Dinner @ The Hilton Deansgate, Manchester UK

A couple of weeks ago I went to dinner at The Podium restraunt, The Hilton Deansgate. Beforehand as we were in town ahead of our reservation we went for a drink in The Alchemist, New York Street and All Star Lanes, Deansgate. The Alchemist serve the most delicious cocktails made by highly skilled bar staff. I always linger at the bar gawking at the incricate processes that go into making their delicious cocktails. Our walk through the city was lovely as the streets were adorned with the festive red laterns for CNY and the town hall spectacularly illuminated to mark the occasion.

At the restraunt we were greeted with a lovely glass of champagne myself and the other half set about ordering what we would like to have. Located just off the foyer on the ground floor of the hotel, we were a little unsure where we should be going, as on first impressions I thought that it was just a lounge bar / cafe. I would have preferred the restraunt itself to be separated more distinctly from the hotel lobby, given the size of the building and also the expectation of the Hilton brand. 

The menu was quite limited with a couple of dishes not available, unfortunately one of which was our first choice. I  chose the white bait with a dill creme fraise as my starter. It was very salty to the point I had to swap dishes with Luke half way through. 

Luke had a ham hock terrine and poached egg yolk with a wholegrain mustard and pineapple dressing and a shaving of dehydrated pineapple. Massive food regret. This was absolutely delicious. 

For main course I chose the duo of lamb, baby carrots and a celeriac dauphinois. Very nice, the lamb breast was succulent if a little bit fatty. The shredded lamb was very non descript, take it or leave it. The celeriac was divine, so creamy and the flavours all worked together perfectly with the lamb.

Luke had cod loin with purple potatoes, spring greens in a mussel broth. Not his first choice as the gurnard was off the menu but he enjoyed it. The fish was well cooked and was a pleasant dish as a whole.

My pudding was probably the most disappointing aspect of the meal. The prospect of a trio of rhubarb puddings is enough to get me quite giddy, I love rhubarb! Ever since picking it out of my Nanas garden as a little girl and I'm yet to try a supermarket rhubarb crumble I don't enjoy. Well I'll start on a positive, the middle contender a shot glass of custard topped with stewed rhubarb was amazing. They had got the rhubarb that perfect pink colour I've only seen in the pictures of my Nigella cookbooks. Lovely. The other two were just rubbish. The mini crumble was just that, crumble with hardly any filling . Not even a good crumble at that. The rhubarb loaf was stone cold, that is not an exaggeration as I had to used brute force to slice off a corner to try. The sponge was dry and uninteresting, if somebody told me it was from a defrosted cake platter from Iceland I would belive them wholeheartedly. 

Luke chose ( with my guidance ) the blackberry cheesecake. A gninormas doorstep of cheesecake with several fresh black berries and a swoosh of mango purée. Well thank goodness this wasn't a stingy portion because I was in a rhubarb sulk. 

Overall a nice night, good food and great company. Looking forward to seeing what other culinarily delights our city has to offer.. 

We are hoping to go to Rosso and San Carlo at some point in the next few months, I hope these posts are interesting / informative. I will write about those if you guys want more of this sort of thing :)

Peachesandcreambb 🍑