Food & Drink

Manchester football stadiums sell the Premier League’s cheapest pints, study finds

Meanwhile, a beer will set you back over a fiver (£5.10) at Leicester City’s King Power Stadium whilst London Stadium and Tottenham Hotspur Stadium charge a steep £5.

Georgina Pellant Georgina Pellant - 9th March 2023

Aside from the end result, there are many things that can make or break a match day. From the cost of a pint to quench your thirst to the mood of other fans around you, there are simply some stadiums that do it better than others – and apparently, Manchester is up there with the very best.

As much as Manchester United fans hate their owners, it’s possible the Glazers may have done one thing right: namely, selling the cheapest beers in the Premier League.

According to a new study by Betting.com, Manchester United’s Old Trafford stadium offers the cheapest pints of beer in the whole of the Premier League with thirst-quenching pints costing football fans just £3 a pop.

But whilst reds fans might be feeling smug at the news, it’s good news for blues supporters too as Manchester City’s Etihad Stadium comes in a close second-cheapest with pints for home and away fans only costing an extra 40p more.

Old Trafford stadium came top of the table for cheap pints according to the new study. / Image: Commons Wikimedia

Third on the list is Leeds United’s Elland Road, where fans typically pay £3.60 for a pint, followed by Newcastle United’s St James’ Park and Nottingham Forest’s The City Ground.

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The most expensive pint in the Premier League, meanwhile, can be found at King Power Stadium, home to Leicester City, where a pint will set fans back a steep £5.10 a go.

As well as conducting research on the cheapest pints, Betting.com has also revealed the best and worst football stadiums in the UK based on online reviews, the cost of a match day pint, as well as food and atmosphere ratings.

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On top of this, they’ve also revealed the stadiums home to the most and least expensive tours for fans looking to walk in the footsteps of their heroes. 

With an average rating of 4.7 stars out of 5, matched only by Anfield (Liverpool F.C), and The City Ground, (Nottingham Forest), Tottenham Hotspur Stadium comes out on top as the best football stadium home to a Premier League club. 

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The Etihad Stadium came in a close second with pints for just £3.40. / Image: Commons Wikimedia

Spurs’ ground boasts 82% of its reviews being 5 star, tied with Craven Cottage (Fulham), and a 4 star rating by fans for its food, matched only by Amex Stadium, home to Brighton & Hove Albion.

In second place overall comes St. James’ Park, followed by Anfield in third, The City Ground in fourth and Manchester City’s Etihad Stadium in fifth.

On the opposite end of the scale, London Stadium is revealed to be the worst stadium home to a Premier League club. The home of West Ham United, the stadium scores a measly 2.5 out of 5 for its atmosphere and charges fans a high price (£5) for a match day beer.

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Fans love to get a sneak peak behind the scenes of their team’s ground, but how much can a tour set you back? Stamford Bridge, home to Chelsea, is by far the most expensive stadium to see through the eyes of your heroes, costing £40 a head, followed by Tottenham Hotspur Stadium (£27) and Emirates Stadium (£27) in joint second place whilst Anfield (£25) comes in third.

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Meanwhile, King Power Stadium (Leicester City), Amex Stadium (Brighton & Hove Albion), Elland Road (Leeds United) and The City Ground (Nottingham Forest) have the cheapest tours on offer at £15 a head.

Feature image – Commons Wikimedia

Food & Drink

Inside the underground Manchester noodle bar serving Chinatown’s spiciest scrans

Georgina Pellant Georgina Pellant noodle alley

Over in Chinatown, there’s a relatively new little noodle bar that’s been making a big, spicy stamp on the city’s dining scene.

Its owner, Wendy Ren, hails from the Chinese province of Sichuan – a region that’s home to giant pandas, traditional Sichuanese opera, and some of the spiciest food going, thanks to its famous Sichuan pepper.

Also known as the Chinese prickly ash, the citrus-like peppercorn leaves a tingly numbness in the mouth and on the lips that you’ll either love or hate.

It’s an acquired taste, by all accounts – but those who love it can’t get enough. In fact, on my visit during a packed-out Wednesday lunch service, Wendy stopped to chat with an Italian family holidaying in Manchester who had been in to eat three days in a row. Now that’s an endorsement if I ever heard one.

She’s opened the restaurant alongside her Cantonese husband, Ken Chen, but the recipes are all hers – and on our visit she laughs with us about how it has taken him some time to get on board with her spicy food, saying: “he found out pretty quickly that he either eats it or he doesn’t eat at all.”

