Chaophraya, Chapel Walks, Manchester

It was a grey Friday afternoon in Manchester and I was feeling a little under the autumnal weather. My head felt as though it was packed full of the same drizzly fog that hung over the city, my stomach craved spice and I was looking for the kind of invigorating lunch that would clear my mental fog and kick start my senses. In such circumstances, I could be forgiven for having high hopes regarding Mancunian Thai stalwart, Chaophraya. After all, Chaophraya’s website promised “authentic Thai food”, a cuisine renowned for combining the four elements of sweetness, sourness, spice and saltiness beautifully. Surely I wouldn’t walk away feeling like I’d ingested a bellyful of blandness?

Tucked away down a side street off Cross Street in Manchester, Chaophraya is undeniably stunning to look at, all elegant chandeliers and tasteful water features (the backlit jellyfish tank was enthralling). The unfailingly polite and attentive staff seemed an extension of the tasteful decor. Their sunken tables are cool and original – great if you’re feeling adventurous, or want to practice your limbo skills. I’d like to take this opportunity to apologise to anyone I accidentally flashed my crotch at as I climbed out of my seat with all the agility of a drunken crab.

A selection of Thai Tapas

We started by ordering the ‘Thai Tapas’, a selection of bite-sized morsels to be shared by two people. I have a bit of an issue with non-Spanish cuisine being referred to as ‘tapas’ – I want to shout at the person who came up with the concept that IT’S NOT TAPAS! IT’S JUST SMALL FOOD! But hey, grilled sweetcorn cakes, prawn & chicken toasts, steamed dumplings, grilled spare ribs, grilled pork skewers and chicken satays wait for no woman, especially when she’s sitting across from her husband, who is both a great fan of all of those things and very hungry.

While everything we were served looked good and was cooked perfectly adequately, it was all seriously lacking in the taste department. I bit into a steamed dumpling, waiting for that delicious hit of fatty pork goodness, and got nothing. I did the same with a sweetcorn cake, a pork skewer and the satay and they were exactly the same. Practically everything on the plate was incredibly bland – there was no seasoning, no flavour, nothing apart from the taste of the accompanying sauce we’d dipped each item into. The only things that even came close to having any flavour were the spare ribs and even then, the taste was of the sticky-sweet barbeque sauce they came coated in.

Deep fried sea bass

Beef Penang Curry

We didn’t fare that much better with the mains. My deep fried sea bass was coated in a soggy batter and a gloopy chilli sauce that tasted like it had come straight from a bottle. Mr McMc’s beef Penang Curry (consisting of beef, lime leaves and coconut milk) was, again, under seasoned. A good Penang should taste of lemongrass, galangal and coriander and be thick, meaty and sweet. This was insipid, with the only flavour coming through being that of the coconut milk.

Dining at Chaophraya reminded me of an advert for H&M I saw recently featuring Lana Del Ray. On the outside, it’s beautiful but when you look closely, there’s not much going on behind the eyes. While it serves up a reasonably priced lunch deal (one course for £8.95 and two for £11.50), that doesn’t excuse the quality of the food. I wondered whether they’d felt the need to tone down their flavours to accommodate the Northern palette (which would be a shame – most Mancunians I know love a bit of spice in their lunchbox). They’ve won awards for their food, and the restaurant was full of shoppers and office workers when we visited, so you have to wonder if the kitchen was maybe having an off day. Chaophraya isn’t the only Thai restaurant in town – there’s Try Thai on Faulkner Street, the Pacific in China Town, the Siam Orchid on Portland Street. Even Ning on Oldham Street, while ostensibly a Malaysian restaurant, serves up a cracking Pad Thai. If Chaophraya was just having a bad day, they can’t afford to have them too often.

In the interests of full disclosure, we dined as guests of Chaophraya

Gorilla – Whitworth Street, Manchester

Like many Mancunians, I shed a small tear when the Green Room closed its doors. I had various happy memories of performing there as a child (I had my first dance recital there aged 7. I had to pretend to be a gust of wind to Patrick Swayze’s ‘She’s like the wind’) as well as being dragged there by school to watch Shakespeare plays in preparation for my GCSE in English Literature (my entire Year 10 class was taken to see ‘Romeo & Juliet’ and erupted in laughter when – at a key point of the play – Romeo was seen to be sporting an erection through his tight Venetian pants). So, I was quite pleased when I saw that the space was being saved from slow desecration by being incorporated into the ever expanding empire of Trof, who have decided to rename the venue as ‘Gorilla’.

