ABRACADABRA - Manchester Day | Sunday 18 June 2017

This Sunday marks the eighth year of Manchester Day celebrations in the heart of Manchester, which celebrates the diversity and creativity of Manchester, and each year hosting a different and varied theme.  This year, it's a magic theme titled "ABRACADABRA".  There will be a parade, food & drink, and activities throughout Manchester City Centre for families and everyone else to enjoy.

The idea of Manchester Day is so communities can contribute to the event in celebration, bring people, artists and local businesses together.  The day itself plans to include around 2,000 participants, artists, and performers, which are all involved in around 100 charities, and the day should play host to a possible 60,000 attendees.

Activities include music from young musicians from Manchester colleges and groups, Jazz from Matt and Phreds, illusionists, magicians, entertainers, acrobatics, food & drink, and much more!  All of this would be found at St. Ann's Square, Cathedral Gardens, and Exchange Square.  The parade will be made up of fantastical displays (if last year's is anything to go by!), which would have been created by communities and groups in collaboration with the artists and charities.  The parade will start at 1pm at Liverpool Road, and then make its way to Albert Square (Town Hall), then down Deansgate and finishing with grand finale at Exchange Square.

Some photos from behind the scenes at one of the creative workshops:

As mentioned, there will be food & drink, and if you are not already aware from previous blog posts, I LOVE FOOD.... A LOT !! Some of my favourite street food vendors will be providing a variety of delicious food throughout the day, which are, but not limited to, Bratwurst from Fat Annie's, south indian streetfood from  Chaat Cart, and polish cuisine from Smak!, but a full list can be found here:  http://manchesterday.co.uk/food-drink/ 

The curator of Manchester Day is Walk the Plank, an organisation of art and entertainment enthusiasts, celebrating 25 years of mesmerising audiences with outdoor spectacles all around the North West of England, especially Manchester & Salford, and internationally.  Walk the Plank were behind the parade for the Rio Olympic Heroes Parade in September 2016 in Manchester, and Manchester Day 2016.

Manchester Day 2017 is guaranteed to be a fun-filled day, and to get you in the spirit, here is a collection of my photos from last year's event themed "EUREKA":

Iberian Peninsula Wine Flight at Instituto Cervantes, Manchester | Wine Tasting with Marco Castelanelli

I was invited by a Spanish friend to attend this wine tasting event, Iberian Peninsula Wine Flight, at the Instituto Cervantes in Manchester in support of the institute and the event organisers Marco Castelanelli and Meruert Rakhimova.

With only days before I travelled to the Kingdom of Spain, to revisit the beautiful city of Barcelona, it was the perfect occasion to spend an evening with good friends, the fantastic organisers of this event, and meeting great new people, who were attending thanks to the website Internations.  Internations is a global social network, which primarily focuses on bringing ex-pats together with similar interests and for group activities and events, but also welcomes like-minded people who yearn for that specific international experience.  The network is an organisation for all people visiting, travelling, working and relocating around the world.

On this occasion, the wine tasting occurred in Instituto Cervantes, which is situated in the heart of Manchester on Deansgate in an inconspicuous building.  Inside, the building is incredible - the structure of the interior is very open like a hollowed shell, with metal stairs rising in the centre, classrooms around the outside, and floor to ceiling glass panels.  The building hosts language classes, specifically Spanish teaching, dance classes, a library, and a whole lot more!

A little bit about the host/sommelier/wine merchant, Marco Castelanelli:  he is a qualified Sommelier who has spent the best part of seven years in Italy working at one of Italy's prestigious vineyards, and building a network of contacts from wineries, restaurants, and wine producers.  Personally, I found Marco to be a really pleasant host, and I have attended a handful of wine tastings in the past years, and one thing that seems to be apparent in all great hosts, which adds to a splendid evening, is an abundance of passion for their craft - Marco is truly committed to his passion, and has a very calming exposition when talking through the varied wines and their histories.  He is without a doubt, full of knowledge about all the wines presented to everyone participating in the tasting, which becomes an engaging experience for all involved.

