Posts tagged rice

Zorbas, Arndale Market, Arndale Centre, Manchester

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Many thanks to PieEater for his MANCMUNCH review that he submitted here.

I like my food. Cheap and plenty of it is my game. Zorba’s is the Greek outlet in the Food Court. Wide selection of your fave Greek treats such as kebabs, Stifado stew and so on.

Today I went for their Chicken & Spinach, with rice. A tasty meal of Chicken mixed with a herby spinach sauce. Decent portion, as with most places in the Food Court, served in a polystyrene tub. You can take-out as well, if you don’t fancy fighting for a table.

Good food, price isn’t so bad considering, would try again.

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Rating: +3 (from 3 votes)

Rice, Piccadilly Gardens

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Another late lunch and another decision to treat myself.

My lunch companion was Stevo again and as he was paying he made the decision – after a short walk from the office, we went to RICE

Being as we were having a late lunch (2.30pm), it was fairly quiet when we arrived – no queue, but lots of people still eating.  I opted for the Nasi Goreng whilst Stevo had the Thai Green Curry with rice.  The cost was £10.98 for the 2 (including our discount for having Piccadilly Partnership cards) and within 5 minutes we were walking back to the office with our food.

My Nasi Goreng was very tasty and I managed to get through it all. It contained plenty of chicken and prawns and the sauce it was cooked in gave it a lovely flavour. A good score – 4 out of 5.

Stevo’s Thai Green Curry.  Packed with a good amount of chicken and the vegetable were cooked very well – they still had a great crunch to them. He thought it was very good but was spicier than usual which was the only problem – also a 4 out of 5.

In addition, the service was good and fast, the food boxes were crammed full and the food was piping hot.  My only problem with RICE is the price – if it was less than a fiver each, it would be much more stomachable.

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Rating: 0 (from 2 votes)

Pancho’s Burritos, Arndale Market, Manchester

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On numerous occasions recently I have found myself strolling round the Arndale Market, looking for something different to cure the onset of the early afternoon hunger pangs. I normally wander aimlessly, moving from stall to stall, hoping to find something to take my fancy and a part of the Market has been closed recently whilst they put in new stalls. This Friday I noticed it was open again and one of the new stalls caught my eye,  “Pancho’s Burritos”,  a tiny stall with a small menu, but it looked very promising, “go on then” I thought, “can’t be worse than Bar Burrito”, which I hate by the way.

The list of ingredients that goes into one of Pancho’s burrito’s was impressive, rice, salsa, peppers, sour cream, I can’t remember the full list but you can have either a Pork, Chicken, Beef or veggie burrito, “amazing” I thought and didn’t bother to read the rest of the menu (or the rest of the options for the burrito, I was already sold on the idea).

The staff were so pleasant, friendly and helpful and they actually looked Mexican, I know I sound racist but I would rather have a burrito made by a nice, polite Mexican gentleman than three girls who only work at the place to get them through college and who throw it together in an instance (yes I’m talking about Bar Burrito again).

Like I said, I didn’t read the rest of the options for the burrito, which I’m glad about. The polite man asked if I would like a spinach, plain or pepper tortilla, “incredible you get a choice of tortilla”, I went with the spinach, then he kindly asked if I would like it spicy or mild, “even better”, I opted to spice it up.

The care, attention and expertise that the nice man made the burrito with confirms my slightly racist remark about the food, making this place a goldmine because the people who work there actually know what they are doing and take pride in the food they prepare. This is backed up by the fact they heat up each tortilla separately and only when an order has taken place, and by the way they put the ingredients into the tortilla in just the right order.

Once my new amigo had finished tightly wrapping my burrito and he passed it to me I was surprised at the size of it, nicely wrapped in tinfoil and about the size of 5 sticks of dynamite taped together, I was impressed.

I took my explosive over to a table, unwrapped the burrito and bit into it, the number of flavours that exploded was wonderful, you could taste the rice, salsa, etc and the pork was so well cooked and tender to bite, I was staggered. Further into the burrito I worked out why it looked like 5 sticks of dynamite, it blew my head off, the spices were very hot indeed but this only added to the burrito, complimenting all the other flavours and after the hit of spice you got the warm, soft, gentle taste of the sour cream, if only all burritos were this good.

Sombrero’s off to Pancho’s Burritos it was an amazing experience of flavours and spice, I will definitely going back and for £3.99 it is well worth it. This is how you make a burrito, RIP Bar Burrito, you will not be missed.

