Weekly Musings

2017 - Week Forty (Part One)

'Rather a broken bone than a heart of stone.'

(K. Tolnoe)

This has been one hell of a week, and it's not over yet! Those of you that are observant may notice I am writing this on a Friday evening instead of my usual Sunday, and this is because at the crack of dawn tomorrow (4am to be precise) I am heading to the airport for a quick jaunt to Hamburg in Germany with my dad and sister. As I am sure we will cram lots of antics in despite only being there for 36 ish hours, I thought I would do a separate post recommending stuff to see, food to eat, and mainly, establishments to drink in when I get back on Sunday night, so check back in for that!

Back to this week, and I HAVE to tell you about the most incredible dessert place I tried out on Tuesday with my friend Timna - Icestone Gelato. It is on Oxford Road in the city centre, just near Footage, and I sampled the peanut butter waffle, which had the obvious peanut butter on, as well as chopped up Snickers bars and caramel sauce, served with vanilla ice cream, man it was good!

That evening was Matter of Sound's fifth Band and Bean event at Grindsmith in Salford Quays, and although one band cancelled very last minute (grr) we had Lyons and La Zel, and Taff Jr playing, who were both perfect. The former have a reggae feel to their material, and the guitarist manages to beatbox whilst simultaneously playing the flute which was quite the spectacle! I have stuck a video of them performing on the night above, as my track of the week is in part two of this post, but I didn't want you to have nothing to listen to as you read, and they are a cracking little duo. 

On Wednesday a group of us met up for food at Byron Burger on Deansgate, as a last goodbye to Laura who leaves to travel around South America/ Australia and New Zealand next week. I had the Oreo milkshake, and chose the Byron Burger (a beef patty with bacon, cheese, burger sauce, red onions, tomato and lettuce) and shared sweet potato fries with Ellie. The food, when it finally arrived, was classic and tasty, but the service was shocking; it took the waiter ten minutes to come over for us to order drinks and get the menu, and over forty for our food, which considering there was only us and one other table was unacceptable in my eyes. We had chosen there as we had a voucher for 50% off food, but despite the discount I wouldn't rush back as my experience was marred because of our excessive wait.

Yesterday I went into Manchester with Moj to check out Manchester Food Festival in Albert Square. I got crab fritters from Holy Crab (omgosh, amazing!), rhubarb flavoured prosecco from a cute little metal trailer and we sat and listened to Larkins who I saw at a Sofar Sounds a couple of years ago who happened to be performing inside the tent. We went for an espresso martini by the open fire in Albert's Schloss afterwards, and a final cocktail in Impossible before heading home.

Today I packed my case and am heading to bed soon ready to be up with the birds!

New Tastes...

Byron Burger, Manchester

Last night a group of us wanted to go out somewhere for dinner and a couple of drinks, so I suggested Byron Burger, on Deansgate in Manchester. It is always rammed when I walk past, and has a sort of 50s vibe going on, so after looking at the menu (pretty cheap) I thought it was a good choice.

We booked a table for 8 people with no problem, and ordered some drinks whilst perusing the menu. It is quite limited, but I like this as it shows that in theory, what they make should be top notch. I have been to a few burger places recently and if truth be told, I'm not even a huge fan of them (hell knows why I chose the restaurant!) so I decided to be different and went for the veggie burger. 

It had a huge portabello mushroom, pepper, tomato, spinach, red onion and aioli on, and was supposed to be goats cheese, but I swapped it for some Monterey Jack instead. I really enjoyed it, and got the skin-on fries as a side, which were really tasty. We shared a bottle of wine and all the guys had beers, so we just split the bill for ease, with a tip it came to just over £20 each, which I thought was decent for what we had.

Afterwards we went to a new cocktail bar with a similar vibe to Alchemist called Elixir on Deansgate for a couple of drinks, before moving on to Liars Club, a last minute decision as I missed the last train, so thought I might as well stay out late if I was forking out £25 for a taxi home! It was a really fun night, a good distraction from the monotonies of life!