Trof appear to be on somewhat of a roll at the moment, having bought this space and the former Brannigan’s situated on Peter Street. While it’s nice to see them buying former buildings that were at risk of falling into a state of ruin (or – even worse – turning into yet another Wetherspoons), particularly in areas of Manchester that aren’t particularly well known for their drinking establishments, you could be forgiven for thinking that they’re contributing to the increasing homogenisation of the city’s bars. Which begs the question – when a bar is part of a chain, even if that chain is a small one – can it really be unique?

Unique or not, Gorilla is certainly stylish. The décor is decked out in lots of tasteful wood, there’s a gin parlour upstairs, and various model-pretty waitresses are all too ready to scoot up to you to take your order and offer you post-work Negroni’s. As I was just popping in for a quick dinner and glass of wine prior to catching a train back to Liverpool, I decided to pass on the cocktails and just go straight to the food instead.

I opted for the Chermoula Chicken Kebab (£10.00) with a glass of the house white to wash it down with. While I couldn’t taste much of the ‘African spice rub’ it was allegedly marinated in, it was cooked well, and the harissa yoghurt was delightfully piquant. The accompanying puy lentil, tomato and green herb salad was equally tasty – albeit slightly on the small side. In true kebab style, I greatly enjoyed shoving all of the components into the huge flatbread and shovelling it down my pie hole while trying not to get any spillages down the front of my dress.

If I have one niggle about Gorilla, it’s how they serve their wine. They’ve chosen to forgo wine glasses in favour of small tumblers, which puts me more in mind of a student party than a city centre bar. While it’s all very quirky, it seems a bit at odds with their refined vibe. What’s the point of positioning yourself as being a stylish gin bar which serves elegant, perfectly constructed cocktails in dainty glasses if you’re going to be pouring wine in the kind of vessel which looks as though it should contain toothbrushes? Plus, when you’re paying £4.35 for a small glass of the stuff, it does feel fairly cheap. After I left, I wondered if it was just me getting on my high horse about this, but it seems that others feel the same way I do. Apparently Gorilla do ‘Happy Hour’ caraffes of wine for £8 from 5pm-8pm every day, so maybe I’d feel differently about the issue after drinking one of them.

As it is, after one visit, I’m quite fond of Gorilla, if only because it’s nice to see somewhere on Whitworth Street serving up relatively inexpensive food and booze which isn’t the dodgy kebab shop next to Harry’s Cycles. I’m looking forward to paying future visits where I intend to indulge in one of their (excellent looking) burgers and a huge malt. And seeing if they ever decide to sort out those wine glasses.

Gorilla
54-56 Whitworth Street West, Manchester, M1 5WW
www.thisisgorilla.co.uk
@thisisgorilla

Brunch at the Cornerhouse, Oxford Road

A few weeks ago, my parents threw a party to celebrate their 30th wedding anniversary. It was a great night, full of family, friends, whisky, laughter and Indian food. The next morning, I couldn’t feel my feet (no doubt due to dancing badly in the the silver disco heels pictured above), and was in desperate need of carbohydrates. Which is how I found myself enjoying some brunch at the site of my first (and so far only) job in the restaurant trade, the Cornerhouse.

As any Mancunian will know, the Cornerhouse isn’t, strictly speaking, a restaurant. Instead it’s a huge complex comprising of cinemas showing independent films, a small art gallery, some meeting spaces, a bar and a café. Back in the halcyon days of 2001 when I was a lot younger (and a lot thinner) than I am now, I spent my weekends working in their café and occasionally pulling pints. I’ve got some very fond memories of my time working at the Cornerhouse – it was the first place where I ever tried calimari and tapas, and I still have a scar on my leg after a table collapsed after myself and one of my colleagues flamenco danced on it after one too many post work sangrias. However, the quality of its food back then wasn’t exactly stellar. It was owned by Sodexho (that private catering company you usually find catering schools, hospitals and prisons) and relied heavily on the use of frozen ingredients and gloppy pre-packaged salads. Nowadays, the Cornerhouse does all of its own catering meaning that the range of its food has changed immensely. For one thing, it does brunch. And you’d never have found it serving that in my day unless by brunch, you meant ‘a massive slab of cake’.

