Come Get Hong Thai Food in Ancoats!

On the blog soon: a psychology book review, a piece on how to train your mind to narrow your focus – as explained to my by the NHS – and a recipe review. 

Friday night: GetSocial, a new group to rival WeRoad, are holding a premium event in Banyan Spinningfields. £10 tickets, but it does get you a discount card for drinks in several venues and works at future events too. I’m not there as there is one person going who turned out to be a bit of a twat, and another who should have been at my meetup on Saturday but didn’t bother showing. 

Saturday night: Manchester Nightlife trip to Hong Thai, a renowned Chinese / Thai restaurant on Oldham St Ancoats. I hear good things over instagram. Time to give it a shot. After that, Cutting Room Square is a stonesthrow away, so there’s plenty of choice for bars.

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Capri Beach Club

Getting back into the swing of running meetups after a few weeks off. 

Manchester has a temporary cocktail bar in Shambles Square called Capri Beach Club, a kind of Balearic open air venue with house music and a gelato stall. I ran an early-doors meetup with Manchester Nightlife. 

5 attendees were listed. 2 of us showed. It’s getting exhausting putting on meetups and not getting the attendees. If people don’t respond to the events, then it’s not a popular idea in the first place, so perhaps that would be reflective of my decision making. But if I keep finding that people say they’ll come, and then don’t… surely that’s reflective of other people’s organisational skills? I’ve commented on the meetup page asking people to only RSVP if they’re going to actually turn up. 

It’s always been an issue on Meetup – you never know how many are actually going to show. I have a few more ideas for meetups to run, but after I’ve exhausted them, I’m likely to step down as organiser and stop paying that subscription. It’s a lot of money for little reward and a lot of abuse. 

There was no abuse last night, but other attendees have verbally abused me to my face and criticised me over the internet because they didn’t like the bar, or they didn’t like the topics of conversation, if I understand correctly. Weird. Well, you can’t please everyone. 

Capri was a fine choice, though – music, cocktails, table service and weather were on point.

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Black Pepper Bananas

Got my ass out of bed early to dabble in a breakfast recipe. This one from Rukmini Iyer’s India Express was Black Pepper Bananas with Palm Sugar and Porridge. It looked like a good Bengali twist on a similar recipe I’ve had for breakfast a few times. 

22 mins in total. This should have taken 40. Weird, because normally recipes take me longer than prescribed. Wasn’t sure how many times to grind the pepper pot for the right amount, but I seem to have guessed correctly. 

Came out sweet and wholesome, and stocked me up for the morning.

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Baked Eggs

Up early again this morning (16/4) to cook a recipe. Who even am I?! This time, from Rukmini Iyer’s The Green Roasting Tin:  Baked Eggs with Beetroot, Celeriac, Dill and Feta. 

Started this at 6:21am. Finished 7:35. Should only have taken 30 mins, but first thing in the morning when I’m tired, not awake and hungry, I’m going to be slower than usual. 

First problem: I don’t have a particularly big mixing bowl. I guess I could have used an oversized Tupperware box, which I’ve done before, but again, to access it, it means rearranging my entire kitchen cupboard. A cereal bowl sufficed, but it was FULL. Next, my scales weren’t sensitive enough to measure out 180g of anything. I did a lot of guesswork. I bought sourdough for this recipe, but my fridge was also full, so kept it in a cupboard, and it went off before I could use it. The eggs themselves needed a little longer in the oven than advertised, and the ‘nest’ of the beetroot – that contains the egg – weren’t as solid as I expect they should have been. 

The egg was the best part.

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Tenerife '25 Day 8

Flew home. Much more fluid airport experience this time. 

Great holiday. Spending time with the niece and second cousins was the highlight. Getting burned to shit was the lowlight. Really should have covered up more. Factor 50 and intermittent t shirt wearing wasn’t enough. Will try again next year. Lots of others on the plane had similar twat tans, so I’m not alone in my inability to manage UV. 

I didn’t manage to do the submarine tour, snorkelling with turtles, jet skis, the monkey and parrot parks or the Viking ship cruise. 2026!

Tenerife '25 Day 7

TUESDAY 27/6 

The last full day was a boat day. We walked down to the harbour in the morning to for a boat trip, out into the Mediterranean, so see dolphins and pilot whales, some incredibly beautiful mammals. Pilot whale infants, the guide tells us, stay dependent for 15 years and tend to stay within their pod. 

 

 Which are these? Any experts? 

 

Great views of the wildlife, but I just do not have the sea legs. Thankfully my stomach settled once we were back on land, and we headed to La Cofradia for lunch and La Tasca 7 for tea.

Tenerife '25 Day 6

MONDAY 26/5 

Food in the town with the family. The House restaurant in a rustic Spanish backstreet served up garlic bread, penne arrabbiata, bacon and garlic tomatoes with chilli, and sugar and lemon crepes. Great food, shame about the African street entertainers blasting music and performing mediocre balancing acts. 

More beach.