs. And the two canteens hosted a menu of Burmese food, ranging from rice vermicelli with fish soup to beef and potato curry, from fried pork balls with Burmese oil rice to iced coconut milk with sago.

Realising this was my best chance to try Burmese food (even if it was prepared by the catering giant Sodexho) I headed down for lunch, accompanied by Gemma, Nichola and Amy. The menu had obviously inspired many within the complex as there was a long queue. Those who wanted the barbecued leg of lamb kebabs - as most of us did - faced a ten minute wait around the servery. Already though we could see that the menu included lamb, beef, pork and fish. Used to cuisines from India or Pakistan / Bangladesh I was used to beef and pork being entirely omitted from the menus; this made a refreshing change.

Eventually fresh hot kebabs came out - a surprisingly generous two skewers of meat drizzled with yogurt. Rather than having this with a bed of Burmese noodles of coconut rice, I opted to cannibalise another of the main courses, and asked to accompany it with Burmese-style vegtable stir fry. This wasn't a problem, and the total price (of around £3.60-ish) was very reasonable.

After all that wait, the kebabs were not really anything special - just chunks of lamb on a skewer. They did not have any particular flavour or spice to them that I could pinpoint as being essentially 'Burmese'. However, the vegetable stir fry was delicious. It had been cooked in a dark sauce of soy and black beans which gave it a sweet / salty tang.

It was an unexpected way to pass a lunch time. But I felt it was more of a novelty - it did not really ask you read or learn about the plight of the people of Burma, it did not ask you to gt involved or take up the cause. It was a sideshow to that evening’s film premieres which The Co-operative were sponsoring. We ate and we chatted, while in Yangon protesters, activists and journalists were still sitting in jails. Still, it may have raised awareness of the situation out there, and has really to be taken as just part of the publicity. And one cannot deny that such campaigns are precisely the sort that more organisations should be taking part in.

United Arab Emirates – 21/07/09

I was excited to spot a new take-away open up on Wilmslow Road in Rusholme. There is usually a pretty rapid turn-around of establishments along this thoroughfare and already this year I had missed my opportunity to go to King Cobra (Sri Lankan) - now Beirut (Lebanese) – and West Bank (Palestinian) – now Zam Zam (who knows!). And the Iraqi Marmara now seems to have been rechristened Sports Bar. So I was determined not to miss out on this new place. Its name? Dubai!

Other Middle-Eastern eateries Paul and I had visited this year originated in the ‘fertile crescent’ – Lebanon, Iraq, Egypt, Jordan. This was our first visit down into oil-rich Arabia. Of course, whether the food would be truly representative of the cuisine of the United Arab Emirates would be debatable – the menu featured Lebanese dishes, and one of the staff wore a Libyan football shirt.

But if we (and Paul’s girlfriend Ana) went expecting just another bog-standard Rusholme kebab house we were more than pleasantly surprised. Like Dubai itself, the joint was a cut above. Obviously it was new, and so the fact that the place sparkled should have been no surprise. It had some very funky décor – a job lot bought from Ikea according to Paul. The whole place just looked classy.

There was a selection of Arabic food on the menu - baba ghannooj, Arabic salad, stuffed vine leaves (wark inab), falafel, fried halloumi cheese. They also did the expected burgers and pizzas (Ana had a 10" pizza, which at £3.70 was really good value!). But Paul and I wanted something more obviously middle eastern. Paul ordered Chicken Meshwi; I ordered Kofteh b’senieh. On the spur of the moment I decided to get a pastry. There were a selection of pastries on offer ranging from £1.90 to £3.00 in price. We both ordered one.

How’s this for service? As our dinners were being cooked some plates and dishes were brought across to our tables. We were presented with flatbreads, hummus and tabouleh as appetisers, all free of charge. And when we’d got through the plate of flatbreads, more were provided with a smile without us asking. So we merrily munched away as we drank. Paul was drinking Arabic tea (£1.70) – no surprises there. Ana had a £2.50 hot chocolate. And I had a fresh lemon juice for £3.00. It was exceptionally sour (which is the way I like it!), very cold, and had seen some mint added at some stage to make it yet more refreshing! It was very nice.