My Devilled Mushrooms with Goats Cheese on Sourdough was delicious. The mushrooms were piquant with smoked paprika and just on the right side of spicy. The tangy goats cheese provided a richness which soaked up my hangover like a sponge. Best of all, the portion size was just right – any larger and the whole dish would have been overfacing, and I would have been reduced to wallowing on my chair like a beached whale.

I did feel a slight pang of envy when I saw Mr. Cay’s Croque Monsieur, especially when I saw the ham hanging over the side like a lolling tongue. Because he’s a kinder person than I am, he allowed me to take a bite. With its perfectly melted cheese, thick slabs of salty ham, and firm crunchy sourdough, it was an absolute delight to eat. I had to restrain myself from wolfing down the whole thing whilst his back was turned.

However, the real stand out of the day wasn’t the food, but a Bloody Mary. Shockingly, I’d never actually tried this most classic of cocktails prior to this moment. I’d once sampled one prepared by my ex boyfriend, but had been put off by the fact that it had the consistency of a watery tomato soup. Man, how wrong I was. A perfectly made Bloody Mary is a thing of glory – full of bite and umami. This fine specimen you see above was just the thing to soak up the remnants of my hangover, refreshing and with just enough spice to cut through the aching fug which had taken up residence in my head. It may have been my first Bloody Mary, but it definitely won’t be my last.

The Cornerhouse has changed a lot since the days I worked behind their bar, but it’s all been for the better. Whilst I won’t be dancing on their tables again anytime soon, I’ll definitely be returning for their food.

#Gastroclub – Habesha, Sackville Street, Manchester

It’s rare to find a restaurant in Manchester nowadays that relatively few people know about. The advent of websites such as Manchester Confidential, as well as the ever increasing glut of Northern food bloggers means that when one person finds a place that no one else has discovered, you’ll inevitably soon find the rest of the city’s foodies flocking to it. So, I was genuinely surprised when I received my monthly Gastroclub email informing me that this month, we were going to be dining at Habesha, an Ethiopian restaurant situated in the Gay Village. Ethiopian food? In Manchester? Speaking as someone who loves nothing more than a huge wodge of injera smothered in spicy stew, I’ll admit that I was suprised by the fact that I’d a) never heard of the place, and yet b) had walked past it practically every day when I lived in Manchester. Obviously, my powers of observation aren’t all they’re cracked up to be.

My first experience of Ethiopian food came when I was in Amsterdam last year, when someone on Twitter suggested that I try out Fenan Klein Afrika. It was a revelatory experience. For a few euros, myself and Mr. Cay feasted like kings on huge portions of piquant beef and chicken stews, all washed down with some of the most delicious coffee we’ve ever tasted. It was one of the highlights of our holiday, and left me with a huge appreciation for this type of cuisine – as well as a desire to eat as much of it as humanly possible. Discovering that there was an Ethiopian restaurant in Manchester was like discovering some kind of holy grail. Made out of meat.

When I arrived at Habesha, it was easy to see why I’d walked past it so many times without giving it a second glance. Mainly because, despite all of the times I’ve walked down Sackville Street over the years, I’d never bothered to look up. Habesha is situated above a busy kebab shop meaning that, if you tend to walk past huge neon signs in a daze like I so often do, you’d never know that it was there. Thankfully my powers of perception were sharper this time – which is a good thing as myself and Mr. Cay were over forty minutes late arriving to the restaurant due to an almighty cock up by Northern Rail. By the time I managed to sit down and catch my breath I was tired, hungry, and in desperate need of beer.

After downing a rather tasty bottle of Ethiopian lager (which bore a label sporting a brilliant image of St George slaying a dragon), we decided to order three different dishes – Doro Wot, chicken legs marinated in lemon sauteed in seasoned butter and stewed in red pepper flavoured with onions, ginger and cardamom, Yebeg Alicha Fitfit, a mild spicy lamb stew and Yetsom beyeynetu, portions of stewed lentils, spinach, and a mild mixed vegetable sauce made with cabbage, potato and carrots seasoned with spices.

