luck LUST LIQUOR & BURN - Manchester

So I’m back. Apologies for the brief hiatus in posting, I’m sure lots of you were sweating a little waiting for your next read of another post on another food blog by another guy who doesn’t know what he’s talking about.

I’ve been on holiday in turkey all inclusive and hence the food was pretty average. (Consider that my holiday post) 

Last weekend I went to Luck Lust Liquor and Burn in the Northern quarter of Manchester. It’s a Mexican restaurant made by the people who brought you Almost Famous, which sadly has burned down and is closed for a little while. Not to fear though they’re serving the burgers in LLL&B if you can’t wait for the refurb to be finished.

 We ate in the bar as we were covered up to our eyeballs in paint from the Color Run (See image below) at the Etihad earlier in the day. As I was starving from the run so I went for the triple bacon burger from Almost Famous even though really I should have had some Mexican food. To counter the predictable burger we got some street tacos to share and a side of trailer trash fries (the fries were small and naff. I think they’re going through a few teething problems as these were off the AMF menu and usually come in a hug basket but LLL&B just serve small portions with the food. I guess almost famous did just burn down so we’ll let them off.)

 

First up the burger, fucking awesome as always, even my lady friend enjoyed and she never eats beef burgers. I can’t stress to you how good the burgers are. They’re better than any I’ve had in London or anywhere else for that matter. It’s all down the quality of the beef, it would be just as good having one plain patty in a bun with some ketchup. All of the other dressing up with sauces and slaw is just surplus to requirements compared to beef hmmmmmmm. . .  Here’s my original review of almost famous if you’re thinking of going (http://amoosbush.blogspot.co.uk/2013/03/almost-famous-manchester.html).

Next up pork and pineapple tacos, these were pretty good as well and I loved how spicy they were. We’re talking mega hot here and they don’t look it. That’s the best bit, its sneaks up on you. They were however a bit small and didn’t really weigh up for value compared to other things on the menu £6.50. Still they were delicious and lasted about 20 seconds and went great some of the habanero and orange hot sauce (plenty of flavours going on there for a hot sauce).

 

To finish we shared some brownie with ice cream a steal at £3.50. I say shared but I had one mouthful. The salted caramel was particularly good with the sugary ice cream and appealed to my savoury outlook on life.

IN CONCLUSION! I had a great 2 hours here stuffing my face after the Color Run and drinking Brooklyn Lager on draft which was pretty good as well, nice and hoppy. You might struggle to get a table upstairs, it was fully booked when we were there on a Sunday!!

8/10

You know where it is – Northern Quarter, Manchester

lucklustliquorburn.com

The Hummingbird Kitchen, Leeds, Chapel Allerton - Brunch Menu

Brunch, the latest culinary trend to come floating across the pond from the states.  I don’t think it’s quite the craze that the burger has been causing in London and Manchester but certain people, myself included are starting to dig brunch in a big way.

Breakfast is already my favourite meal of the day, and nothing makes me happier than a long relaxing breakfast of adventurous dishes served fashionably late at lunch time. Problem is there isn’t anything that exciting for Breakfast in Leeds at the moment, I’m obsessed with chilli’s, peppers and eggs there made for each other, as is Frank’s hot sauce on nearly any breakfast bap with an egg in. No one seems to be brave enough to step away from the bacon sandwich with brown sauce in Leeds when it comes to breakfast.

Hold the press! I’ve just been made a fool of by Giraffe. I don’t like this place at all having eaten an average burger there once, but their new breakfast and brunch menu is full of Mexican themed dishes. I will have to try it out then I guess (I bet its crap). Apologies for ranting about breakfast, I’ll move on.

The hummingbird kitchen in Chapel Allerton has been open a while now and recently launched its new brunch menu hooray. Well don’t get too excited the menu isn’t the most adventurous thing ever, how about a bacon sandwich? Or if that doesn’t take your fancy why not try the chef’s latest culinary creation, a shining example of how much breakfast in the U.K has come on leaps and bounds recently . . . . . egg on toast.

To be honest I’m being overly critical the menu isn’t that exciting but at least they use good quality stuff and sometimes less is more anyway.  So we turned up for brunch at about 2:30pm (granted this is a bit late), the upstairs was rowdy with a large group of ppl getting lairy already so we sat downstairs.

I opted for the poached duck egg on toast with wild mushrooms. On the whole it was pretty weak, good idea bad execution. Simple things were overlooked. Cheers for the dry toast with no butter and the over cooked egg; simple mistakes meant this could have been so much better. The mushrooms were great I appreciate the extra effort in serving up a variety of wild mushrooms and the little bit of shredded beef they were muddled with was a nice touch. I’m not convinced I actually got a duck egg as oppose to a chicken egg. It was the smallest duck egg I’ve ever seen and it didn’t have that richness in the yolk you would expect. The rapeseed oil they used to dress the plate was no substitute in my opinion for a slice of salted butter.