The pastries rather blindsided us when they were produced. I think both of us had expected something about the size of a Danish pastry. Instead they had the footprint of an 800g loaf of bread! Each was cut into eight sandwich-sized triangles. However, they were both absolutely scrumptious, fresh baked, piping hot, and crispy. Paul had a Jebneh B’agin, a ‘baked pastry topped with fetta cheese, fresh parsley and sesame seeds’. It was, he said, a posh cheese toastie. When I tried a piece the parsley and sesame were not immediately apparent, but the sharp sheep’s cheese was glutinously tart. Though I have to say that I prefered my Fatayer b’sabanekh: ‘baked Lebanese pastry filled with spinach and onion, lemons, olive oil, pine kernels and sumac’. It tasted to me that the green-speckled filling had a cheese base, but again it was rather wonderful, the sort of thing I would visit again just to enjoy. Though I think it would be enough to share with someone else. And I was only half-way through when our main courses arrived.

My kofteh b’senieh (£5.00) took me by surprise a little bit. Rather than the meatballs I had expected, it came as a minced beef patty, topped with slices of fried potato in a tomatoey sauce. It was attractively displayed on a nice plate with salad, pickles, olives and cucumber yogurt. Again, more than I was expecting. The size of Paul’s dish was even more impressive. His £6.00 Chicken Meshwi saw a charcoal-grilled half chicken stuffed into a flatbread. Salad, olives, and sauces came on the side. And the whole thing sat on a bed of wild rice. The chicken was not boneless, as the menu had advertised, but it was a pretty substantial half-bird, and certainly a vast improvement on the Rusholme kebab we had expected. In fact, to his dismay he was unable to finish all his meal. So he asked whether they could bag up his remaining food – alongside the remains of our two pastries (he had managed half, me three-quarters). This they were happy to do. So I suppose we did have a take-away after all!

Much as Dubai itself has a more luxurious reputation than most places in the Middle East, so its namesake restaurant is a cut above the usual run-of-the-mill kebab houses lining Wilmslow Road in Rusholme. With its great service, wonderful food, and the care and attention to detail Dubai really does deserve to prosper. Any complaints at all? Well, the fried potato slices in my main were not fully cooked through, and Paul said his chicken was a little drier than he preferred, but really these are quibbles. The meal we had here was far superior to anything we were expecting, and a return visit is definitely in order, even if just for their fabulous oven-baked pastries. Yum!

United States of America – 22/07/09

Whenever I talk about my Around The World In 80 Meals quest the same comment gets made over and over again: "What are you going to have for America? A Big Mac?" It would be fair to say that American cuisine does not have the best reputation in the world…

Yet if we look beyond the prediliction for fast food, massive portions and extra-large trousers the USA really should be a haven for great food: high standard of living, stringent hygiene laws, a famously-friendly service industry, abundant and diverse natural resources from Arctic seas to lush fields and rolling meadows to semi-tropical heat. And as a nation of immigrants a veritable encyclopaedia of national cuisines to pick and choose the best from.

So it was that Paul and I decided that for our American meal we were ragin’ to go Cajun. This is the country food of rural Louisiana, based upon that of the French settlers (‘Arcadians’) expelled from Canada by the British. As such it marries French techniques with southern flavours, overlaid with the tastes of African slaves. This truly is the ‘melting pot’ of which America should be proud.

The easiest way for us to get a handle on Cajun food was to visit Old Orleans in the Printworks complex. It goes for the ‘Irish pub’ school of decoration: throw enough crap at the walls and see what sticks. It is a riot of trellissed ironwork and weathered stone supporting coloured streamers and Mardi Gras flags, musical instruments, masks and costumes. I expected this as it is part of a chain with 26 restaurants up and down the country. I used to frequent the branch in Cambridge – though that was less for food, and more for their impressive cocktail menu.

And speaking of the cocktail menu, cocktails were on special offer – Buy Two For £6.00 (I think). So ahead we went. In keeping with the New Orleans vibe I ordered a French Quarter Martini, a cherry red concoction where the vodka was cut down with raspberry-flavoured Chambord, pineapple juice, and a twist of lime. Thankfully our server asked whether I wanted it in the classic ‘girly’ martini glass, or decanted into a more manly-looking vessel, thereby removing my one main concern! Paul turned his back on Louisiana however, and headed north-east for a Long Island Ice Tea – the heavily-alcoholic mix of vodka, tequila, rum, gin, Triple Sec and cola always made this a favourite cocktail back in my Cambridge days.

