Kosher cuisine north of Watford Gap

Back at work now, but still feeling mildly sore inside, it was up to Manchester by road on Monday evening.

Tuesday evening it was off to Pagoda kosher Chinese restaurant at 38 Bury Old Road, Whitefield, in the heart of the north Manchester ghetto. Apparently this is the only kosher Chinese restaurant outside of London. You drive north along Bury Old Road from the centre of Manchester past all the Bargain Booze shops until the restaurant appears on the right in a small parade of shops just before the M60 bridge. I was early, about 6.20 and it was empty.

The menu looked reasonably promising. I had the chicken noodle soup to start, a lot of it, but tepid. And then the Beef Cantonese which was served in a sort of gravy dish, swimming in a mid-brown sauce with onions. It didn't even look appealing. It didn't look right. It was like something I used to put together at university. It was bland and horrible. Not only that, there was a lot of it as well. A travesty of both Chinese and kosher cuisine. There are some good kosher restaurants in London and they have nothing to worry about compared with this one in Manchester. I was glad to get out the place an hour later and £18 lighter. Awful. I can still taste the sauce. I won't be going back there. http://www.pagodakosher.co.uk/

Returning to London last night there was heavy traffic on the M56 just past Ringway airport, on the road out to the M6 and south. So I turned off at the Hale exit. Hale is an affluent suburb of south Manchester to where the Iraqi Jews of Manchester are moving . One mile up the road in the Hale Barns shopping precinct I came across La Famiglia, a non-kosher Italian restaurant which just happens to be in the same place as the former kosher Aviv restaurant, owned by a Moroccan whose signature dish was slices of shwarma with rice. Years ago I tried the lamb couscous there... a small bowl of watery couscous with four pieces of lamb. Not surprised that he closed.