For big fans of spice, this is fast becoming the absolute go-to spot in Chinatown – and for those who aren’t so tough, don’t worry, because Wendy’s put some things on the menu for you too (and possibly, also, for Ken).

Just taking a moment for the hand-rolled pork dumplings with sweet and spicy chilli oil and minced garlic. / Image: The Manc Eats
Noodle Alley is beautifully decked out in red and green with little nods to the famous wide and narrow alleys of Chengdu. / Image: The Manc Eats

Called Noodle Alley, the restaurant is tucked away underground on Faulkner Street and beautifully decked out in red and green with little nods to the famous wide and narrow alleys of Chengdu.

Formerly home to China City, a real old-school Chinatown legacy restaurant, the space has a special place in Wendy’s heart.

She tells me that she and her husband used to come and eat here “all the time” when they first started dating, so the location really means a lot to both of them.

Chinatown restaurants aren’t exactly known for their glamorous interiors, and China City, Wendy jokes, was one such place – with the same old carpet, and the same old tables that had been used for the past twenty years.

Now the space is her own, though, it’s markedly different – lovingly decked out in cheerful colours, with little green windows, hanging lanterns, and bamboo rattan paneling on the walls.

Hand-rolled dumplings stuffed with mince pork on their way to the kitchen at Noodle Alley. / Image: The Manc Eats
The end result – drenched in homemade chilli oil and topped with crispy garlic. / Image: The Manc Eats

Her story of getting into the restaurant business is something of an unusual one. Prior to opening Noodle Alley, she tells me, she spent nearly two decades working at The Marriott Hotel.

After seventeen years of service and the birth of her second child, she asked to go part-time but her request was refused – so she quit the very next day, and began building her own route to independence.

It was during the Covid lockdown, she says, that she really got into cooking group meals – making meals for her friends and spending hours in the kitchen busying away happily over her stove.

A friend with several restaurants in Chinatown suggested she start her own business, and the rest – as they say – is history.

Dan Dan noodles are out, apparently, and Su Jiao Mian are in. / Image: The Manc Eats
Burning noodles with preserved vegetables and crushed peanuts. / Image: The Manc Eats

Dish-wise, her menu spans a mouthwatering selection of dry noodles, soup noodles, street food, and small plates, including the likes of deep-fried wavy potato chips with chilli and Szechuan pepper and steamed beef strips wrapped with chilli paste, numbing Sichuan pepper, and five-spiced rice powder.

Dan Dan noodles, the Sichuan dish we probably all know the best, don’t feature – they’re a bit old news now, apparently, and Wendy has some cooler alternatives for us to try.

Read more: This blink-and-you’ll-miss-it basement restaurant in Manchester’s Chinatown serves the ultimate yum cha feast

One is her Su Jiao Mian, a mixture of minced pork, sesame sauce, and house chilli oil, the other is the Wan Za Mian, a fiery mixture of spices combined with minced pork, soft yellow peas, and more chilli which Wendy says is “one of the most popular noodles in Sichuan.”

Apparently, if you’re eating with the cool kids in Sichuan, you should order this. Not one to argue, I dig in – and it’s safe to say her food is pretty damn exceptional. Almost immediately, I’m planning my next trip back.

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Two of Noodle Alley’s signature dishes: Steamed beef strips wrapped with five spiced rice powder (back) and ‘saliva chicken’ served cold with special chilli oil, peanuts, and cucumber. / Image: The Manc Eats
Pork knuckle with butter beans in an umami-rich pork bone broth. / Image: The Manc Eats

Other signature dishes here include Wendy’s steamed beef strips, which can be eaten alone or dipped into one of her noodle soups, and a dish of ‘saliva chicken’ – a crunchy, cold, textural dish with steamed chicken, fresh chillis and ribbons of cucumber that sit swimming in a bath of homemade Sichuan chilli oil, so named because it literally makes your mouth water.

We also opt for a dish of pork knuckle with butter beans in an umami-rich pork bone broth. Not one for the faint-hearted, even Wendy seemed a little cautious to recommend this one, but as fans of ‘the weird stuff’ we insist – and it really ends up being a highlight of the meal.

Read more: Top Manchester chef to host special £250 dinner – but vegans aren’t welcome

We end up needing a little help with it. It’s a slippery bugger and I end up wearing a fair bit of the broth. before she returns with a knife and fork to cut it up properly for us.

That broth it’s in, though, is so beautiful I could happily bathe in it. Some might say I did, to be fair. As for the soft, succulent pork meat? When sliced into tiny morsels and dipped into an extra special Sichuan chilli oil she retrieves from the kitchen, is something else entirely.