I’m sure that Cajun purists might scoff at the menu on offer here, but they do try their best at achieving a ‘down-home’ range of fare, and New Orleans celebrity chef Paul Prudhomme does lend his considerable weight to many of the dishes with a signiture range of Cajun spices. They might not serve all the food in the Carpenters’ song (while they have jambalaya and gumbo the nearest you will get to crawfish pie is their coconut shrimps), but they have a menu that ranges from burgers and fajitas to Southern-fried chicken, sticky racks of baby-back ribs, and blackened catfish. I was tempted by the catfish, but eventually decided on gumbo.

Gumbo is a classic example of the merging of different tastes. Essentially a French stew or bouillabase, it takes its name from an African term for okra. If it is described as ‘filé gumbo’, the ‘filé’ is a Choctaw native American phrase for sassafras. It uses the most local ingredients – onions, celery, jalapeno peppers, okra, tomatoes. Its meat came in the form of prawns and slices of chorizo sausage. In all it came served up in a blackened iron skillet, with two hunks of corn-bread on the side. And very nice it was too for £11.95. The prawns were small shrimps, and a little overcooked to be honest, but the chorizo gave a good smoky heat to the dish. Having finished my martini by this stage I ordered a bottle of beer to accompany it. At just £1.90, the bottle of Dixie lager (from New Orleans itself) came at an excellent price. Paul was not quite so authentically N’awlins with his choice of a lightly lime-ginger-and-chilli-marinated yellow-fin tuna steak served on a spring onion risotto with salad (£12.50). We were both slightly taken aback when he was asked how he wanted his tuna steak cooking. I’d probably have just replied ‘properly’, but Paul went for ‘Medium’ and the fish did turn out to be very flavourful upon arrival.

As soon as we finished our meals the plates were whisked away by the ever-attentive wait staff. In fact, if I had a criticism it would be that they were too quick to respond; we felt that we were being hurried along, despite the fact that only a quarter of the tables were occupied. We had a while to wait before a friend was turning up to go to the cinema with us, so we decided to order dessert. Paul headed slightly north from Louisiana to have a Mississippi Chocolate Puddle Cake (£4.25), a wickedly clogging rich chocolate slab of cake that managed to fill him up pronto. I took a bearing south-east for a Key Lime Pie "made with real Florida Key limes"! I have to say this was not as sharp as I was expecting it to be, and was more of a chewy slightly-citrus flavoured yellow cheesecake. It cost £4.50.

All this was a pretty good meal, and one that while it had its base in Louisiana also paid detours to Mississippi and Florida for the desserts and New York for Paul’s cocktail. The music was mostly acceptable soul tunes (Gladys Knight’s Midnight Train To Georgia and Bobby Womack’s version of Califiornia Dreaming added two more states to our voyage). But a real kicker came from overhearing a couple on the next table over when they came to pay – apparently if you had valid tickets from the cinema next door you got 2-4-1 on main meals (cheapest main course free). As we were heading to the cinema next Paul quickly darted out and bought the tickets. This saved us £11.95 (the cost of my gumbo) off our bill. I have to say that in itself is enough to make me consider returning to Old Orleans if I am planning a cinema trip!

It still wasn’t late enough for Bryan to have joined us, so once we had paid and been practically hustled out the door we headed up to another ‘American’ place, Henry J Beans, for a drink. Here too they serve up burgers and sticky ribs. We were full though so only ordered drinks. To add another state to our American trip I ordered an Alabama Slammer cocktail. Paul, while not a Scotch drinker, thought he would go for a Kentucky whiskey. Not knowing much about the subject he asked the bartender. Brilliantly we were then treated to a five-minute master-class on the differences between rye and maize whiskeys, allowed to sniff a few bottles, and then finally made a decision to get a Buffalo Trace Sazerac with soda.

So all in all, we had big fun on the bayou!

