Jubilee weekend - Manchester

Being from the Emerald Isle, JD has never been a fan of the Royal Family and never understood what the big fuss was around them. Not wanting to be subjected to Jubilee overkill in the big smoke, we decided to book a weekend in Manchester instead. It was my first time to the city and I was pleasantly surprised! (weather aside) Upon arrival, we checked into our hotel and then went in search of lunch and plumped for a place in Chinatown which was nearby. The decor of the resto was nothing to write home about; I mean, there were Christmas baubles still dangling from the ceiling and fairy lights hanging by the windows too!! Despite all this, the food turned out to be pretty good and the portion sizes ENORMOUS!! I had the pork rib noodle soup (noodles were handmade) which could've easily fed 2 peeps and JD polished off a very sizeable fried noodle dish in black bean sauce. Very nice and cheap too!! (incidentally, Jay Rayner reviews the same place in one of the editions of the Observer this month - ahead of the game, so we were!)

 

The wall of sticker pics we were sat next to of kids doing "cheese" signs! :)

I was also told by my boss that Indian food in Manchester was supposed to be pretty good too. Whilst we didn't venture over to Curry Lane, we went to a place recommended by our hotel called EastZEast, an Indian resto on the edge of town bizarrely on the side of an Ibis hotel? Despite not booking, we still managed to bag a table for dinner which was tasty, delicious and again very reasonably priced :)

Fiery but yummy onion bhajis :)

My enormous tandoori cod fillet with pilau rice....

.....with our super-size, super-fresh naan!

Haha!! JD had already drunk a full pint of Coke at lunch.....this was his mango lassi at dinner which was half a litre no less!! The drinks are LARGE here!! :)