The setting of the tasting looked fantastic, with several tables dotted around the room, but one of the best parts (well, apart from the wine itself) were the placemats and information sheet.  The placemats contained 6 red wine stained rings for each glass to contain the different wines, and the information sheet was a map highlighting the origin of the wines listed.  Brilliant idea!

However, I wanted to bring your attention to another brilliant piece, which was the nose and taste picture guide to help participants place and describe the wines.  One of Marco's talents is to encourage everyone to engage with the discussions and presentations of the wines.  Excellent!

Now for the wine!  For the tasting, we had:

1.  Celler Can Blau, Blau 2015 - El Molar - Monsant D O - Catalunya
2.  Dfj Vinhos, Portada Selection 2015 - Vila Chã De Ourique - Lisboa
(1 & 2 were swapped around on the night, but this is the order from the infosheet)
3.  Bodegas Valdesil, Valderroa 2014 - Ourense - Valdeorras D O - Galicia
4.  Bacalhôa, tinto da Anfora 2014 - Azeitão - Alentejano
5.  Bodegas Beronia, Crianza 2013 - Ollauri - Tioja DOC
6.  Symington Family, Altano 2014 - Gaia, Douro

I like a full-bodied taste to my red wine, with an earthy and smoky aroma, so my two favourites were the Can Blau 2015 and Altano 2014.  Can Blau, in particular, has a fruity and spicy taste, and the oak leaves a sensation of roasted coffee on the palate; a great combination of taste.  As for the Altano, it has that dark fruit taste, again with a hint of spice.

I wholeheartedly recommend these wine tastings, and if you are interested in attending a event with Marco, they will be monthly in Manchester, with the next one scheduled for 31st May 2017 at Tapeo & Wine, and if you are interested, tickets can be purchased on Eventbrite here.  Further details will be available soon, but if you are interested, you can contact Marco through his website:  http://marcodrinks.com/

Chop'd | Fantastic New Salad Bar in Manchester, UK

On Wednesday 14 September, I attended a special blogger event at the new (fantastic) salad bar on Cross Street in Manchester.  Named Chop'd, and over 12 years has been securely growing into a novel, unique, and brilliant franchise.  It originates from London and currently has 14 establishments in London, a sister company in Liverpool called Salad Bowl, and a potential new opening in Leeds.

This means that Manchester is the first location to have a Chop'd salad bar outside of London, and has been running successfully in Manchester thus far for about three weeks now (as of 14 September!).

The evening kicked off with Eddie, the Managing Director, presenting the origin, growth, and ethos of the company, which is all about producing great food that a) one would feed their kids, and b) very tasty - which is a marvelous concept, and Eddie is a man that has been with the company from the start and has progressed through the managerial ranks as the business had grown - he is full of passion and aspiration about Chop'd.  And why not!  At this point, I was already becoming a fan.

After Eddie’s presentation, we undertook informative taste testing activities, learning where Chop’d source some of their produce, such as the Kent apples, and West Sussex tomatoes – Chop’d utilise the nonconformist fruit and veg that farms produce, as many big supermarkets only want fruit and veg that fit their perceived idea of standard.  Chop’d has a range of flavoured fruit and veg that can be quite unique as they are naturally grown without preconceived notions of how they should appear and without manipulation.  As the business expand throughout the UK, then the logistics of moving the produce becomes easier.  The best samples of food we tasted during this activity were the Salmon and Miz Pepperpots jerk paste.  The smoked salmon was delicious, flaky and so fresh.  It comes from a London smokehouse called H. Forman & Son, and salmon lovers would absolutely love it.  The jerk paste is made and produced by Eddie’s friend, which, I believe can also be bought online, and it is full of flavour and the perfect level of spiciness that is not too overbearing.