(Other than your run of the mill McDonalds / Burger Kings / KFCs it is hard to think what would count as ‘American’ in Manchester. I’m aware that there is an American Bar & Grill in Hale and a Fatty Arbuckles in Salford Quays. Frankie & Benny’s is a chain of New York style Italians (!) with branches on St Ann’s Square and at Parrswood. And for further Cajun cookin’ I believe that up in Rochdale there is a restaurant called Bayou Louisiana)

Greece – 27/07/09

We ate in distinguished company at Kosmos. Photos of famous faces gazed down at us from the walls - Richard and Judy, Phil and Fern, Ant and Dec. Ken Dodd, Barbara Windsor, the Queen. Okay, I will admit that the Queen has never dined at Kosmos. Rather it was the other way round. Kosmos' head chef / proprieter Loulla Astin had dined at Buckingham Palace during a dinner to celebrate the British hospitality industry. The menu and invitation were displayed in the same frame as the picture of Her Majesty.

Yet Kosmos is just a small neighbourhood Greek taverna in Fallowfield (though it is handily located on the busy Wilmslow Road and directly opposite a major University of Manchester campus). It is resolutely ungentrified with its red awnings and interior stucco and frescoes, as if to suggest that little has changed since it first opened in 1981. However its owner has enjoyed a bit of a TV career with spots on This Morning With Richard And Judy and her own cookery show on satellite, which explains the famous through-traffic.

I must admit, I didn't know all that. The last time I had visited was probably with my parents, ardent Hellenophiles, at some point in the early '90s. Though my mate Simon probably knew; despite living in north Manchester this remains one of his favourite restaurants, and Paul and I had delayed visiting until we knew he was free for the evening. Ana and Rebecca, girlfriends of Paul and me respectively brought the party to five in total.

With the time it would take for Rebecca to commute over from her job in Rhyl, north Wales, I had booked the table for 7.30. Sadly this meant that we were too late for the Early Doors Menu; running between 5.30 and 7.00pm on weeknights this allows the diner to choose from a slimmed down set menu with two courses costing £12.00 and three £14.00. However as we sat and ordered drinks we were informed by our waiter that we could still order from the Early Doors Menu if we wanted. Looking at what we did order I would say that on average each person saved £3.50 due to being allowed to take advantage of this deal. Though the downside is that we did not have the full run of the main menu that promises appetising Greek dishes like spanakotyropitakia (spinach pastries), kalimarakia (baby squid), moussaka, different types of souvlakia, and the sensational-sounding Ipoglossa Plaki - halibut in a white, wine, ouzo, honey, dill and olive sauce...

For starters both Ana and Simon had ordered pitta and dips. There was a choice of dips to choose from, though both preferred plain houmous and the house's sweet pepper Kosmos dip to tzatziki or taramasalata. Paul had ordered the fasolatha, "the national food of the Greeks". This came as a very big bowl of soup absolutely chock-full of veg - cannallini beans, celery, carrots and tomatoes. Basically it looked as though a can of chopped veg had just been upended in the bowl. Paul manfully managed to pack it all away though, presumably getting through all of his "five-a-day" in one sitting. Rebecca and I had both chosen dolmathes, the famous stuffed vineleaves, crammed with finely minced lamb and rice, sprinkled with astringent lemon juice, and then topped with a splash of a brick-red sweet and slightly spicy tomato sauce-type condiment. If ordering from the normal menu each of these dishes would have cost between £4.00 and £4.50.

There was a nice pause between courses to allow us to chat a bit more (it was the first time Simon and Ana had met Rebecca). The boys were drinking beer. Paul and I were on Mythos, a brand I had not come across before. However it came from the northern city of Thessaloniki and was palatable. Simon was on a beer I was more than familiar with, Keo from Cyprus. At £2.50 a bottle it was refreshing to see that these were not horrifically over-priced as they might have been in some restaurants.

When our mains came they were pretty hefty portions. Paul, after having managed to finish off his soup was unable to get through all his kiefthethes, Greek-style meatballs with a tomato sauce (ordinarily £9.50). Simon and I both went for rosto. Reminiscent of that other classic Greek dish kleftiko, it was lamb shoulder melting off the bone with a red wine and onion sauce (ordinarily £11.50). It was incredibly tender, and a slight push with the fork was enough to make it flake away from the bone in chunks. All three of us were given a choice as to what we wanted our meals served with - potatoes, rice or cracked wheat. I went for rice, Paul and Simon for the couscous-like wheat. Rebecca had a dish I had not heard of previously called briam (ordinarily £8.50). This was a vegetarian dish, consisting solely of baked seasonal veg and potatoes. It was reminiscent of a baked ratatouille. And finally Ana had a lasagna-type affair by the name of pastitsio. Here minced lamb and Bechamel sauce were layered over - rather than flat sheets of pasta - macaroni.

