A TikToker in Los Angeles has set the internet ablaze after claiming to have invented the picky tea.
Consisting of leftovers and various random bits of cold food, any self-respecting Manc knows that picky teas have been a hallmark of British summertime since the dawn of sliced cucumber.
To us Brits, the picky tea is an iconic summer staple – widely known to be every British mum’s favourite thing to serve when the weather gets hot and they don’t want to cook.
But now, the humble hodge podge of ingredients has been rebranded as ‘Girl Dinner’ on TikTok – and the New York Timesis crediting LA social media user Olivia Maher with coining the phrase.
According to an article published in the American newspaper, the 28-year-old used the term to describe her dinner of cheese, grapes, bread, and wine on 12 May.
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In a video that now has over 1.2 million views, she said: “I cannot find the TikTok right now but a girl just came on here and said how in medieval times peasants had to eat nothing but bread and cheese and how awful that was, and she was like ‘that’s my ideal meal’. This is my dinner. I call this ‘girl dinnner’ or ‘medieval peasant.’
The video has racked up hundreds of comments, with lots of Americans posting to say they’re all about these sorts of meals as #girldinner continues to trend on TikTok.
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There are reams of comments underneath, with users celebrating Olivia as the ‘original’ girl dinner creator.
Others have questioned #girldinner’s originality in the comments, with one person saying: “This is actually a European dinner by some standards.”
Another person said: “It’s called picky bits”
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A third person said: “Perfect dinners, I call this ‘picky tea’ just want more bread for you”
Image: Twitter
Image: Twitter
A fourth person added: “I feel like y’all need to look up the average German breakfast(which can be consumed any time of day) because this isn’t really that far off”
A fifth said: “I call this a picnic dinner”
A sixth said: “American women calling picky bits, ‘girl dinner'” with a crying-laughing emoji.
In an interview with Insider, Olivia Maher said: “The name ‘girl dinner’ came to me while on a ‘hot girl walk’ ‘with a friend discussing our favourite low-maintenance way to eat when our boyfriends aren’t around.”
She added that she’d decided to have a ‘girl dinner’ after her walk, and decided to post it on TikTok thinking perhaps ‘other women out there might do the same and feel just as giddy about it.’
Ancoats neighbourhood bar shames customers who ran off on unpaid rosé bill
Daisy Jackson
A waterside cocktail bar in Ancoats has slammed a group of customers who left the venue without paying their bill this weekend.
Finders Keepers on New Islington Marina has publicly shamed the trio, sharing CCTV images of them making off from the venue.
The local business has labelled the customers ‘Manchester’s newest girl group, Rosé & The Runners’.
They added that the group had enjoyed a few bottles of rosé wine but left before paying their £160 bill.
Finders Keepers also said that the incident occurred on a ‘record-breaking’ day last Saturday, when the city bathed in beautiful spring sunshine.
Since releasing the CCTV images this afternoon, the bar has been flooded with messages of support – including one very notable one from Sacha Lord.
Sacha has offered to pay off the girls’ tab so that the bar isn’t left out of pocket, AND has suggested providing a £500 reward to anyone who can name and shame them.
He commented: “Everyone knows how tough it is in Hospitality right now…how can anyone want to do this to a small independent business. I’ll settle that bill mate…plus give a £500 reward to name and shame them.”
Finders Keepers bar on New Islington MarinaFinders Keepers shared this CCTV of the customers who left the bar without paying
Another person commented: “foul behaviour! Sorry this happened to you guys.”
Someone else wrote: “Love a good photo shame when folk rip off a business… Hope they pay!!”
Posting earlier today, Finders Keepers said: “We’d like to thank Manchesters newest girl group, Rosé & The Runners. Who enjoyed a few bottles of Rosé wine with us on this record breaking Saturday, without paying.
“If you’d like to come back & pay your £160 bill then we’re back open on Wednesday, alternatively get in touch and we can send you a payment link.
“Next time you fancy a free bar tab perhaps join us for our quiz this Sunday from 7pm. £100 tab to be won!
Brilliant Salford Greek restaurant receives glowing national review
Daisy Jackson
A fabulous Greek restaurant in Salford has received a glowing review from a top food critic, who described its food as providing ‘its own gorgeous kind of sunshine’.
Acclaimed restaurant critic Jay Rayner has heaped praise on Kallos in his Financial Times review.
The modest restaurant has been open for just over a year, but has already earned itself a place in the prestigious Michelin guide – and now a rave national review too.
Operated by couple Ioanna and Ivan, Kallos brings a taste of Santorini to their stripped-back, concrete-filled, light-flooded new space in Salford.
And while Jay Rayner admits in his review that Kallos’s interior hasn’t done much to lift this corner of Salford’s ‘badly organised grid of fast-rising apartment blocks’, the food itself ‘provides its own gorgeous kind of sunshine’.
Rayner heaped praise on Kallos’s phenomenal flatbreads, noting how it’s impossible to exercise restraint ‘in the face of bread this good’.
He also raved about their topped flatbreads (like one with ‘knots of sweet roasted lamb shoulder cooked until it has collapsed’), red prawns the length of a hand, and soft dolmades stuffed with rice and minced meat.
Topped flatbread with lambTinned fishPrawn SaganakiThree of the dishes Jay Rayner loved at Kallos. Credit: The Manc Group
Kallos is part-owned by sommelier Ivan, who is striving to have the largest collection of Greek wines in the UK at the restaurant.
Jay Rayner noted both the selection and the affordability of this carefully-curated wine list, saying that it’s nice to find that ‘outside London, drinking well need not require the sale of a spare kidney or child’.
And then he came to the section of the menu that’s dedicated to premium tinned fish.
“It feels like the UK has woken up only relatively recently to the possibilities of impressively fine foods from a can,” he wrote.
Kallos in Cortland at Colliers Yard, SalfordKallos in Salford has been added to the Michelin Guide
“It is genuinely exciting to see Kallos devote a whole section of the menu to these treasures, even if it is basically the same victory of shopping that results in a good cheese board.
“But it takes both serious knowledge and a brave evangelical enthusiasm to offer a list like this.”
Rayner’s review went on to praise the tinned mackerel, served with a ‘balloon of hot bread’, pickled chillies, and an ‘aioli made with so much garlic, consenting adults should make sure to eat it together’.
Signing off his review, Jay Rayner wrote: “As the plate lands on the table, the sun finally comes out over both Salford and Kallos. Finally, the grey is banished. At last, all the beauty is here.”
Georgina Pellant -
10th July 2023 
