(Solita)
To start the tale of the mission that was dinner at Solita the Students must admit to being rather (very, very) hungover. The fatal combination of a tedious lecture, a lunch time finish and a pub across the street had landed them in Factory Records till roughly 3 am where they landed back at the flat clutching a cold box of McDonald's Chicken Nuggets and collapsed into their respective beds not to rise till the next afternoon.
It is later agreed that the only reason they rose was out of obligation to attend a dinner they arranged with a fellow Student. Still feeling rather delicate they caught the bus to Fallowfield to meet their companions before attempting to journey on to Didsbury. Unfortunately, just as they settled down for the journey they were unceremoniously kicked off, with a 40-minute walk to the restaurant, when the bus driver declared a final stop half way down the main road.
Fast forward through 40 minutes of following Jamie and Google Maps, complaining and rumbling stomachs and the Students finally arrived at their destination.
Quickly seated at a high table on tall chairs that some (Em) struggled to get up onto, they quickly turned their attentions to the menu. They promptly ignored the grills and hot dogs and made their way to their old hangover friends; the burgers. Faced with 14 different burgers of varying bizarreness they narrowed down their options to a nice medium between safe and plain and satisfying the strange cravings one gets when recovering from a late night.
Jamie opted for Solita's version of his old faithful bacon double cheese burger (plain, no pickles or anything remotely green) whilst Em decided she couldn't afford the 'Once in a lifetime' burger (2 x 7 ounce minced steak patties, pulled pork, crispy bacon, shoestring onions, buttermilk chicken strips, Monterey Jack cheese, house BBQ sauce- £18.50), and settled on the Jack Daddy burger in pursuit of BBQ sauce.
Both went for cheesy chips over regular. Can't have a hangover burger without cheesy chips, apparently.
(Jack Daddy Burger- Onion rings, Monterey Jack cheese, Jack Daniel’s grill sauce.- £11.50)
Em's Jack Daddy burger arrived smothered with Jack Daniel's grill sauce and with cheese melting down the burger in a way that was almost pornographic to a hungry Student. Sitting proudly on top were two huge onion rings, just adding that extra level that made the burger seem more indulgent. Sadly, the onion rings promised a lot on sight but were rather greasy and soggy, not as crisp as they looked. They were eaten regardless, however. The burger patty itself was juicy and hit the spot perfectly; still pink in the centre and with that taste that banishes any suspicion of low-quality meat.
(Bacon Double Cheese Burger- 2 ounces of melted cheese, crispy bacon, ketchup, held with a slice of bacon candy.- £11.50)
Jamie's bacon double cheese burger came oozing with a whole 2 ounces of melted cheese and skewered with a large shard of candied bacon alongside the crispy slices of bacon already buried in the cheese. It wasn't the most exciting of burgers, not even Solita can change the tried and tested recipe of patty, bacon, cheese without creating an entirely different burger. Instead, Solita candied a slice of bacon and stabbed their burger with it. Jamie wasn't a massive convert to this new way of holding the burger together. He maintained that it didn't really add much to the overall burger and that the traditional wooden skewer would have been perfectly acceptable.
(Cheesy Chips- plus £1.25)
The cheesy chips came drowning in that odd cheese sauce that never tastes of cheese but is strangely just as satisfying, with its plastic-y sheen and oozy consistency. Not only that but it was not just a top layer of sauce then dry chips. Instead, the whole bowl had cheesy heaven through it. The chips themselves were the short and skinny kind you expect when ordering skinny fries. They looked like McDonald's chips but tasted much better; for one they weren't soggy. It was a generous bowl of chips too, enough to tip the balance from full to stuffed. Was the cheese worth an extra £1.25? Probably not. Would they pay it again for cheesy fries? Definitely!
(Deep fried cookie dough- £4.90)
Dessert was honestly only purchased because the Students could not refuse the chance to sample 'Deep fried cookie dough balls'. Served with a scoop of vanilla ice cream, chocolate sauce and a cherry, it was almost expected that the dough balls would be cool. However, when their crispy hard shells were broken hot, melty, chocolate chip cookie dough was revealed. They were disgustingly naughty desserts. Each ball was rolled in icing sugar and tasted exactly how you imagine cookie dough to taste when you see it on the food videos online. They were that dessert you return for, tell all your friends about and put straight onto your Instagram (the Students did there and then, the typical teenagers).
(Oven baked s'mores- £5.90)
Another member of the party ordered the Oven baked s'mores. They received a shallow pan with 11 large marshmallows dusted with icing sugar and sat in a pool of chocolate sauce. Having been oven baked they were caramelised on top and needed only a prob to be reduced to a sticky gooey mess so traditionally associated with s'mores. The biscuits provided were crisp and made excellent shovels for the marshmallows. Alas, it could not be finished, even with help. It was simply too much food after such filling burgers and chips.
Over all the Student's were satisfied. Their wallets may have stung a little when it came to paying but they considered it money well spent. Strangely enough their hangovers seemed to have vanished. Whether it was the fresh air and exercise from their hike through Didsbury ,we may never know, they however maintain it was the dirty burgers that cured them. Sure they could have just gone to McDonald's and had a burger for a fraction of the end price but sometimes you just need a dock-off burger that has been stabbed with spiky bacon.