Having put all that away we were unsure whether to have dessert. Paul was definitely stuffed - he didn't even manage to finish all of his meatballs. However Simon stated that not only ws he having pudding, he would be having the pudding he always ordered here - sharlotta. I followed his recommendation. Sharlotta proved to be a rather sloppy trifle, utilising what seemed to be a tin of canned fruit salad (including those bright red cherries you only ever find in these tins). It wasn't great. Ana and Rebecca had ordered a mixed dish of loukoumi ('Greek Delight') and halva. The chewy Greek Delight was sweet but quite delicately flavoured; the brittle nutty halva tasted like we were chewing on pumice or polystyrene.

All-in-all, we had a pretty decent meal at Kosmos, certainly for the price we paid. But it did not blow me away like I expected it to. On holiday in Greece if you had food of that standard every night you would come home happy I'm sure. But with my fond memories of restaurant trips with my family, Simon's recommendations, and the wall of famous people, I was somehow expecting Kosmos to be truly stellar. Sadly it wasn’t quite.

(There are a number of Greeks around. Dmitri's must have been running almost as long as Kosmos. It is located in Campfield Arcade between Deansgate and the Museum of Science & Industry, which means that you can dine outside but under cover; my mum has eaten there and came away not entirely blown away. There is a stall in the Arndale Market called Zorba's which claims to serve Greek and Cypriot cuisine (though I was unable to see any dishes that I consider to be authentically 'Cypriot' such as afelia, lountza, tavvas or halloumi on their short gyros-focussed menu). At the other end of the scale Bacchanalia, on Chapel Walkswhich is supposedly pretty swish and up-market and whose menu is 'Greek-influenced' (translation: instead of souvlaki, moussaka and stifado you can find Jack Daniels bourbon mushrooms, chicken & chorizo tagliatelle, and rabbit curry...).)

India – 31/07/09

'Going for an Indian' is a time-honoured British tradition. Indian food really has been taken to heart in the UK, with restaurateurs putting their own spins on classic dishes - balti originated in Birmingham, and Britain's favourite dish, chicken tikka masala, seems to have had its genesis in Glasgow.

However, as discussed elsewhere, the majority of British curryhouses are owned and run not by entrepreneurs of Indian descent, but rather of Pakistani and Bangladeshi . The number of restaurants with the Arabic halal sign in the window is a testament to this. So what was I to do to find a proper Indian curry? Famously, the legendary Curry Mile in Rusholme has just one authentically Indian restaurant, Punjab. But then a suggestion came in to look at a long-standing member of the city centre food scene, Shimla Pinks. Unusual name? Well Shimla is a Himalayan mountain town, the summer capital of the British Raj, and the 'pinks' are the Indian equivalent of Britain's 'Sloane Rangers', the moneyed and well-connected young alumni of India's top universities.

Likewise Shimla Pinks caters for the moneyed and well-connected following its refurb. From the outside it is a rather unpreprosessing eau-de-nil shaded wall. Inside it is lovely. Behind the expansive black bar there is a Himalayan mountain scene in which the sky colour subtly shifts as you watch, stars twinkling above. Violet and electric blue recessed lighting gives it a contemporary stylish theme. Even the glasses are one of a kind with an asymmetric design suggesting elephants' feet, arched doorways, or the tree roots that overhang the Bayon at Angkor Wat. This place is a cut above - as you can tell by the expansive wine list that features no less than seven choices of champagne!

However, marvellously, a visit does not have to break the bank. Paul and Ross accompanied me to check out their pre-theatre menu. This comprises their set 'banquets' but at a knocked-down price. Between 16:30 and 18:30 Tuesday to Saturday the cost of the Gormet Banquest is reduced from £14.95 to £8.95 per-person; the Executive Banquest is likewise reduced from £19.95 to £12.95. The three of us plumped for the Gourmet Banquet.