The main event of the evening and the reason why we were all invited, was to sample the salads.  Chop’d concept is brilliant and simple.  It is basically build your own salad, which is separated into three sections of ingredients, and oh my, lots of ingredients.  The first two sections are made up of rice, cous cous, rocket salad, beans, chickpeas, egg, pasta – mostly anything to fill your large tub (the portion size is incredible!).  Customers can choose approximately five ingredients from these sections, and the third section, only one.  However, the third section comprises of the aforementioned salmon, chorizo, avocado, meats, etc., so it is essentially the big mamma ingredient that you are building your salad towards.  After the salad is made, it is then all mixed together and dressing, and, if needed, extra flavour is sprinkled on.  This is one thing you often never see with salads – mixing, and ensuring all the flavours of the salad flourish together.

For just under £6, customers will get an extremely generous portion that could potentially last through two meals, and still be filling.  Two smaller sizes are priced at around £5.50 and just under £5.  Totally worth it!

For my salad, I aimed to finish with the avocado, so I wanted to keep to rocket salad, cous cous, kidney beans, chickpeas, sundried tomatoes, beetroot, and egg; and dressed in a honey and herb dressing to give it a little extra flavour.  It was superb!  Flavourful and nutty, and creamy!  Perfect!

I wholeheartedly recommend Chop’d, to all food, salad, healthy eating lovers.  You will not be disappointed.  When I return as a paying customer, you can find my customer review on Yelp: http://mcrphil.yelp.co.uk/

To finish, we toured the basement, which will be utilised as a relaxing work room for customers: drink coffee, eat salad, write a novel, complete a powerpoint presentation, complete a thesis, whatever.

To expand on the coffee; Chop’d works in collaboration with Grindsmith to sell their brand of coffee, and it certainly is not your average coffee.

Bill's New Menu Launch | Manchester, UK

Food and cocktails are great at Bill's!  The new food and cocktail menu looks great and from what I sampled, tastes superb too.

On entering, we were welcomed with a Hedgerow Fizz, which is Prosecco with a raspberry dropped in for added flavour.  We were then shown to the back area leading to the backyard, which was our area for the evening.  This was an event perfect for a big crowd of Yelpers to enjoy and sample three of the cocktails on offer and the food.

Bill's is situated on John Dalton Street, just by the likes of Panacea and Byron Burger, and from the exterior, looks like it would fit perfectly in a botanical gardens environment.  Inside is light, colourful and beautifully decorated with a simplistic and natural wood design.

Once settled, we were served samples of the food in the form of canapés.  First was watermelon and sesame-crusted feta.  Delicious!  This offers a great fruity combinationw with the warm coated feta.  Other canapés offered were crab and falafel sweet chilli doughnuts, which only had subtle taste of crab, but nonetheless, very tasty!  Also, the tomato bruschetta were very flavourful complemented by mint pesto.  One canapé to highlight is the chicken liver parfait because, despite being so tasty, seems to be quite rare in Manchester.  The chicken liver was complemented by sweet chutney, which added to the flavour.  The final sample of food on offer was the crispy calamari, and it smelt and tasted delicious.  If you are not a fan of seafood, then maybe this is not for you, but if you are, then you are in for a treat!  I will definitely be back for more.  The servers were very knowledgeable in the food they were presenting, and it was a pleasure to listen to the passion they had for the food and the menu.  It is truly a commendable service.

Afterwards, we were delighted with a classic Victoria Sponge, and regular and mini scones.  Amazing.  The Victoria Sponge was very creamy and very tasty.  Big thumbs up!

The cocktails menu seems to follow the country club summer style, which is genuinely welcomed.  We sampled a gin and elderflower cocktail named Bill's Country Garden with lime, apple and cucumber.  The other cocktail was a Bramble Mojito, which was a rum and blackberry cocktail.  These cocktails had a very nice floral and fruity summery taste, and would be perfect on a beautiful sunny day (or as we are in Manchester, a nice restaurant on a rainy day.)  PS, it was not raining on this particular day, which made evening more fitting.

Bill's event was a fun-filled evening with great food, drinks, company and regular Yelp shenanigans.

[Find this review and more on http://mcrphil.yelp.co.uk]