When our food arrived, we soon realised that our eyes may have been bigger than our bellies. Ethiopian food consists of portions of stew doled out onto portions of a traditional bread called injera, a large flat – slightly sour – bread which has the consistency of a huge pikelet. When you eat, you just rip pieces of this off with your hands, scoop up a bit of stew, and stuff it into your mouth. It’s an immensely messy (and slightly graceless) way of eating, yet wonderfully communal. After all, it’s hard to effect airs and graces when you’re trying not to dump sauce down the front of your top. To prepare us for this experience, we were served a basket full of fresh warm injera, rolled up like edible warm towelettes. We had great fun slapping them out onto the table, ripping them in two and using them to scoop up huge hunks of meat.

I adored the Doro Wat – pieces of chicken which practically fell off the bone on contact. The sauce was rich with berbere, that amazingly fragrant mix of spices which is the key to Ethiopian and Eritrean food, with all of the vegetables and spices cooked down in butter until they formed a rich, dark red slick. It was impossible to stop wiping my pieces of bread around the bowl, trying to pick up every drop of this amazing elixir. The Yebeg Alicha Fitfit – although not as good – was still a decidedly tasty bowl of food. Cubes of lamb had been cooked down to breaking point and were swimming in a bowl of spicy, tomato heavy broth. It was the perfect thing to wolf down between huge mouthfuls of beer whilst putting the world to rights with my beloved.

However, the stand out dish of the night was, surprisingly, the mix of vegetables all laid out in a neat row. I’ve always felt that a good restaurant can be measured on how well it cooks its vegetarian dishes, and Habesha is no exception. Each one of these dishes was perfectly cooked and seasoned – with the mix of cabbage, potato and carrots being the stand out (who knew that seasoned root vegetables could taste this good?) It felt sinful when I had to push this plate away saying that my stomach couldn’t feasibly hold any more before it popped in a Mr. Creosote-esque fashion.

After every slap up meal comes coffee. And once we’d eaten our fill, we were invited to enjoy a cup of the good stuff with our dining companions. The beans were roasted in front of us by the chef, who delighted in putting the roasted under our noses so we could inhale big lungfuls of the heavenly perfumed smell. The finished product was divine – light and fruity, with a floral note to it, it was a million miles away from the thick black engine oil I’m so used to gulping down on a daily basis.

Despite being situated above a kebab shop, Habesha definitely doesn’t serve fast food. However, it does serve some of the best, most unique food in Manchester. Best of all, it’s sinfully cheap too – a huge meal for two people came to £30. No, that’s not each, and yes, does include booze and coffee.

So, if you’re ever on Sackville Street looking for a place to go to mop up the remnants of a hangover, eschew the kebabs and look up. You’ll be surprised at the brilliant food you can get for the price of the loose change in your wallet.

Habesha
29-31 Sackville Street
Manchester
M1 3LZ

Red Chilli, Portland Street, Manchester

It was Sunday, I was cold, it was raining, and I was a tad hungover after a night on the sauce with Dad Cay and Mr. Cay. There was only one thing for it. Chinese food – and lots of it.

Apparently the night before, after more than one bottle of red booze, I had promised my beloved that I would take him to Red Chilli - arguably Manchester’s finest Szechuan restaurant – for his lunch. It was a promise he was determined to hold me to. Hear me now, and hear me well. Be careful of the promises you make when you’re shitfaced. People will often try and make you keep them (well, it’s how I managed to get a hamster off my parents when I was 10 anyway).

Luckily for me, Red Chilli is a gem, and just the thing for when your head is aching and your belly is craving spice. I had been there once before, in 2007 with (vegetarian) ex Mr. Cay. He wasn’t impressed by the numerous offal-based dishes I ordered which came swimming in a soup of peppercorns and dried chillies, whilst I felt as though I had died and gone to an exceedingly fiery heaven. Thinking about it, it’s no wonder that we weren’t really meant to be.

Current Mr. Cay however, is well aware of my love of foods which set your mouth on fire with joy, and your heart on fire with acid reflux. Indeed, he has often joined me in scoffing down huge plates of chilli laden food which would make a lesser person weep for the health of their downstairs area. Reader, to paraphrase Jane Austen, there is a reason I’m marrying him.

However, seeing as we were feeling rather fragile, we decided to start slowly with a starter of poached chicken with a soy & ginger dip, and beancurd skin with spring onion. Both were delicious – the chicken was soft, tender and wonderfully moist – the perfect receptacle for the delightfully sharp and sweet dip. It was impossible to have just one piece of this, and I found myself nicking small slices of it with my chopsticks when Mr. Cay wasn’t looking. My beancurd was equally tasty, although its chewy rubbery texture might not be for everyone. The savoury, umami-rich sauce it was coated in was a delight, turning what can so often be a bland ingredient into a plate of sensory delights.

