Confessions of a Wino

After my review of Sam’s Chop House raised a bit of a storm about people’s privacy, I was reticent about reviewing the sibling, Mr Thomas’s.  After waiting for about 243 minutes behind a twitcher’s tent, I finally found a moment when the coast was clear and grabbed a quick snap (below).  If only the atmosphere inside was as interesting….

A Sunday afternoon, and the place was dead.  Admittedly, Chop Houses are transactional business places that are much frequented on school days but quiet on evenings and weekends.  Having said that, the atmosphere might have been crap but the food was superb.  The corned beef hash is apparently prepared in a Heston Blumenthal style that takes 14 days to stew, marinade and bake beef into proper Northern fayre with bovine flesh that could be traced back to its hooves.  Furthermore, the pork chop was the best I have ever tasted and the cheese board was superb, local and tangy and erm ……local.

The wine I tried was Casa la Joya 2006 Merlot, Colchagua Valley.  But at 14.5%, it is a bit strong for me.  Apple, blackberry crumble with vanilla ice cream flavours were nice enough, but a little too much oak.  A little too strong, too bold, too new world, too much alcohol.  One glass is nice but don’t venture into any more.

So a quiet place in winter maybe.  A good place for the summer?  For sure!  I’ll be back when the weather warms because there is a superb outside area overlooking St Ann’s Square (very posh).  Like Sam’s Chop House you have great British food with great world wines and proper service.  Niiiiiiice.

Mr Thomas’s Chop House, 52 Cross St, Manchester, M2 7AR.  T:  0161 832 2245 F:  0161 839 0042
E:  toms@thevictorianchophousecompany.com
W:  www.tomschophouse.com

This entry was posted on Monday, April 14th, 2008 at 3:58 pm and is filed under bars and pubs, food, south america. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.