Plant Burger
Velvet

Velvet

2 Canal Street Manchester, M1 3HE, United Kingdom

Bars • Pizza • Drinks • British


"I cannot really decide how I feel about this one.. Anyhoo, thanks to Rach who offered to treat me for a birthday meal, we ended up here. Walking in, I thought it looked very lavish, with nice swish tables and chairs, emcompassed by world chart motifs on the wall. It was a nice dark and intimiate looking place. Immediately we were greeted by a lovely waitress who allowed us to choose our table. We chose a table near the stairwell which turned out to be wobbly. This was spotted immediately by a passing waiter who fixed it with some card. After the wobble, we scoured the cocktail menu, these were priced I average at £7..which is a nice expected price. It was refreshing for the cocktail maker to come over and ask us how we liked it , in my case if I wanted the mojito sweet or sour... or with a twist .. When the cocktails arrived, I have to admit I thought they were a bit weak, and did not blow my socks off.. Which was an anti climax considering he had especillay asked how we liked it prepared.. I just hoped the food would be better. The menu contains steaks, sandwiches, pasta, and various other gastro pub grub. I decided to choose the moules mussels with white wine sauce for a starter, to be followed by a goats cheese risotto after the waitress had recommeneded this. Rach had some beautiful meaty prawns and a steak. We did not wait long for our starters, and my mussels did look appetising. There were two things that I think they missed a trick on however. One , the bowl to place the discarded shells was too small and I had to balance them like jenga...and 2) the sauce was beautiful but I was not provided with a spoon to actually consume any of it. The prawns with chorizo that Rach had were really tasty, however there were not many of them.. Starters were soon whisked away and replaced with the mains. My risotto was really flavoursome, although I was still quite peckish after it. The steak Rach had was cooked perfectly rare as requested. Both of us still had room for dessert. I chose the lemon tart which was deceptively filling considering its delciate appearance, with a nice strawberry coulis to soften the blow from the zest. Rach's looked more impressive , it was a literally a chocolate tower which was soon demolished. Overall the level of service was impeccable, but I think the portions were slightly on the small side, and I think the bill wa expensive at £75 for a drink and 3 courses each.. The flavours were good but not good enough to reflect the price. I will come here again though with a steak eater due to the strong postivie feedback. I will just advise them not to order a cocktail."

Doubletree By Hilton St. Anne's Manor, Omnia

Doubletree By Hilton St. Anne's Manor, Omnia

London Road, RG40 1ST, Wokingham, United Kingdom

Cafés • Mexican • Asiatic • European


"Booked online and confirmed with Hilton and by The Fork e mail. Hilton Telephoned to confirm 2 days prior to booking date to ensure we were still coming. One of my party couldn't come so I telephoned the Hilton direct the day before the booking to cancel one space which they confirmed verbally but luckily took my mobile number again. On the morning of the booking, the next day, I received a call from the manager to tell me I had no booking at all and he couldn't take a booking as they needed 24 hours notice, I booked on 25th May???? When I proved to him I had confirmation from The Fork the he said that online bookings were a different system and he had no knowledge of it????? After a little while, while he checked again, he came back to me and said I can accomodate you today When we got there the afternoon tea we were served was a cobbled affair with frozen scones defrosted so still really cold and crumble to nothing when cut making it very difficult to put jam and cream on, sandwhiches per person were filled with 1 salmon, 1 plastic cheese that you put on burgers with a little tomato and 1 ham without any pickle or mustard or anything else I could identify other than butter and 1 extra ham to fight over, all predominately white bread. 1 Scone each as I described either plain or fruit, again decide who gets which, cakes were a slice of Victoria sponge, 3 mini maccorons and 1 thin slice of meringue filled with some sort of creamish filling but not very nice. This was not the afternoon tea I had ordered and the price reflected that thank goodness but even then not worth the money. Very, Very disappointing. Had I not telephoned to cancel one place we would have turned up to find nothing in place at all. Not acceptable."