My partner opted for the French toast with fresh berries and syrup, which credit where credits due was pretty bloody good. Better than any French toast I’ve ever made, the berries left a little to be desired though.

To wrap things up then, the Hummingbird Kitchen had some good ideas if a little unadventurous and I like there obvious direction with an emphasis on quality of ingredients.

6.5/10

Stainbeck Corner,

Harrogate Rd,

Chapel Allerton,

LS7 3PG

http://hummingbirdkitchen.co.uk/menu/brunch-menu/

Beer Post – Local & Exotic

I’ve been getting into my beer recently, don’t know why? I just have. So I’ve got two beers for you from very different breweries.

First up we have the Raspberry Blonde pale ale from the Saltaire Brewery. The Brewery borders The World Heritage Site of Saltaire, famous for its Victorian industrial heritage and is situated in an old generating hall that once provided the electricity for the Bradford trams. It’s only 12 miles from my house so I definitely have time for this place.

 

The beer itself was a choice of my girl friends back on the roof top terrace at Angelica again. It came served in a glass with ice, bit weird but it was nice cold. The beer itself was good, definitely a proper beer as oppose to those weird fruity ones you can buy now. Refreshingly bitter and light, smacking with raspberry undertones that didn’t overpower the rest of the beer.

Its not bad this beer I’d have it again, but its not something to get overly excited about.

6.5/10

www.saltairebrewery.co.uk

Ok beer number two! This one I enjoyed at Fazenda recently and I’m sorry to say  I cant find anywhere to buy it in the UK to take home. The brewers website list of UK suppliers seems a bit outdated.

Anyway this one is Xingu black beer from Brazil. It was pretty confusing for my pallet this beer. It looks like a stout which is not what I usually go for but drinks like a complicated lager, very trippy. Apparently this beer is a Schwarzbier? (I’ve never heard of it either don’t worry).

 

Definition: “Schwarzbier ("shvahrts-beer"), is simply German for black beer. It doesn’t mean that it’s necessarily heavy or light in body, although they tend to lean towards light. Unlike other dark beers, like porters or stouts, they are not overly bitter with burnt and roasted malt characteristics that the others tend to depend on. Instead, hops are used for a good portion of the bitterness. Very refreshing and soul lifting beers, they also make a great alternative for the Winter. Especially when you are looking for a lighter beer, but one with depth of colour and taste.”

Apparently Brewdog’s Zeitgeist is also a Schwarszbeir and seeing as this is my new favourite tipple I’ll have to make a concerted effort to try it.

This beer was really good, so good I put it up there with some of the best I’ve had. Personally I think a lot of beer tasting is down to personal preference and what suits me will not necessarily suit you. Still you’ve got to try this one I loved it, It went so well with all the strong flavours of the steak I was eating at Fazenda, standing up well but not leaving me heavy and sleepy like I was drinking Guinness.

Someone obviously agrees with me because “Xingu Black Beer is a two-time winner of Beverage Tasting Institute’s Gold Medal as the best dark lager in the world. “

9/10

www.xingubeer.com

Fazenda – Unlimited steak!!

Monday night I went back to Fazenda for my second visit. If you haven’t been already it’s an Argentinean steak restaurant with a twist. To be fair to the owner when this place first opened in 2010 it was quite a novel idea which has become more widespread in recent years.

The restaurant is essentially a buffet, (I know  . . . .  Sigh), but it’s a posh one and its actually quite good. Once shown to your table you are given a double sided card, one side red the other green. If your card is green side up the men walking around with great big skewers of meat come over and pop some on your plate, turn it to red and they’ll leave you alone. Trust me you will need to turn it red at some point to stop the onslaught of beef overwhelming you.

Meats available include: Picanha (Cap of rump), Filet mignon (Fillet), Contra Filet (Sirloin), Bife Ancho (Rib Eye), Alcatra (Rump), Costela (Beef or Pork Ribs), Bife de Presunto (Gammon), Cordeiro (Lamb), Frango (Chicken), Coracao de frango (Chicken’s heart), Linguiça (Sausage) and finally Morcela (Black Pudding).

Apart from the meat on  a stick you could always hit the salad bar, I say salad bar it also serves hot and cold dishes to accompany the steaks, an aperitif is always served as you sit down we had deep fried cheesy balls and beef empanadas and each table gets a little basket of fries. The salad bar is actually very good, with everything from smoked salmon, mozzarella and tomato salad through to Mexican beans. There are also absolutely loads of different types of good quality olive oils and some exciting fruit based balsamic vinegars to dress your heap of salad with.