So what did our £8.95 get us? Firstly a pile of that curryhouse favourite, crisp poppadoms. Porcelain dishes of dips were brought out - mango chutney, mint & yogurt, and 'red onions'. 'Red Onions' seem to be a local feature in Manchester, onions in a tomatoey sauce. Here however they were in another class, spicy and lip-tingling. So far this boded well for the meal. And our starters did not disappoint either. Each of us was served with a plate holding a specimin of each of five different starters artfully arranged. A spinach pakora was caught in the moment like an exploding nebula, its batter crisp and non-oily. A lighter batter was used on the dum saunfiya paneer - two pieces of home-made cheese sandwiching a refreshing mint and fennel filling and then lightly fried. There were two chicken starters. The murgh malai tikka were chunks of chicken marinated in cream and cheese before being tandoor grilled, and the joojeh seekh was a minced chicken shawarma. The final starter was aloo tikki, potato and herb patties. These were deceptively spicy, more so than any of the other tidbits. And of course it was the first one I had tried. What would have been nice would have been if the waiter, as well as describing what everything was, had also suggested an order in which to try them, so that the stronger flavours did not overpower the more delicate ones. In fact, this was pretty much my only complaint at Shimla Pinks - there was a lot of different foods produced, all with different and delightful flavours, but there was a real risk that the more subtle spices could be drowned out by the more powerful.

When it came to the mains each of us was presented with a plate holding a timbale of pilau rice. Five pots of different curries were put down on the table for us to share - two chicken, one lamb, one veg, and one lentils. The lentil dish was panchmeal daal, a cumin and coriander flavoured mix of five types of lentil (chana, massor, arhar, urid and moong). Paul, the only one of our party to have actually been to India, had intended to order this dish even if we were just going a la carte. The vegetable dish was a lightly spiced jalfrezi, and the lamb came with spinach in a spicy masala called harrey masaley ka gosht. The first chicken dih was nentara in a dry tomato, coriander, fenugreek and ginger sauce. The other was chooza makhani - marinaded and tandoor-fired chicken tikka chunks in a smooth yellowy sauce. Being a fan of makhanis anyway, this was a personal favourite of mine. And when our waiter re-appeared and said that actually the curries were unlimited so we could have free repeats of any we wanted, this was the dish that we requested another bowl of. (We also requested more rice, though we later found that we were charged for this). Accompanying it all were naan breads, fluffy and light, and not the fat, dense undercooked ones you can sometimes be saddled with.

So all that cost us £8.95 each. An absolute bargain. With all the dishes we were treated to delicate and subtle flavour combinations that are often missing in your usual high-street curry-house. These were curries cooked to perfection using carefully selected and balanced ingredients, and food wise it would be impossinle to fault what we were given. By the time we finished we were stuffed like a keema naan. We couldn't even think about desserts. Frankly, even if we had paid the full £14.95 I would still have classed this as a bargain, but at £8.95 it was one of the deals of the year! Cheap as chappattis! Drinks were not as economical unfortunately - the large bottles of Cobra beer Ross and I had cost £4.95 each! Much better value was the £4.50 jug of mango lassi we shared.

I do hope that Shimla Pinks keep this pre-theatre menu deal going. It is well and truly on my 'return again' list. And it is nice to see that you can have a premium quality Indian banquet in premium quality surroundings - and for less than the price you would pay in the average suburban curry-house.

Eritrea - 02/08/09

Doing some shopping on a Sunday I stumbled across a free festival in Manchester. Situated in Cathedral Gardens just behind the eye-catching glass ski-slope of Urbis a stage and a plethora of stalls had been set up for the Exodus Festival. This was a collaboration between Community Arts North West and 'Greater Manchester's diverse refugee communities'.

There was a lot going on when I arrived, as a quick look around showed. On the main stage Asian Music Talent, with members from Pakistan and India, were fusing classical Asian tunes with bhangra beats and chilled-out western electronica. To one side West African Development were leading a drumming demonstration with audience participation on intricately carved wooden instruments, some drums standing a good four foot tall. Inside Urbis a Tai Chi workshop was in full flow. A good natured and cosmopolitan crowd mingled around, hands full of leaflets or plates of food.

The stalls towards the bottom end of the Gardens, towards the cathedral, were selling hot food. Samosas and curry from the Indian subcontinent, fried plantain from a Nigerian stall. And there at the end was a flag I didn't recognise. A small piece of paper announced that they were the Eritrean Women's Group. I decided that this would be where I would be getting my dinner from.