We’d decided to save the heat for the main courses, and were justly rewarded. My (huge) bowl of Dan Dan noodles arrived swimming in a slick, angry looking red broth. As the waitress was spooning it into my bowl, I could already feel its heat swimming and bubbling away on my tongue. Rich with fatty pork mince, slippery unctuous noodles and smoky fruity chilli oil, I could feel my hangover melting away after just one bite. And by the time I’d inhaled two bowls of the stuff, I felt almost human again (although that feeling was swiftly eradicated when I walked outside in the damp Mancunian afternoon).  The portion sizes were immensely generous to boot – this was a dish which could have easily fed four people.

Mr. Cay’s pork with green beans and crispy noodles (not pictured) was equally as good, although I’m not entirely sure he was as keen on the crispy noodles as I was. I enjoyed the snap and give of the noodles underneath my teeth which provided a nice contrast to the softness of the pork and preserved vegetables. Simple, yet delicious, it was more warming than spicy and a perfect example of unfussy ‘homestyle’ cooking.

Sad as it sounds, for me, the highlight of the meal was the exemplary Spring Onion Pancake we ordered as a side dish. Crispy, flaky, multi-layered and wholly delicious, it was the perfect thing to soak up all of their fiery soup from my Dan Dan Noodles. Despite reading numerous blog posts about this side dish, it was the first time I’d tried it for myself – and it certainly won’t be the last. I ate my portions of this in record time, and am now determined to try and recreate this in my kitchen at home.

In a city like Manchester, where you can easily pay ridiculous amounts of money for mediocre food, it’s nice to see a place like Red Chilli thriving. We only paid £35 for two courses and a whole lot of soft drinks each, and we were both forced to leave food on our plates because our bodies couldn’t physically hold any more noodles. Indeed, if there was one gripe I had about the place, it was that I practically had to chase a waitress around the restaurant for our bill. But, this is only a minor blip in a meal which soothed both my body and my soul. I will be visiting Red Chilli again. And soon. If only because I’m determined to try the rather exotic sounding ‘Dry Braised Frog’s Legs with Onion, Mangetout & Red pepper in Big Grandma’s Chilli Sauce Stew’.

Red Chilli
70-72 Portland Street
Manchester
M1 4GU

Gastro Club – Harvey Nichols, Manchester

I can’t believe it’s taken me so long to get around to writing about Manchester’s very own Gastro Club, which is arguably one of the most exciting dining experiences to hit the city in rather a long time.  On the second Tuesday of each month, a group of intrepid (and very hungry) culinary obsessed Twitterers flock en masse to one of the cities numerous restaurants to eat interesting food, drink excellent wine and generally have a good old natter with each other about food, life, love and everything inbetween. I adore Gastro Club – so much so in fact that I don’t even mind undertaking the hellish morning rush hour Manchester to Liverpool commute with a hangover the next day. If what’s being served up to me is tasty enough, frankly, I can even put up with being elbowed in the face by businessmen on a packed train. The lengths I go to for a good feed eh?

The last Gastro Club saw us all decamping to The Mark Addy in Spinningfields which had been turned into a festive Narnia wonderland, reached by walking through a cupboard and into a world of candlelit delights. I feasted until I popped on Mythical Beast, Herb Soup and Bread ‘Mice’ with ‘Cheese’ soup, and even managed to knock over a Christmas tree onto a man dressed as Mr. Tumnus (whilst shouting ‘SORRY MR. TUMNUS!’ rather loudly to boot. Sorry Mr. Tumnus). It was one of those magical dining experiences that will forever live on in the memories of those who were lucky enough to experience it. Alas, last time my camera decided to have a funny turn and none of my pictures came out. When it was announced that the next Gastro Club was going to be held at Harvey Nichols in Manchester, I was determined not to make the same mistake again.

When I got to Harvey Nichols, I was – to be honest – feeling a little harassed. It had been a long day at work  and whilst I was doing my make-up on the train, a complete stranger walked up to me and told me to ‘smile’ as I was apparently ‘looking really miserable’.  Well yes – you wouldn’t look particularly cheery too if you were attempting to put eyeliner on whilst on a moving vehicle matey.

