Dish of the day

I went to a fab new restaurant last night – Dish on Great George Street, which brings modern British dining to the Electric Press in Leeds. It’s housed in what has been a noodle/sushi bar and a tapas/ wine bar in recent years and is now a cosy restaurant of about 10-15 tables.

We were lured in by the good value pre theatre menu which had some exciting sounding options to choose from. I opted for a starter of saffron macaroni cheese with aged parmesan and tallegio. The saffron gave it in obvious muskiness and the stinky cheeses helped the comforting dish feel decadent. Topped with a crispy crumb crust it was the perfect dish for a wet and windy evening.

My main course was a slow roast chunk of belly pork with bean and bacon cassoulet and fennel and chilli black pudding – porktastic! Every single element of this dish was stunning. The pork meat was soft and tender but topped with perfectly crispy crackling. The black pudding was out of this world, crumbly and full of unusual flavour from the spicing – I was impressed that it was homemade as well, amazing! What’s more the dish was finished off with a shard of even more crunchy crackling. It was a real treat dish for a tepid Tuesday!

The pre theatre menu is very flexible, you can pay for as much or as little as you want to eat. I opted for the £16.50 for three courses, although I could have upgraded for £3 to get a glass house wine (we decided to choose our own wine as the list was very promising). My dessert was a sweet and chewy treacle tart with an unusual cherry cream. My dining partner opted for lashings of Yorkshire Blue cheese with all the trimmings, which I was very jealous of!

When we first arrived the restaurant was more or less empty. Reassuringly as our meal progressed each table filled up. No doubt groupon is encouraging new people to try, which is no bad thing for a new venture. I have to say that I was more than impressed by all the homemade food, it was a refreshing change to a lot of the chains that Leeds is filling up with at the moment. With independents closing down all over the shop (Dock Street Market being the most recent) we really do have to support these local businesses in times of hardship, otherwise our high streets will be empty and boring. Anyway, there’s no excuse with Dish as the food is pretty darned good. I’m sure next time I pop down I’ll be fighting for a table!

The pre theatre menu runs most evenings from 5pm to 7pm. A good lunch and snack menu is served from 12pm to 2.30pm. Check out the website for more details. http://dishdining.co.uk/

February Menu – River Cottage Veg

The annual Dinner at the Manor vegetarian event is coming up in just over two weeks, and this time we are using River Cottage Veg for inspiration!

We love the challenge of cooking meat free feasts, we really hope our guests look forward to sampling our efforts on the night.

There will be some familiar tastes and some intriguing ones too to get our guests thinking about new ways with veg, they’ll definitely be getting their 5 a day on the 16th!

Let us know what you think, what are your favourite ways with veg?

Sunshine on a snowy day!

Last Friday night Dinner at the Manor enjoyed a long overdue visit to the supperclub at Chapel Allerton’s Sunshine Bakery. We know owner and head chef Dave from him visiting our supperclub in the past and have been hearing brilliant things about his tasty food at bargain prices.

For those of you who haven’t visited the bakery by day it’s a cute, bijou, vintage dining room with antique tables and chairs crammed in amongst retro crockery and chintsy doilies. It was a very welcoming place from the prolific snow falling outside!

The supperclub set up at Sunshine is a bit like an alternative restaurant. They don’t have a licence so you can bring your own wine, but you’re sat at your own tables rather than one big communal one. There were 3 choices for starters and main courses and then coffees, cupcakes and brownies for dessert.

My starter was a brilliant garlic mushrooms dish, which came full of creamy flavour atop a crispy and chewy bun. This bore no resemblance to the dreary pub classic – it was absolutely delicious and extremely filling! Susie went for the chicken terrine which was moist and full of smokiness from the bacon.

All of the main courses sounded amazing but without any faltering doubt I went for the leg of lamb cooked with garlic and olives and served with roasted carrots and potato dauphinoise. The lamb was super soft and melt in the mouth. The strong flavours of the garlic and olive gave it a lovely modern punch. The dauphnoise were luxuriously creamy and the roasted carrots were served elegantly in halves and had been roasted to perfection. It was a generous portion but I scoffed it all down! Susie opted for the sea bass with artichokes, sautéed potatoes, spinach and sweet potato purée. The fish was perfectly cooked and melt in the mouth and was complimented perfectly by the accompanying vegetables.

