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Circle restaurant winner loses
The Circle Club has, after 17 years, announced the winner of our competition for readers to name its new restaurant in the Barton Arcade and thus win a meal for two. The editor spent a lunch down there before Christmas with the manager, the chef and Emma from Life PR, and we drew up a shortlist. The winner is Zoe Sibley with Bartons. Or rather she isn't. The Circle management have decided to ignore all the many hundred reader suggestions and go their own way. There are two ways of thinking about this, 1) the arrogant buggers, or 2) it’s their business and their money, so they have to do what's right for them. The chosen moniker for the March opening therefore will be - bring on the trumpets - ‘Kitchen at The Circle’. Ummm. Yep, we think the same as you. Zoe still gets the meal though.
Panorama squared
The Circle needs to sort out its geography as well. The publicity says that Kitchen at The Circle ‘is directly above the club and overlooking St Ann’s Square’. Bit like ‘sea view’ at a Blackpool B&B that. Maybe people will see a very small bit of St Ann’s Square - or perhaps they’re going to install some clever optical equipment. Still Confidential has always liked Neil Lorenzo’s cooking, so as long as his new menu comes up trumps we’ll forget the ‘sea view’ and we’ll only bear a small grudge over the place not choosing one of our readers’ suggested names.
Birmingham sticks the knife in
Following from the story that Juniper has lost its star (click here ) and that Birmingham has got three Michelin-applauded restaurants, it’s good to see our Midland chums gloating. This is from the Birmingham Mail: ‘It’s Birmingham 3 – Manchester 0 after the city celebrated a hat- trick of culinary successes. Three home-grown chefs have been awarded coveted Michelin stars for their outstanding cooking. The clutch of awards, from the most respected food guide in the world, means the city has assumed the title of the country’s regional culinary capital. No other town or city outside London boasts so many top-ranking restaurants in the 2009 Michelin Guide for Great Britain and Ireland. Manchester, thought to be Birmingham’s biggest rival, has none.’ Can’t blame them really, can we?
Wine fun
Confidential thinks Apotheca bar on Thomas Street in the Northern Quarter is a stylish place and we’re going to review it shortly. There’s a decent sounding event there coming soon too involving wine. On Thursday 29 January readers can pop along and sample over a dozen wines from New Wave Bordeaux as some of France’s younger generation of wine makers head to the city for the first time. Tickets for the evening which starts at 6.30pm are £5 (£3 in advance). Call 0161 834 9411.
Whole new food genre discovered
Panama Hatty’s on Brown Street have invented a whole new genre of food. It’s called an Urban Lunch. No, it makes no sense to us either and since it’s about sharing a number of dishes around the £3.50 mark it sounds suspiciously like a variation on tapas. But at least they haven’t called them tapas which is a good thing: remember Pesto and its Italian tapas? Tapas, dear restaurateurs, should only come from Spain. Panama’s Urban Lunch has tacos, ribs, croquettes and much else for around £3.50. Accompanying salad includes the alarming sounding purple slaw for £2.50. Two of the Confidential ladies have been and declared Urban Lunches good. All Confidential wants to know now is whether there’s a Suburban Lunch and a Rural Lunch as well.
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Men in skirts invade Rochdale
Meanwhile in Rochdale there’s a Haggis Hurling competition. This doesn’t refer to the typical reaction of the English to the Scottish delicacy but rather to sport. The game consists of teams of two people. One person throws the haggis over his/her head and the other team member has to catch it in his/her kilt – let’s hope they forego the no underwear provision on this occasion. The event takes place at the Spring Inn this Saturday and is part of their Burn’s Night celebration. If you want to enter contact Rachel Howard or Andrew Morris at Spring Inn, Broad Lane, Rochdale. 01706 633 529. You will need a kilt though.
A gratuitous haggis
A gratuitous kilt
Beer here, there and everywhere
Mark Mottram is a reader who occasionally likes to wear aprons with Gordo and swap food anecdotes. They are the two most obsessive foodies in Manchester and even did a couple of events together last year. Mark’s called to let us know of a beer festival taking place this weekend in his favourite pub, the New Oxford (where those events took place). There are over 70 ales on offer, many of them new to the region, whilst others are just new. Last year the landlord Tim featured more new ales than any other pub in the UK. Beers include offerings such as Moodies Mild and the bizarrely named, Northern Shy. One lot of beers have never before been sold outside the Lincoln pub they’re brewed in. And remember the big Winter Ales Festival is taking place at New Century Hall this weekend, see last week’s round-up.
And finally.....women are gluttons
At Confidential we get loads of crazy PR dressed up as official research from the University of Arse or some such. The latest 'lies, damned lies and statistics’ comes from the hilariously named Dr Gene-Jack Wang of New York's Brookhaven National Laboratory (we thought he was a notorious backstreet penis enlarger) who, after a 17-hour fast, tempted ‘23 volunteers with their favourite foods, including cakes, ice cream, hamburgers and bacon and egg sandwiches. But instead of tucking in, they were asked to take their minds off how hungry they were by thinking about something else.’ Their brain scans revealed that the female brain was 70 per cent or something less capable of ignoring or resisting hunger pangs. Which, according to the Wang-maester could explain why many women find it harder to lose weight than men, as well as why women, statistically speaking, are more likely to be morbidly obese than men.’ All entertaining bollocks of course, designed to sell some dodgy mint which takes your mind off food, but fun all the same.
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