A Manchester health food eatery has announced it will be helping to feed the region’s most vulnerable through meal donations.
KBK – based in Ancoats – is planning to donate 3,000 children’s meals to food poverty relief charity and foodbank provider FareShare GM, which will be distributed over these next two weeks and during February half term to families in need across Greater Manchester.
The first 500 meals will be dropped off this Saturday to FareShare GM’s HQ in New Smithfield Market, and the delivery will include dishes such as Italian Meatballs and Spaghetti, and Chicken Tikka with Basmati Rice.
The popular brand and restaurant – which specialises in health food, and also provides meal prep, and juice and soup cleanse services from its Great Ancoats street site – has made the decision decided to lend a hand following “a turbulent few weeks in parliament”, with various U-turns from the government around feeding children both in and out of school.
KBK said it is “more important than ever for us to look after each other and offer the support we can to families who are struggling during this time”.
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The restaurant took to social media last week to seek out a charity to partner with.
“We’ve seen the news this week and we want to do our bit to help,” KBK said, “if you know of a charity who we can contact, please [let us know].”
After deliberating upon the best charity to provide the donations to, KBK decided that the Marcus Rashford-endorsed charity FareShare – which has been operating for over 25 years – would be the most suitable, as the initiative has been working around the clock and around the nation to distribute food to families who need it most.
As many Mancunians will know, Wythenshawe-born Manchester United and England footballer Marcus Rashford has been working with the charity since 2020.
He has so far raised enough money to enable FareShare to distribute 12.3 million meals to UK families.
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“Given what has taken place this year, FareShare seemed the perfect organisation [for us] to get behind.” KBK admitted.
Speaking more on the decision to make the meal donations, James Anderson – Operations Director at KBK- said: “We feel incredibly fortunate that we are in a position to contribute, in even a small way, to supporting Manchester’s families during what is a very difficult time.
“No child should go hungry and it is our job as a community to ensure this does not happen.”
KBK
KBK has been operating in Manchester for over 5 years now, and having started out with just one store in Ancoats, the business has grown with the city and the team has said they can think of no better time than now to show its appreciation to the people of the community.
New Manchester restaurant receives rave review as another is slammed as ‘torture’
Daisy Jackson
Pip, a new restaurant in Manchester, has received a rave national review this week – a review which slammed another restaurant in the same feature.
Food critic William Sitwell wrote in his review in The Telegraph that Pip is charming, refined, and fabulous.
“Bravo, Pip. Pip pip!” he wrote in the glowing write-up on the new restaurant, which stands at the foot of the new Treehouse Hotel and has the acclaimed Mary-Ellen McTague at its helm.
Sitwell’s Telegraph review particularly raved about dishes including Lancashire hot pot (‘fabulously good’), a wild garlic soup (‘a gorgeous thing’), and an apple trifle (‘a gift from heaven’).
But while it was all good for Pip, there were significantly less positive adjectives heaped on another restaurant in Manchester.
In fact, he said that Pip is ‘a great-value tonic’ for the ‘brash (and pricey) torture’ across town.
That restaurant was KAJI, formerly known as MUSU, which he said was ‘all tummies, bald heads, tattoos and heat’.
Sitwell said that while the service and sashimi are good at KAJI, the ‘place is afflicted by some overbearing cooking that cheapens the noble name of Japanese cuisine’.
He wrote: “Lamb chops fail the tender test and are properly wrecked sitting on a vulgar pond of sticky “tomato ponzu”. No beast should die to have that stuff squirted anywhere near it.
“And Kaji is a Japanese gaff without sake. Which is like opening a British pub in Tokyo and forgetting to put an ale on tap.”
Sharing the review, Pip wrote: “Thankyou @telegraph and @williamsitwell for the fantastic feature. We’re so proud of our team here.”
Milk Maids, Bolton – The family-run ice cream parlour on an award-winning farm
Daisy Jackson
Ice cream doesn’t come much fresher than those served at Milk Maids – in fact, you’ll be standing right on the family farm where the cows that produce the milk live, as you tuck into your scoop.
This unassuming dairy farm in Bolton has been in operation for decades, and in the same family for generations.
But it’s when sisters Fiona and Rebecca saw the full potential of all that award-winning milk being produced on their farm that Milk Maids was born.
This ice cream parlour on Dearden’s Farm in Over Hulton is now one of the hottest spots in Greater Manchester, especially when the weather is similarly hot.
Every month they release a whole batch of flavours, all made fresh daily (you can literally see Fiona legging it across the yard with buckets of milk to make fresh batches), with May specials including white chocolate and sea salt caramel, raspberry cookie, and passionfruit pavlova.
Milk Maids, Bolton – The family-run ice cream parlour on an award-winning farm
Cones can be filled with molten chocolate or pistachio creme before your ice cream is scooped and pressed into the cone.
Or you can have your chosen flavour whizzed up into a milkshake, served in a milk bun, or presented in an insulated take-home box for later.
We could wax lyrical about how good this ice cream is, but the queues really do speak for themselves, and you should go and get in it right now.
Emily Sergeant -
21st January 2021 