We didn’t have much room left but for dessert we were treated to some of Dave’s baked goods. I had the crunchie brownie whilst Susie had the mint Aero. Both were deliciously moist, rich and full of cocoa – a lovely way to end a meal on a cold snowy night!

The best thing about the meal was the price, which at £15 for 2 courses for top quality and tasty grub is unbelievable value. It’s probably just as well I live in a less glamorous suburb of Leeds otherwise I’d be at the Sunshine Bakery every night! The atmosphere is a calm and warm one. It’s obvious that the food takes centre stage with no need for pretentious frou-frou. We’ll certainly be back, thanks Dave!

Sunshine Bakery
182 Harrogate Road, Allerton, Leeds

New Dates for Spring and Summer at the Manor!

Here at the Manor, we’ve been inundated with requests for new dates, so we’re pleased to announce a handful of dates for April – June. Book on now to avoid disappointment!

Saturday 20th April – A Chinese culinary adventure  – Sold Out

This event will be inspired by the book that accompanied the hit BBC show by Ken Hom and Ching-He Huang. This will be an exciting event as it will take Dan into a new culinary territory and Susie back to her Chinese roots!

Saturday 11th May – Ottolenghi’s Jerusalem – Sold Out

This event will be inspired by Ottolenghi’s colourful and exciting Jerusalem book and will help us bring a true Mediterranean feast to West Leeds!

Saturday 15th June – An Indian Summer – Sold Out

For this event we’ll be using our favourite Indian cookery books to put together a grand and spicy banquet, we hope this will ensure that summer is started with a bit of heat!

Places are limited at all all of these events and we expect them to get booked up fast – book now.

Dinner at the Manor have an Indian Summer

Saturday 15th June 2013

Sorry this event is sold out

We’ve been wanting to do an Indian supperclub for months now. It’s one of our favourite cuisines and it means we get to play around with exotic spices, which is a bit like alchemy!

We don’t have a specific cookbook in mind for this event but we do have a repertoire of favourite recipes from cookbooks that include Madhur Jaffrey, Prashad, Anjum Anand and Hansas. This event will bring these classic and modern Indian recipes into our homely supperclub environment, giving them the Dinner at the Manor makeover!

Sorry this event is sold out

 

Dinner at the Manor head to Jerusalem with Ottolenghi

Saturday 11th May 2013

Sorry, this event is sold out

Ever since we held our vegetarian Ottolenghi event last year we’ve been waiting for another excuse to get some more Mediterranean and middle eastern influenced cuisine back into the Manor. We love cooking with his unusual, fresh and exciting ingredients, it’s what we’re all about at the Manor.

This time we’re basing our event on his Jerusalem book. Anyone who saw his Mediterranean TV show will appreciate how beautiful, colourful and mouth-watering this was. It’s the perfect grub for a spring evening, and if we have yet more crap British weather then at least we have this to cheer us up!

Sorry, this event is sold out

Dinner at the Manor Explore China

Saturday 20th April

Sorry, this event is sold out

We’ll be taking our diners to the East for our April event, using Ken Hom and Chin He-Huan’s book Exploring China. I’m really excited about this one, as although my father is from Hong Kong and I eat a lot of Chinese food, I can’t say I cook lots of it and hopefully will bring me back to my roots.

For those of you that saw the accompanying TV show, the pair travelled through China and its provinces to explore the different cultures and food each region has to offer.

Don’t expect your average Westernised Chinese grub, this is going to be an explosion of flavour and hopefully a surprising one!

Sorry, this event is sold out

Mexican Fiesta at the Manor

The past weekend saw the return of Mexican flavours at the Manor – it may have been chilly outside, but we brought some much needed warmth, spice and sunshine! We didn’t quite get through a hundred limes, maybe around fifteen, but we did use thirty six eggs, thirty eight passionfruits and made over fifty tortillas! Hard work, but worth it! As soon as we held our last Mexican event in 2012, we were keen to make a return. This time we used Thomasina Miers’ second Mexican book, Wahaca – Mexican Food at Home, another book that has been a favourite of ours in 2012, which we both cook from regularly as unfortunately there are no Wahaca restaurants north of the M25 – Boo! Fresh, punchy flavours were the order of the day and our lively guests, some returning diners, some new to supperclubs as a whole, seemed to love them too!