To add insult to injury, I’d decided to give up booze, potatoes, rice, pasta and bread for Lent, so this was my last night of indulging in all of those tasty things before 40 days and 40 nights of self-imposed abstinence. It was time for a cocktail – and an ‘Angry Sailor’ which contained pineapple juice, Sailor Jerry’s and (rather worryingly) a rather large amount of chillies hit the spot nicely. A proferred glass of Bucks Fizz was even nicer, and went down a treat with the various snacks we were served up – big fat olives and deliciously smoky sweet pecans. I had to stop myself gobbling down a whole bowl of them before the main courses arrived. Although I never have been particularly good at restraint, I must say.

Our starter, a pressing of Goosnargh chicken, with a morel with truffle dressing looked elegant, and thankfully managed to avoid going looking like posh catfood (a problem afflicting a few of the terrines I’ve had served up to me recently). It seemed to act as more of a palate cleanser than anything else – dainty, delicate and with the merest hint of Christmas dinner about it.

I adored the next course – a Portland crab raviolo with fennel and saffron. The saffron sauce provided a beautiful burst of golden sunshine to the plate, and provided a wonderful contrast to the tender, flavoursome crab, and the sharp aniseed bite of the fennel. Usually, I’m not the biggest fan of fennel, but here it worked perfectly, its crispness providing the perfect counterpoint to the toothsome pasta of the raviolo. As I took a large slurp of my delicious Sauvignon Blanc, I couldn’t wait to see what would be served up to me next.

Sadly, it was (for me) the only dish of the night that I felt didn’t work – the Cheshire ox cheek and celeriac with Savoy cabbage. Each element of the dish was cooked perfectly – the ox cheek falling apart into delicate litle shreds as soon as I prodded it with my fork, and I adored the pumpkin seed brittle it was topped with. However, I felt as though it didn’t all come together into one harmonious whole. It felt too rich, too dense, as though I was eating mouthfuls of velvet. I would have liked something a bit sharp on the plate to cut through the intense heaviness of it all, and I finished it longing for something light and zingy.

Thankfully, that came in the form of a British classic. Rhubarb Crumble. I’d never eaten rhubarb before that night (blame my American mother, and a father who despised the stuff after being served up stringy overcooked portions of it throughout his childhood) , so this was something of an epiphany for my tastebuds. Short, sharp and sweet, the frozen base reminded me of a pimped up sherbert, whilst the amaretti tasting crumble added a nice bit of texture to the softness of the sorbet. I’ve already made a mental note that I really have to get my hands on some rhubarb so I can attempt to recreate this in my kitchen at home. How has such an amazing ingredient eluded me for so long?

However, the Rhubarb Crumble was but a prelude to the dish of the night, Manuka set cream with a lime confit and smoked macadamia crisp. If this pudding was a man, I would have leapt on it after one bite and done exceedingly dirty things to it . The smoked macadamia crisp had the texture of honeycomb, yielding yet brittle, snapping delicately between your teeth. It went perfectly with spoonfuls of the manuka cream – soft, dreamy and delightfully creamy – the kind of honey that bees leave reserved for very special people indeed. The cubes of lime jelly practically fizzed on the tongue, yet didn’t feel out of place amidst such a variety of rich ingredients. In fact, this dessert was so good, I was compelled to finish my dining companions when they said they couldn’t eat another bite. Well, it would have been a shame to see it go to waste after all.

The evening finished with coffee and petit fours – smokey chocolate truffles with a raspberry ganache, and delicate strawberry macarons which looked almost too dainty to eat and – when you bit into them – tasted of the strawberry fondant you find in pink wrappered  Quality Street chocolates.

Being one of those relentlessly greedy types, I’m ashamed to say I snaffled a few away in my pocket to scoff in the taxi on the way home.

All in all, it was an amazing evening, filled to the brim with good food, good company, and more than a few glasses of excellent wine to boot. Plus it was only £35 a head without wine, a very reasonable price for an exceptional dining experience.  I woke up the next day with a huge smile on my face as well as a  cracking hangover. But it was all worth it. I couldn’t have wished for a nicer way to see in Lent and 40 days and 40 nights of abstinence. Gulp.

For more information about Gastro Club, read this ace blog post by Inside the M60, or you can follow them on Twitter at @GastroClub_mcr