The staff are very attentative and have good knowledge of the produce on offer. Our waitress recommended a Xingu black beer to me which was bloody lovely, more on that one to come.

Some of the meat could have been cooked a little better, the belly pork in particular was very chewy as was the lamb but the rest of the steaks were good. The more adventurous offerings are definitely worth a try the little black puddings are bursting with flavour and easily better than the lamb or chicken. Speaking of chicken the odd chicken heart comes round on a skewer which I urge you to try I found it up there with some of the best offal I’ve eaten.

We paid £68.59 for 1 glass of wine, a beer and the buffet (£25.99 pp) including the tip. Its not cheap, I’ll give you that but ironically it does offer good value. This place wouldn’t make any money if they charged you any less. Its not often you have man repeatedly coming past your table asking if you would like any more fillet steak couple that with a pile of smoked salmon and your in the money. Oh and they gave us minty tipped tooth picks to finish the meal (Nice touch).   

Larger parties on a weekend can expect to book a month in advance, the first table we could get on Monday night for 2 was 9pm.

In conclusion this place falls down on quality just a touch to much to achieve an 8, but it is essentially a buffet and the staff are great and you get a lot for your money. I’ll be back in winter to fill up before I go into hibernation.

A word of warning if you do decide to go, you won’t sleep well and the meat sweats will find you!

7.5/10

Waterman’s Place
3 Wharf Approach
Granary Wharf
Leeds
LS1 4GL

http://www.fazenda.co.uk/

Leeds food fest 2013

It’s that time of year again and the build up to Leeds Food fest 2013 has already started.

 

 I’m mega excited so here’s a quick summary of some of the more interesting events coming up you may want to attend:

·        Cocktails in the City – 30^th May – £15 ticket gets you 2 free cocktails and entrance to the event full of music food and main stage demonstrations within Leeds Town hall. http://www.cocktailsinthecity.co.uk/leeds-ie8.html

·        The Pink Shed – 24^th May – 9^th June - £20 gets you an intimate dining experience in the pink box in Leeds Trinity, with set menus from some of Leeds best restaurants and bars. Looks really good value for £20. Sadly most of this is already booked up unless you want to go for lunch midweek. http://trinityleeds.com/news-events/the-pink-shed-pop-private-dining

·        Cream tea in the Park – 1^st June – West Yorkshire Play house is to be transformed in to a country park with live music and scones with jam and cream all for £4. http://www.visitleeds.co.uk/Leeds-Cream-Tea-In-The-Park/details/?dms=13&venue=1583220&feature=1079

·        Yorkshire Food and Drink Show – 7^th – 9^th of June – The grand finale in Millennium square, if last years was anything to go by it should be a really good show and it’s free!

Last years show was amazing and the weather was very kind to us, I got extremely sunburnt/drunk whilst eating twice my own weight in good food. My favourite bite from last year had to be this little offering from chino Latino. Rumour has it their stall will be back again this year.

Shit I nearly missed national Sandwich week!

So I love a sandwich, probably even more than the next guy loves sandwiches. Despite my love of scrummy sarnies I still had never heard of the BSA. Oh I’m sorry  you haven’t heard of them either? Well would you believe it they’re the British Sandwich Association!! But wait it gets better Last week was the official National Sandwich week for the UK.

God knows who is funding all of this or paying to run their website, but not only have they declared this week as national sandwich week but they’ve actually got an active group of members who get together and talk about sandwiches HA!

Here’s a few of their upcoming events in June.

JUNE 

• 12^th – BSA Annual General Meeting and Member Luncheon (London)
• Technical Group Meeting at Bel UK, Sevenoaks

The best one has to be the Technical Group Meeting. God knows what they talk about there. Anyway I fully intend to join and hopefully this time next year I’ll make it to the Member Luncheon woooop.

So to celebrate National Sandwich week I decided to make a sandwich. Over the years my sandwich taste has evolved and a lot of it depends on how I’m feeling on the day or more importantly what’s in the fridge. I used to like them packed with 10+ ingredients now I appreciate a more simple considered approach.

With this new approach in mind I have chosen 4 Ingredients to go in my Celebration sandwich, chorizo, mozzarella, rocket and piquillo dip. I’m gonna talk you through in a bit more detail about each element, seeing as it is sandwich week.

Chorizo – I only have the naff plasticky kind of chorizo because it what my mum gave me for free last time I was home, ideally I would go for the softer fresh version which needs cooking before eating in this sandwich.

