Too Good To Go? Stopping Food Waste in Liverpool.

Love food but hate the waste? Me too. I know ‘influencers’ get a bad rep for over-ordering food just for the ‘gram but I can assure you I always aim to ensure I’ve eaten every single bite. Whether that means me lying in back of the car with my jeans unzipped groaning or whether I get my leftovers wrapped up ready to eat for breakfast in the morning- I can’t think of anything that feels worse than letting good food go to waste. 

My own personal eating habits aside, the amount of food that goes to waste in the UK each year is, to be frank, no less than criminal and anything that aims to stop that wastage is worth a try in my book. That’s where the Too Good To Go app comes in. Whilst they did kindly send me a voucher for a free bag ages ago, this post isn’t at all sponsored by them at all- I just think it’s a fab idea and one I wanted to share.

5 Fab things I've eaten in Liverpool recently

Well, well well, it's been a while hasn't it! I won't bore you with the story of why I've been missing again as we all know it's part and parcel of the Eat Liverpool way of life by now. So, let's get stuck in: here's 5 fab things I've eaten recently that have reserved a special spot in my brain and in my stomach.

1. The fennel sausage pappardelle from The Buyers Club

TCB Unlimited: Where Robots meet Restaurants

The summer holidays always herald a resurgence of blogging for me, six weeks of uninterrupted me time to spend eating, drinking and writing about it. When I considered the first place I might review over the upcoming weeks I toyed with a few ideas. I'm yet to try Ellis Barrie's Lerpwl for example, and my favourite South Liverpool dining spot Berringtons has rebranded as a neighbourhood Italian. It therefore came as a surprise even to me that the first place that would fire up my keyboard again would be somewhere I'd never heard of: TCB Unlimited

Whilst the name sounds suspiciously like a front for an industrial solvents company, TCB is in fact a (rather unappetising) acronym for The Chinese Buffet, a new chain of Chinese restaurants springing up inconspicuously all over the North with only one thing in mind: world domination  a new way of doing 'all you can eat' buffet food. 

I've been to more than my fair share of Chinese buffets in my life time and for the most part the experience is pretty standard wherever you go. It's all about low cost food, high mark-ups on the drinks, clear tactics from the outset and the age old battle of attempting to get your money's worth by piling your plate as high as you dare. So what makes this restaurant worth reviewing?

Oh, just that the waiters are robots. Welcome to the future, baby.

Bringing Liverpool’s first bean-to-bar chocolate to the Table.

It would be all to easy for this post to quickly descend in to a gushing ode to one of Liverpool’s coolest cafès bars: Ropes & Twines, but it’s not their passion for great coffee or carefully curated wine list that we’re here to dissect today, rather something a little more unusual. For in the basement of the aforementioned cafè comes a chocolate workshop and production line that would make Wonka himself start to sweat. Meet Table Chocolate, Liverpool’s first (and only) bean-to-bar chocolatiers.

Like all great ideas, R&T owner Tian decided he was going to make his own chocolate after a few drinks too many. One phone call to his old friend Remy (a master pastry chef, as it happens) and a few months of waiting out the pandemic pandemic and Remy moves his entire family from Argentina to Liverpool to start bringing the idea to life.

Whilst making great tasting chocolate is the goal, it’s the underlying principals of ensuring fairness and equality at every step of the production process that makes this endeavour different. Table Chocolate is about traceability, ethics and sustainability starting from the farmers who produce the cacao beans right up to the customers in store. ‘That’s where the name comes from’, Tian explains, ‘We wanted the whole process to be transparent… like we’re laying it all out on the table’. 

Table currently have 4 different chocolate bars on sale, all produced in house including the grinding, tempering, pouring and packaging and the result is a super high- quality, luxury product. The current range of bars include two darker chocolate bars (Tanzania & Madagascar), a Haiti milk (my personal favourite, with hints of banana and toffee) and a Nicaraguan white. You can get them in store at Ropes & Twines as well as a few other select suppliers. 

Have a look on the website here if you want to know more and keep an eye out to see what’s next from Table Chocolate. If you’re lucky you might be able to go and see how it’s done & make your own bar at some point in the future & if their Easter egg selection was anything to go by, the Christmas collection will be nothing short of sensational. 

X 

Mani, Mani, Mani

It’s a dark Wednesday evening, I’m nursing a large white wine spritzer alongside a bowl of Mani’s signature salami crisps and for a brief moment everything is good in the world. I hadn’t pegged 2022 to be the year Lark Lane finally had a revival but stranger things happen in this city so little takes me by surprise any more. 

The aforementioned salami is one of several reasons why one of Lark Lane’s newest indies has already made an impact on this booming, boho area of Aigburth. On a previous visit (strictly for a Caramac espresso martini that I’d spotted on Instagram), a couple on the table next to us wouldn’t let us leave the building until we’d eaten some. It’s the crispy bits of a pepperoni pizza in bar snack form- meaty, greasy and ridiculously salty. My three favourite flavours funnily enough.

Don’t let my lurid descriptions of salty bar snacks fool you, Mani is a sleek Italian inspired tapas restaurant with a small but perfectly formed menu of the traditional with a twist.The croquetta for example are stuffed with chunks of harissa roasted cauliflower. The bruschetta comes topped with a single, sliced heirloom tomato, fresh pesto and flaky sea salt- it’s one of the best four pounds you’ll spend these days.

We’re ordering from the ‘hands full’ menu so aside from snacks and starters we get two big plates and two sides for just £20 a head. As with all small plate restaurants these days the tables are challengingly tiny and before long it’s a game of tapas Jenga trying to fit in the dishes as they come flying out of the kitchen.

The fritto misto comes with big, meaty pieces of seafood- our ‘catch of the day’ a full soft shell crab- one of my guiltiest pleasures in life- alongside generous chunks of white fish and squid. Mains are more traditional- fresh pasta and home-made sauces (not too much choice if you aren’t a pasta lover) and for dessert we squeeze down tiramisu and a humongous pistachio cannoli. 

Overall you’ll find the food at Mani to be deceptively good. It’s a serious contender for Lark Lane’s burgeoning restaurant scene if not for their interesting take on tapas then certainly for their smashing service, great cocktails and utterly iconic salami crisps. It’s a resounding yes from me.

————————————————————————————————

*Part of this meal was gifted to me in exchange for an optional, completely honest review…and here it is! 

5 Fab Things I ate in....September and October

As usual my good intentions to make this type of round-up up a monthly feature fell pitifully at the first hurdle, in other words: a busy few weeks at my day job. That means this months fab-food recommendations come 2 in 1: the highlights of two months worth of basic bitch, autumn themed, pumpkin-spiced deliciousness. In no particular order...

Beef Short Rib- Pen Factory

I'd need more than two hands to count the number of times I've popped into The Pen Factory for a drink but for some reason the opportunity to order from their menu has always eluded me. Their new, ever-evolving small plates menu is a sophisticated and original pick 'n' mix that suits their cool, academic clientele to a tee. Whilst their staple of hummus and chips is inexplicably delicious, their beef short rib stole the crown for me (and for Remy too by the looks of it).