What a weekend, what a hangover. At least we can always rely on good food and drink to make us feel better.
We’ve got some absolute corkers for you this week, ranging from an epic-sounding 7-course crisp “tasting menu” at a pub in Stalybridge to high-end hot dogs and even a pop-up from Bury market’s favourite jerk chicken stand, Blackbird Pantry.
There’s plenty more to be announced in the coming weeks too, as even more operators gear up to reveal their new Manchester food and drink venues amidst an easing of coronavirus restrictions in England.
Keep reading to discover our top food and drink picks in Manchester for this week.
A super-pink new cafe on Deansgate selling boujie red velvet and saffron lattes
La Vie Cafe is a new arrival on Deansgate, taking over the ground floor space previously occupied byCOSMO and Red Hot World Buffet.
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Pinker than pink, it’s got a huge drinks menu with a big focus on coffee – think red velvet, saffron and pistachio lattes, freddo espresso – plus some gorgeous looking gelato and freshly-made cakes on the counter.
Find La Vie Cafe at 48 Deansgate, Manchester M3 2FE.
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Social enterprise Eat Well MCR can be found hosting some of Greater Manchester’s best chefs at MIF’s festival square on Cathedral Gardens all this week. An optional £2 “Meals for Manchester” donation can be made when ordering to fund a meal for vulnerable Mancunians. / Image: Eat Well MCR
Handmade sausages, jerk chicken and salads from some of the region’s most acclaimed chefs
Social food enterprise Eat Well MCR is at MIF all week long with some of Greater Manchester’s most acclaimed chefs. Hosting a different menu every day,
Tuesday sees Mancunian charcuterie duo, Northern Cure, dishing up their take on currywurst; followed by some incredible chicken and veggie salads from Elnecot chef-patron Michael Clay on Wednesday.
Bury market regular Blackbird Pantry rocks up on Thursday, serving up their ever-popular jerk BBQ, followed by handmade sausages from acclaimed Stockport restaurant Where The Light Gets In on Friday.
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Find Eat Well MCR at MIF’s festival square on Cathedral Gardens all week. Make sure to order via the app.
Bundobust’s head brewer Dan Hocking has revealed a new 6.5% New England IPA and 4% Kellerbier-style lager / Image: Bundobust
More new beers from Bundobust’s ‘secret’ Oxford Road brewery
Bundobust got us all excited when it revealed it had quietly been brewing its own beer on Oxford Road for the past 9 months. Having just released its initial three creations, the Indian street food favourite is already tempting us back with two more.
Head brewer Dan Hocking has revealed a new 6.5% New England IPA (East is East) which comes “stacked” with cita,amarillo and mosaic hops; and a 4% Kellerbier-style lager (Kipsy Bhal) with German malts and hops.
Both are currently on tap in Manchester at Bundobust’s Piccadilly restaurant. Find it at 61 Piccadilly, Manchester M1 2AG.
There’s a new crisp butty menu and 7-course crisp “tasting menu” available in Stalybridge / Image: @jobiwhan74
A 7-course crisp “sharing platter” and butty menu
For one week only, Northern pub group Beerhouses Pubs has launched an extensive crisp butty menu and 7-course tasting option. All served on thick white bread with lashings of Lurpak, it’s split into four sections: “crinkle-cut classics”, “not crisp butties”, “combo butties” and a “special sharing platter.”
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The epic “tasting menu” is a must – comprised of hot pork scratchings,poppadoms with dip, Monster Munch, Bacon Fries, Scampi Fries and two bags of Seabrook (£7). Get it before it’s gone.
Butty prices start from £2.25. Get your hands on one at the Stalybridge Buffet Bar inside Stalybridge rail station all week long.
The AFC x Tampopo burger is a new “off the menu” addition at Tampopo for the summer / Image: Tampopo
A new secret ‘off-menu’ item at Pan-Asian favourite Tampopo
Not everyone knows this, but a lot of restaurants have secret menu items that you can only order if you’re “in the know”. From Starbucks to Burger King, there are loads to discover – but for now, there’s a unique one new to Manchester we simply just have to talk about today.
Made up of a seven-spice fried chicken thigh, BBQ sauce, lettuce and Asian slaw in a super soft bun, the AFC Burger can be ordered at Tampopo but you won’t find it listed on the menu. Pass it on, as it’s only available for a short period this summer.
Order the secret burger at Tampopo’s restaurants on Albert Square, in The Corn Exchange or the Trafford Centre.
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@afcxtampopo
Feature image – Eat Well MCR. (pictured: Joseph Otway of Higher Ground Manchester).
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Yorkshire Tea is Manchester’s ‘favourite’ brand of teabags, according to new data
Danny Jones
The Great British debate of which teabag is best is one that will rage on for millennia, that’s just the way it is, but according to new data, it sounds like we might at least have an answer to which brand makes for Manchester’s favourite brew.
It won’t be a surprise to many of you and we can certainly confirm it on our end but the one and only Yorkshire Tea looks to have taken the cuppa crown when it comes not only to Manchester’s preferred teabag but seemingly the best-loved in Britain as a whole.
This is according to numbers pulled by local firm, TonerGiant. The Atherton-based ink and toner suppliers decided a poll around the office wasn’t enough and instead chose to turn their knowledge of the market and consumer trends into a bit of online research.
At the end of the day, tea has got to be the most important of all office supplies, surely?
According to the stats, Yorkshire Tea is Manchester’s favourite brand of tea bags. (Credit: Yorkshire Tea)
Using data from trusted online source Statista, which nailed down the top 25 teabag brands in the UK, each make was then ranked in relation to its average monthly searches via Google Keyword Planner to reveal that Yorkshire Tea was clearly the top dog.
