Smoak, Malmaison Hotel, Piccadilly, Manchester

A brief review to see in the first month of the year. Going to do a navel-gazing ‘1 year of MBFBY?’ post next month, and there’s a reviewing vist of Young Turks at the Ten Bells in the pipeline. I might even review Pitt Cue Co using only haikus if I can actually get a table. In the meantime another visit to Manc and another restaurant checked out…

Smoak. SUCH a Manchester name. ‘One word, spelt wrong’ is the motto of Manchester’s hospitality industry when it comes to naming venues. Nonetheless, I’d been hearing good things so in need of a quick lunch I popped to Smoak on a windy Sunday afternoon before getting the late afternoon train back to the actual Smoke. 

It’s certainly a ‘concept’. The huge interior is tastefully decorated in unfinished wood and faux vintage which you can see being easy to roll out across the Malmaison chain. The theme is AMERICAN MEAT. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a perfectly nice place with some nice touches but it still feels like a hotel restaurant (which it is, to be fair).

It was very quiet on our visit (2pm on a Sunday in January so not a surprise). They could maybe lose the SCREAMIN’ USA COUNTRY ROCK. How about some light banjo instead?

Staff were attentive helpful and efficient, though there were only about 3 other customers so it wasn’t exactly challenging conditions. 

Onto the food - I had a couple of oysters to start. They were lovely - fresh, huge and looking very appealing served in a metal dish of ice with shallot vinegar and bottle of Tabasco alongside. 

The main event involved a full rack of ribs. Again, this was attractively presented, the ribs removed from the rack and piled in a metal bucket, the sides in mini copper pans. clichéd? Yes. I like clichés sometimes. Extra points for having hot water in the finger bowl.

The ribs were delicious. I liked the fact that the weren’t served on the rack. Less hassle. They were very tender and moist, falling off the bone, glazed with filthy, spicey BBQ sauce. A bit of coleslaw on the side and some yoghurst finished it off nicely. The parmesan chips were excellent too, crispy, skin-on with a home-cooked flavour. 

RE: The chips - they have 5 different types of chips. ‘Classic’, ‘Garlic’, ‘Parmesan’, ‘Paprika’ and ‘Chilli’. My dad, (who I was dining with) couldn’t get his head around this. 

“There’s too much choice, son! Parmesan? Chips? They must be out of their minds.”

I’m inclined to agree with him here, it just adds an extra layer of choice on an already long-winded menu. Everything we ordered necessitated a question back to us from the waitress. At least it’s authentically American I suppose. When I was in the States a few weeks ago you couldn’t order anything without having to answer a stream of questions.

“And what would you like on that, sir? Bacon? Steak? Pancakes? Turkey wings? And would you like the whole lot deep fried? Sides? We got hash browns, corn bread, fat fries, fatter fries, fattest fries, onion rings, chilli bowl, 10 pieces of fried chicken?

JUST GIMMIE THE BLOODY BURGER, ALRIGHT?

Anyway, the cooking at Smoak is top notch, and the ingredients are superb quality. It’s a great place for lunch/brunch and it’s within eyeshot of Piccadilly station. Prices are good. The menu needs some pruning and the atmosphere is a little sterile, but overall I’d say it’s a good addition to Manchester’s somewhat underwhelming dining scene. 

7/10

Smoak
Malmaison Hotel
Manchester
M1 1LZ

0161 278 100

http://www.smoak-grill.com/

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The Albany, Queens Road, Thames Ditton, Surrey

The Albany is a riverside gastropub in Thames Ditton, a curious slice of rural Surrey right on the border of Greater London. It’s a grand old building, painted in a typical shade of gastopub beige. 

First impressions weren’t good - Mrs MBFBY? rang to book a table the day before and they’d obviously cocked it up as there was no record of our booking. After a little bit of standing around feeling uncomfortable they managed to find us a table, right by the window overlooking the non-tidal Thames, no less. Lovely. 

This may be right on the edge of the capital but the clientele is PROPER Surrey. Some of the chaps looked like they’d happily spend an afternoon knocking back the single malts,  jump in the Jag and speed back to the mock-Tudor mansion without even losing their monocle. Actually, that’s a tad unfair but if you are looking to hang out with tattooed hipsters you’ve come to the wrong place. It is, however, the perfect place to come with your mother-in-law, which is what brought us here in the first place. 

It’s a handsome, airy room. Large windows with a river view, a polished stone floor and lots of wood. There’s a small bar area but The Albany is definitely more of a restaurant than a pub. The menu is quite long, the theme is modern Italian, and they do pizzas. As it was Sunday, we all decided to go for the roast. 

With trepidation I ordered the roast beef. I’ve had some seriously duff pub roasts recently. 90% of pub roasts are microwaved-to-hell rubbish and the meat treated the worst is always beef. As I’ve said before, no wonder visitors to the UK think the British can’t cook when the standard of the average pub lunch is so low. Seeing things like ‘traditional roast’ and ‘traditional fish and chips’ chalked outside a pub depresses me. I don’t want ‘traditional’. Traditionally, British food is seen as awful. We’ve moved ahead immeasurably of course and now the UK is home to some of the world’s best restaurants but most pub food is stuck firmly in the 1970s and heated by x-rays.  

Upmarket pubs in a similar vein to the Albany are guilty of crimes against roasts too. That just adds insult to injury, paying through the nose for overcooked meat and mushy veg.  Seemingly all a pub has to do these days to claim ‘gastro’ status is a lick of battleship grey paint, some mis-matched chairs and a 15 quid roast. 

The roast arrived and it certainly looked the part. I’d asked for the beef to be cooked rare (I always ask that and it hardly ever happens). I was bowled over to notice that yes, they’ve actually cooked it rare! It was a splendid bit of meat too, juicy and tender with a nice crust of crispy seasoning on the edge of the slice. The Yorkshire pud was massive, gooey inside and lightly crispy on the outside, the veg was actually cooked properly, nice and crunchy, and the roast potatoes were AMAZING. A thin, crispy skin and melt-in-the-mouth creamy insides. Some of the best roasties i’ve ever had. And as far as I could tell, none of it had been anywhere near a microwave. I accompanied my roast with a cracking pint of Youngs Bitter.

For dessert I went for a chocolate brownie with vanilla ice cream, which was massive, and pure, delicious filth. Rich, moist and plentiful - everything you could want in a brownie.

There was an offer on the menu that allowed you an extra course with your roast for 3 quid more - the roast was £12.95 so that’s 2 courses for £15.95. Really rather good value for food of this quality in a very pleasant (if a little grown-up) setting. It’s also worth mentioning that the waiting staff were super-efficiant and generally lovely. Apart from the booking cock-up at the start there was a distinct air of efficiency, despite the fact that every table was full. 

So, who’d have thought it - I’ve finally found an outstanding pub roast, and it’s a pleasant 30 minutes walk from MBFBY? towers in Surbiton (I know, it’s pretty much the law for food bloggers to live in South East London but I dance to my own beat. Not that there are any beats - this is the suburbs, UGETME)?

8/10

The Albany
Queens Road
Thames Ditton, Surrey
KT7 0QY

http://www.the-albany.co.uk/

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