So what is Eritrean food? I'm sure there's a special hell reserved somewhere for people like me who can now answer: it's just like Ethiopian food essentially. Not surprising when you consider that both nations were once one. For my £3.00 (bargain!) I received a spongy sour injera flatbread. On yop of this I got a mix of rice and veg (peas and sweetcorn), some cooked green beans, a pile of vivid green stewed spinach, and a meat stew. The rice was ho-hum, the beans quite nice, having been cooked in a tomato and onion salsa. The spinach I did not care for; it was bitter and slimy. However the meat stew was great! I had to ask the ladies on duty what it was. Apparently it goes by the name of zigni, and is beef in a red sauce comprised of cheese, onions, garlic and tomato. To this was added chilli and berbere spice. And it was deceptively spicy - it was only once I had already forked in my second mouthful that the tingling dry heat of the first mouthful hit my lips.

The women's group had also put on an Eritrean coffee ceremony. A lasy in robes and headdress sat at a decorated chest, heating thimbles of treacly black coffee over a paraffin stove. I'm sorry to admit that I really do not like coffee, one of the most over-rated beverages in the world in my opinion. Even the smell of this rich concentrated coffee upset me a little so I left part way through. Instead I wandered through the crowds tearing off bites from my injera to eat.

Three stars.

Japan – 05/08/09

Japanese cuisine seems to be very much in vogue in Manchester at present. New Japanese restaurants seem to be opening at a fantastic pace. In the last 12 months alone I can think of Wasabi in the Printworks, Tokyo Season on Portland Street, Sapporo Teppanyaki in Castlefield, and Samsi in Spinningfields. However, I played it safe and headed for the grand-daddy of them all, New Samsi on Whitworth Street (near the Gay Village). This was the pioneer of Japanese dining some 16 years ago, and it is where I usually go when I want to go all Tokyo.

Funny to think that several years ago, the concept of eating raw fish seemed disgustingly alien in Britain. Now you can pick up sushi lunch packs in convenience stores. But it was in New Samsi that I first tried sushi and learned that rather than fearing it I should love it. I have always had good meals here, which is why I chose this as my Japanese venue. And I brought along Paul and Ana, and new squeeze Rebecca for a double date.

Aesthetically, New Samsi looks the part, with clean wood lines, bamboo and banners, and kimono-waering waitresses and cool black-clad male staff. I requested a table on the upper level. Here there are no chairs as such – the tables are set into recesses in the floor into which you dangle your legs. We nibbled on Wasabi peas and drank ice-cold Asahi as we studied the menu. This is not just limited to sushi, but expands to tenpura, teriyaki, sukiyaki, katsu, and on and on. If anything there is too much choice! And despite my intentions to branch out into other Japanese dishes, I always end up coming back to the sushi.

One criticism of the sushi is that you cannot really mix and match. You can either order, say, four pieces of the same type of sushi, or you can order a mixed platter, but have no say over what is on that platter. For instance, I quite fancied retrying some unagi, eel. I had it on my previous visit and found it an odd fish, almost crunchy and crackly like celophane. But at £8.50 for four pieces – and knowing that it would probably just be me eating it – I thought it would be a bit too much. So instead, after a bowl of miso soup (a very reasonable £2.00) I ordered a mixed sushi & sashimi platter, as did Rebecca. For £12.00 this was great value, even if you could not choose precisely what you would be eating. When delivered the platter consisted of two pieces of fresh salmon sushi, two of purple-tinged octapus sushi (tako), two prawn sushi (ebi), two pieces of sushi topped with cooked egg (tamago), and one piece of sushi topped with glistening squid (ika). It came with sashimi – slivers of raw fish – two each of mackerel, salmon, and deep plum-coloured tuna. There was also a tofu pouch (which tasted a bit like a deep-fried brown-paper bag of rice pudding to me – I could have done without it), and accompaniments of sweet pickled ginger and hot pistachio-green wasabi (horseradish paste) to mix in with the soy sauce in dipping bowls. This was a really good selection, and an excellent introduction to someone new to sushi. Personally the tofu pouch and the egg sushi were not things I would have personally chosen to order, but it was nice to experience the difference in tastes and textures offered by squid and octopus, as I had always thought of them as being practically identical.