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If this is Sichuan heaven, then I’ll happily stay here forever. From plump hand-made dumplings stuffed generously with flavourful pork and drenched in chilli oil, to chicken giblet soup noodles, there’s so much on the menu I will be coming back for.

And for those who really can’t handle the spice, I guess I’ll be recommending the scallion oil noodles with soy sauce and crispy egg. No matter what you order here, I don’t think you can go too wrong.

Featured image – The Manc Eats

Food & Drink

Top Manchester chef to host special £250 dinner – but vegans aren’t welcome

Georgina Pellant Georgina Pellant adam reid at the french

The French at The Midland Hotel has revealed it will host an exclusive dining experience next month with Hubert de Billy from the esteemed Champagne house Pol Roger – but there won’t be anything on the menu for Manchester’s vegans.

Adam Reid at The French is set to host an exclusive dinner next month as the esteemed chef patron joins forces with one of France’s most luxurious Champagne houses.

Taking place on Friday 6 October, diners will be treated to an indulgent four-course dinner pairing Lancashire lad Adam’s stylish Northern cooking with matching wines.

Due to the specific nature of the vent, however, specific dietary requirements will not be catered to on the evening – so vegans are being warned to stay away.

Wines will be introduced and described by none other than Monsieur de Billy, the fifth generation of the family-owned Champagne house and Pol Roger’s great-great-grandson.

Founded in 1849, Pol Roger is regarded as one of the finest of all the Champagne houses.

Guests will be given the opportunity to taste the prestigious Pol Roger Champagne, a notable favourite of late Prime Minister Winston Churchill, with some snacks on arrival before digging into a sumptuous four-course meal.

At £250 a head, it’s not cheap – but then we are talking about one of Manchester’s most premium restaurants, collaborating with one of France’s most prestigious Champagne houses, so it seems par for the course that you’ll be paying a pretty penny for it.

Starting at 6.30pm, things will kick off with glasses of Champagne and special snacks made by Adam Reid and his team before diners are seated in the plush restaurant for their meal.

Tickets for the event are strictly limited, and due to the nature of this event, specific dietary requirements will not be available to be catered for including vegan and dairy-free diets.

adam reid at the french
Inside Adam Reid at The French, a beautiful space within Manchester’s historic hotel The Midland. / Image: The Manc Eats
the french at the midland
Squid ink crackers topped with whipped roe and pickled red pepper that taste just like patatas bravas. / Image: The Manc Eats

Whilst vegans and dairy-free folk might be feeling a bit left out, for the rest of Manchester it’s an opportunity to dine in one of the city’s most famous restaurants.

For those who don’t know the history of The French, in 1974 it made history as the first Manchester restaurant to be awarded a Michelin star.

Read more: The French at The Midland – the unsung hero of Manchester’s food and drink scene

Back then, it was Chef Gilbert Lefevre at the helm and it really did what it said on the tin – serving opulent plates of escargots, foie gras, and caviar, even committing right down to the menu itself, half of which was printed en français.

The restaurant retained its star for three years, before losing it in 1977, and would go on to have some ups and downs before coming under the stewardship of Simon Rogan in 2013, with its now-Chef Patron Adam Reid working underneath him as Head Chef.

Rogan – already then a proprietor of the Umbel group including L’Enclume, Fera at Claridge’s, and Rogan & Co – famously ended his five-year contract with the hotel two years early after failing to get a Michelin star.

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That same year, local lad Adam took on the top dog role and in 2017 re-positioned the offering to reflect his own style – essentially making everything more relaxed.

the french
‘The warm Northern welcome’ feat. steaming cups of beef tea served alongside Pollen ‘French malt’ bread and thick pats of beefy butter. / Image: The Manc Eats
the french
Roast Cumbrian lamb loin with flavours of Cinderwood Market Garden and warm Lancashire oven bottom muffins. / Image: The Manc Eats

He dropped the complicated place settings, brought in music so that diners no longer feared dropping their forks, introduced a new chef station in the restaurant, and revised the menu to pay homage to his Lancashire roots.

Under his stewardship, The French at The Midland typically serves an 11-course tasting menu featuring dishes inspired by picky teas, miniature cheese and onion pies, and steaming cups of beef tea served alongside Pollen ‘French malt’ bread and thick pats of beefy butter.

This special Pol Roger dinner is a one-off at the restaurant. It marks the beginning of a new chapter at Adam Reid at The French with its chef patron and head chef looking to host more collaborative events going forward.

Featured image – The Manc Eats

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