With roughly 390 searches per month in Manchester alone, compared to PG Tips as the next best (260), it seems us Mancs have to concede at least one thing to our fellow Northern county: Yorkshire makes a bloody good brew.
The Roses rivalry raged for centuries but if there’s one thing that brings us together, it’s a good cuppa.
In terms of other tea brands that came in high on the leaderboard, Pukka Tea (170), Twinings (140)and Teapigs (90) made up the rest of the top five most-searched tea brands in Greater Manchester. It’s also interesting to see how those figures looked when extrapolated nationwide. Here’s the full ranking:
Rank
Tea
Average UK monthly searches
1
Yorkshire Tea
27,100
2
PG Tips
18,100
3
Pukka Tea
14,800
4
Twinings
12,100
5
Teapigs
8,100
6
Whittards Tea
6,600
7
Tetley
4,400
8
Clipper Tea
4,400
9
Lipton Tea
3,600
10
Barrys Tea
3,600
11
Thompsons Tea
1,300
12
Typhoo
1,300
13
Taylors Tea
1,300
14
M&S Tea
1,300
15
Tesco Tea
1,000
16
Tick Tock Tea
880
17
Sainsbury’s Tea
720
18
Lyons Tea
720
19
Asda Tea
590
20
Aldi Tea
590
21
Waitrose Tea
590
22
Lidl Tea
480
23
Morrisons Tea
320
24
Bewleys Tea
90
25
Cafedirect Tea
40
Few of these on here we’ve never heard of. Taste test, anyone?
While Yorkshire Tea was found to be Manchester’s and the nation’s favourite, Belfast was the only UK city where Yorkshire Tea didn’t take the top spot. Instead, it was Irish-owned Barry’s Tea that came out as their favourite – we definitely need to hold a ‘brew-off’ between the two. The Hoot, you up for it?
As for supermarket’s own-brand offerings, out of the eight options on the list, Marks and Spencer’s teabags were found to be the most popular, closely followed by Tesco and then Sainsbury’s.
Commenting on the findings, TonerGiant’s Stuart Deavall said: “With so many office workers opting for tea to get through the day, it’s no surprise that the UK has a day dedicated to the drink.
“In light of National Tea Day on Sunday, 21 April, our new data shows that Yorkshire Tea is the nation’s favourite, with over 27,000 Brits searching every month… We can expect many Brits to be celebrating in style this Sunday, no doubt with a mug of Yorkshire tea in hand”. Speaking of, anyone fancy a brew?…
Featured Images — Yorkshire Tea/Rumman Amin (via Unsplash)
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Manchester palaeontologist unearths bones of what may be the largest known marine reptile
Emily Sergeant
A Manchester-based palaeontologist has unearthed the bones of what may be the largest known marine reptile.
This new identification is a crucial part of a fascinating eight-year long discovery journey.
It all started when a seasoned fossil collector named Paul de la Salle found a giant jawbone on Lilstock Beach, near Bridgewater in Somerset, back in May 2016, and then father and daughter, Justin and Ruby Reynolds from Devon, found the first pieces of a second jawbone and another giant bone while searching for fossils on the beach at Blue Anchor, also in Somerset, in May 2020.
And now, a palaeontologist at the University of Manchester (UoM) Dr Dean Lomax, has identified the fossilised remains of the second gigantic jawbone that measures more than two metres long.
Experts have identified these bones as belonging to the jaws of a new species of enormous ichthyosaur – which is a type of prehistoric marine reptile – and astonishing estimations suggest the oceanic titan would have been more than 25-metres long.
Dr Lomax has been working together with Justin and Ruby Reynolds, along with Paul de la Salle and several family members, since the father-daughter duo first contacted them about their groundbreaking discovery in 2020.
A Manchester palaeontologist has unearthed bones of what may be the largest known marine reptile / Credit: UoM
“I was amazed by Justin and Ruby’s find,” Dr Lomax commented.
“In 2018, my team and Paul de la Salle studied and described Paul’s giant jawbone, and we had hoped that one day another would come to light.”
He explained that Justin and Ruby’s new specimen was “more complete and better preserved” than the first find, and that he “became very excited” at the chance to learn more following their discovery.
As mentioned, the Manchester-based research team, led by Dr Lomax, revealed that the jaw bones belong to a new species of giant ichthyosaur that would’ve been about the size of a blue whale, and they have called the new genus and species Ichthyotitan severnensis – which means ‘giant fish lizard of the Severn’.
The bones – which represent the very last of their kind – are around 202 million years old, and date back to the end of the Triassic Period in a time known as the Rhaetian.
During this time, the gigantic ichthyosaurs swam the seas while the dinosaurs walked on land.
The University of Manchester, where Dr Dean Lomax works as a palaeontologist / Credit: UoM
Ichthyotitan is not the world’s first giant ichthyosaur, but the discoveries by Paul, and Justin and Ruby, are said to be “unique among those known to science”, as they appear roughly 13 million years after their latest geologic relatives – including Shonisaurus sikanniensis from British Columbia in Canada, and Himalayasaurus tibetensis from Tibet in China.
Speaking on the confirmation of the bones’ identification this week, Dr Lomax said: “This research has been ongoing for almost eight years.
“It is quite remarkable to think that gigantic, blue whale-sized ichthyosaurs were swimming in the oceans around what was the UK during the Triassic Period.
Georgina Pellant -
12th July 2021 