Ana had ordered teriyaki chicken breast (£9.95). Teriyaki is where the meat has been prepared in a sweet soy sauce marinade. Paul ordered samurai skewers, several skewers of chilli-spiced and chargrilled beef (£7.95). Frankly, both those dishes looked great. But I’m still not sure I regret my decision to have sushi.

Paul and I forced ourselves to have dessert. We had noticed that they served Japanese plum wine sorbet. I had ordered this at the Korean restauarant Koreana and had loved it. Paul had tried a bit of mine there and had been kicking himself ever since for not ordering some for himself. But it came as a ball of shaved ice, tinted a delicate pale purple. Already the syrupy spirit was forming a sticky alcoholic puddle around the sorbet. It was wonderfully palate-cleansing, a cooling, delicate taste, but with enough boozy fumes to anaesthetise a Japanese crane – or a Japanese crane-driver!

As you might have guessed, I love this restaurant. The ingredients are always fresh, the atmosphere simply oozes Japanese style, and the prices are surprisingly reasonable for what you get. It always seems to add just that little something extra to a dining experience. An example is the Samsi Express downstairs, a basement Japanese supermarket for you to buy your own noodles or sushi rice, bottles of Asahi or sake, wall-hangings or Hello Kitty merchandise, dried seaweed or wasabi peas (in fact Paul bought a bag of the latter. And the chain is now spreading across Manchester. As well as their branch in the Spinningfields complex, they have a smaller store called Little Samsi roughly across the street from where I live in Withington which offers up bento boxes at lunch time. New Samsi is certainly a place to take people should you wish to impress them. I’m certainly always impressed!

Jamaica - 15/09/09

Moss Side has something of a grim reputation - riots in the '80s, drug-fuelled vilence in the '90s, gang turf in th '00s. But the area was once famed for its community spirit, firstly amongst the Irish immigrants, and then among the West Indians who arrived in the 1950s and '60s. So it was here that Paul and I decided we should go searching for Caribbean food.

Walking down Claremont Road from Rusholme we soon found a couple of possibilities for food (as well as a Sudanese cafe and an East African called Kilimajaro Cafe - Tanzanian...?). One place, by the name of MC Fresh advertised itself as ‘The Taste of Jamaica’. So in we went. The menu promised all kinds of Jamaican delights - saltfish and ackee, callaloo, jerk chicken, Irish Moss. However, upon talking to the softly-spoken West Indian behind the counter we found that most of these dishes were only available for breakfast. We were left with a choice of just three dishes - curried mutton, chicken stew, and oxtail. Paul ordered the chicken stew with rice and peas; I went for curried mutton. We were also given boxes of 'veggies'. And I also ordered a drink - Guinness punch. My meal in total cost £7.65.

We retired back to Paul's to eat. And my overwhelming thought was: edible but not great. The curried mutton was a slightly off-putting mustard-brown colour, but it tasted fine, if slightly over-poweringly of mild curry powder. The mutton was gamey-tasting, and came on the bone; it was bulked out with potato and carrot. The rice and peas were a hit with both of us though - short-grain rice, almost purple in colour from the kidney beans it had been cooked up with. Tasting Paul's chicken, I found it reminiscent of Chinese chicken, cooked through, with a sweet glaze on the meat. The 'veggies' were not what I expected, instead being a salad of lettuce, tomato, sweetcorn and grated carrot. Half the portion was made up of a coleslaw-like affair, but sweeter and made of very finely chopped cabbage.

I had felt a bit nervous about trying the Guinness punch. It had been served from an unmarked jug kept in the bottom of the fridge, decanted into a styrofoam cup. It was the colour of milky tea, but served cold. In actual fact it was not bad, if slightly over-powering. It tasted like a Baileys milkshake, cold, sweet, and slightly coffee-y. Ingredients apparently include sweetened condensed milk and cocoa powder as well as classic Guinness stout.

The food, I'm sorry to say, did not blow me away. And I think the reputation of Moss Side is likely to deter passing trade. A case in point: once we had made our purchases I crossed the road to take a photo of the place. As I got my camera out a man who had been loitering outside the neighbouring supermarket started to swear, and turned around so that his face would not be visible in any photograph. I have to say, this unnerved me somewhat, and directly influenced our decision to go back to Paul's to eat, rather than dine out on a nearby bench...