Having sniffled and sweated my way through a particularly
nasty cold, I celebrated my first day of feeling well with a trip to Manchester
with Amy this week; we did a bit of window shopping, returned something hideous I’d
bought and most importantly we dropped in to a Turkish restaurant at 205 Deansgate:
Topkapi Palace. Apparently Roger’s been to the real deal on a school trip;
alas, I am but a poor lout who’s never been to Turkey. I’d seen this place the
week before on my way to the Museum of Science and Industry and noted how it
actually had people sitting inside, as well as a decent lunch menu of £7.95 for
two courses, so we decided to give it a try.
Now that I’m based back in West Yorkshire, Manchester is
only a half hour train ride away, rather than a two-hour trek. Exhausting all the
restaurant options in York really made me feel like it was time to be moving on
and Manchester, with its seemingly endless eatery options really gets me
excited. I get the sense that the city cares about its food; Simon Rogan's The French narrowly missed out on a Michelin star this year but has raised the bar pretty high, and there's enough money knocking about to warrant some pretty good cocktail
bars. If I had the money I know where I’d spend it. But I don’t have the money.
And as for drinks, the 10.30 curfew of the last-train-home doesn’t really give
me the option for a night on the tiles, nor am I an afternoon cocktail person.
When I was small we used to drive to Manchester and stop off
at a little bakery up some steps in Chinatown. Inside there were glass-fronted
displays of all kinds of sweet and savoury soft doughy buns, glazed and shining.
We always bought something sweet with bean paste in it, which got thrown out
after we’d taken one bite each in the back of the car but the star of our
purchases was always the pork buns. The dough itself was sweet and pillowy soft
but that filling! Tender roasted pork with honey and five spice. I didn’t know
what char siu was back then but now I try to recreate those flavours every time
I’m out of ideas with a piece of pork sitting in front of me. This time around
I had a few pieces of pork belly to use up, so I felt that the time was upon me
to try and recreate my Manchester favourite.
