Two weeks ago I didn’t even know what a piadina was. Now I’d eat them for breakfast, lunch and tea if I could (yes really). After months of wanting to go and check out Bread and Butter in the Northern Quarter I finally got there. One lunchtime visit was thwarted because it was just too busy, but now I have finally cracked it. Get there before 12.30pm and you can lounge on the sofas while they make your lunch, and you get the pick of the cakes.
After a late night with too much wine and then a 6.30am early start to finish off a project, I needed rescuing to make it through the rest of today. A hungover craving for food that involved not cooking or washing up propelled me, via the magic of the 192, down to Manchester’s Farmers’ and Producers’ Market at Piccadilly Gardens.
I’ve not been there for a while, so it was all brand new to me. I started off at the Orchard Pigs stall, who breed lovely happy pigs in Wrexham and then make them into pork pies for us Manchester people to eat. I’ve just nibbled a bit of the pork and cider pie that was recommended to me and it’s pretty good. There was none of that nasty jelly you usually get surrounding a pork pie. I think it cost £2.50.
Do you find a surprising number of people proclaim themselves to be
‘savoury’ people? I suppose it’s expected for women to go mad about
chocolate, probably after shoe shopping and a bit of moaning about men.
But actually most girls would choose a bag of Kettle Chips and some
nice crusty bread over a bar of Dairy Milk most days.
I’m not
really big on cakes or desserts (although naturally I don’t say no),
but I think this is the first review I’ve done where I’ve thought about
the dessert more than the main course afterwards. So let’s do a
backwards review, why not?
The cakes at Nui at the Trafford Centre
are a little piece of heaven – well actually they’re a little piece of
Sicily flown over once a month. And I can say they’re damn fine with
some authority because I went to Sicily for my honeymoon and sampled
rather a lot of these confectionery. Sicilian cakes often look very
brightly coloured and sickly but in fact are truly delicious.