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Rating: +2 (from 8 votes)

Barburrito, Piccadilly Gardens, Manchester

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Tricked into paying for lunch for 2 of us, we ended up in Barburrito. As typical blokes, we both had “the ultimate burrito” as there was a big poster advertising it as we walked in.

This allowed us to have double portion of any filling (I had chargrilled steak twice, SW had shredded beef and chicken), onions or peppers, rice, refried beans, chilli sauce, guacamole, sour cream and grated cheese.
As its Barburrito, we splashed them with lashings of tabasco to add that little extra.
Honestly, they were massive and we both enjoyed ours thoroughly.

The only gripe we both had was the size of the bottomless cups they provide – they were tiny and required constant refills.

At £7.50 each, it makes for a very expensive lunch and reminded me why I avoid it normally. I will be going back, but only when I have saved some money!!

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Rating: +2 (from 4 votes)

Grand Buffet, 48/50 Withworth Street, Manchester

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Curry buffet – All You Can Eat/Eat All You Can for £8, includes refillable soft drink.

Curry, unlike say, Chinese food (or a platter of chicken drumsticks) does not lend itself well to the whole Scoff What You Can buffet deal.  Reason being you reach your curry-consumption limit by filling up an awful lot quicker than you do when topping off your duck pancakes with rice + noodles + more rice + more noodles all smothered with miscellaneous meats and sauces.  Which is odd, because they’re very similar dishes in theory.  Meat, sauce, rice.  Maybe it’s the spiciness of curry that brings you to a halt faster.

I found myself deep into my third plate of curry buffet when, embarrassingly, my body came to a complete stop and I was no longer able to feed.  The curry sweats intensified as I briefly considered the possibility of me suffering a minor stroke there and then.  Eventually I realised I was undergoing the curious condition of being “full”, whilst still having food on my plate.  My “raised-in-the-80s” instincts kicked in as I thought of all the starving children in Africa and I anxiously endeavoured to at least finish all the meat remaining on my plate, but to no avail.

The food itself was actually good quality for a buffet, freshly made, loads of choice, all the old favourites: tasty chicken tikka massala, potent madras, beef and lamb dishes, veggie options, rices, naans, for some reason onion rings, poppadum-preaches, the works.  Also included was the option to run along the drinks machine topping your beverage up with ginger ale, irn bru, coke, sprite and everything else into one eye-watering glass of George’s Marvellous Medicine.

The kicker, however, was the price.  £8 is far too much for what it is – you can get a nice meal for that in city centre.  Maybe Grand Buffet works best as a one-off treat when there’s a few of you wanting a spicy curry fix, or maybe if you’re in the middle of an all day session and need sustenance quick; and with a sort of out-of-the-way cafe ambience, it suffices but doesn’t impress.

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Rating: 0 (from 2 votes)

Rice, Piccadilly Gardens, Manchester

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Chicken Biryani with rice.

Normally you’d get a curry from a curry house, but unfortunately, due to being challenged by a fellow foodie and having the 6 loyalty stamps saved up, this reviewer had to forego his usual awesome Nasi Goren to experiment with this dish instead. A pretty standard but sauceless curry that was spicy enough to cause flop sweats but without the prevailing ‘have-I-injured-myself’ after-burn of, say, a particularly piquant Madras from your local curry house. If you’re going to bite the no-diet bullet and hit Rice up for one of its excellent dishes you might as well go with a reliable Nasi Goren or Malaysian chilli chicken, rather than squandering your attention on this arid but still appetising Biryani. Don’t settle for good when you can have great!

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Rating: 0 (from 2 votes)

Rice – Piccadilly Gardens

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Meal: American BBQ Chicken (minus mushrooms)
The chicken is combined with peppers, noodles and baby sweetcorn mixed with a nicely cooked egg-fried rice covered in a tangy-sweet bbq sauce.

I’ve had this meal a few times now and it has to be my favourite meal from Rice. I order the meal without mushrooms as Im not a fan of the fungi.
This meal is a perfect stomach filler and wont leave you wanting more, the price is a little high for a mid-week lunch, £5.99 but as I said it does fill you up and tastes amazing so is worth it as a one off every now and again.

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Rating: +3 (from 3 votes)

Rustica, Hilton Street, Manchester

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Cheap and cheerful, greasy but good, comforting not gourmet – potential post-eating side effects: sleepiness, grease-fuelled guilt, contented satiation.


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Rating: +3 (from 3 votes)

Nandos, Arndale Centre

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You might scoff but these guys really know their scoff (chicken).

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Rating: +2 (from 2 votes)
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