Mozzarella – you don’t have to go for buffalo mozzarella in this sandwich I would hedge a bits to mild to tackle chorizo anyway, just make sure you buy the fresh balls of mozzarella not the crappy grated stuff.

Rocket - I like rocket, but any salad leaf will do preferably something which can stand up to cheese. Just not lettuce.  (I couldn’t get hold of rocket so used some watercress)

Bread – were talking crusty roll here e.g French baguette or ciabatta that kind of thing, just make sure its not to thin so you can pack loads of filling in without it all spilling out. The bread I used was shit because I couldn’t get hold of anything any better on a Sunday.  It was a loaf cut into giant chunks, to much bread to filling ratio.

Piquillo dip - I had this for the first time last weekend at my mums, it a dip made form blended piquillo peppers with garlic, lemon and herbs. There is loads of variations for this dip and if you can’t find jarred or tinned piquillo peppers just use some other pre roasted tinned red peppers and if you can’t get them roast your own J.

Piquillo Dip recipe:

Fresh Parsley – 1 large bunch

Fresh Coriander – 1 mall bunch

Fresh oregano – 2 large chopped pinches (if you can’t find any just use half the amount of thyme)

Garlic – 3 Cloves

Piquillo peppers – 3 Jarred

Extra-virgin olive oil – a good glug

Sherry vinegar – 2 tablespoons. (any vinegar will do except malt)

Lemon Juice – ½ a lemon (you may want to use less but I wanted to cut the grease of the sandwich)

Instructions to make the dip are as follows – Shove it all in a blender and season to taste.

 

Sandwich Recipe: makes 2 large ones

Chorizo – 400g

Mozzarella – 500g

Rocket- 2 handfuls

Piquillo dip – 4 big tablespoons

Baguette – sliced and cut into 2 halves.

To make the sandwich fry off the chopped chorizo in a frying pan, once cooked tear up the mozzarella and lay on top of the chorizo. Turn of the heat and leave the mozzarella to melt. Spoon some of the oil from the pan onto the bread then slather in piquillo dip. Spoon In the cheese and sausage mixture and shove a handful of rocket leaves in and season with salt and lots of black pepper.

ENJOY your belated celebration of sandwich week. See you at next year’s technical group meeting, hahaha

http://www.sandwich.org.uk/

National Sandwich week - Some thoughts on a ham sandwich

Building on from my previous post about Meat liquor and the upcoming review of the Delaunay in Aldwych, I thought I’d tell you about something very strange that happened to me on the same day I visited these venues.

It all started with a ham sandwich from Pret A Manger and I know where you think this is going but I assure you it isn’t (there’s no hidden finger nails in this cake).

Long story short I went into Pret and got a ham sandwich and I am deeply sorry to admit this but it was the most delicious thing I ate day.

I’ve been telling people to try Meat liquor for about 2 years now and I’d finally made the pilgrimage there only to find it trumped earlier in the day by a prefab ham and pickle sandwich made by a corporate monster. I should also point out that I had afternoon tea for 2 later that day at the Delaunay which came to £53 and none of the sandwiches on offer there came close to this baby.

I don’t know about you, but this bombshell has kept me awake recently. What kind of crack are they lacing the sandwiches with at Pret A Manger to make it taste better than a double cheese burger with a side of chilli cheese fries?

So let’s find out. I’ve been on the Pret website (yes I’m that sad, but I write a food blog so you knew this already) this is what they say goes in their sarnie:

• Malted Wholegrain Bread
• Wiltshire-cured Ham
• Pret Pickle
• Freshly sliced Tomatoes
• Free-range Mayonnaise
• Salad Leaves
• Pret Seasoning 

“Pret Wiltshire cured ham is hand filleted and slowly matured in a live Wiltshire cure, which gives it a deep tangy taste. The hams are then slow roasted and trimmed of fat before being sliced into this simple, delicious sandwich featuring our dark, sticky Pret pickle and our four leaf crunchy gourmet mix”

I can’t really describe what this sandwich tasted like to be honest, because it sort of crept up on me. I wasn’t expecting to be emotionally overwhelmed by this little morsel of bread and ham, so when it kissed me with its creamy mayo goodness I was for want of a better saying, caught with my pants down.

I’m not really sure where to take this post from here, I’m as baffled as you are that this sandwich was as good as I say it was. Maybe the planets aligned on that fateful morning or maybe I was just starving and a bit hung over, which worked in the sandwiches favour.

I do know one thing, if I’m ever to sleep again I’m going to have to march down to Pret A Manger in Leeds and buy of these sandwiches and take it