Reviews in Manchester City Centre

Went to Gaucho for a special birthday - was left disappointed. The food was nothing spectacular, the staff were distant and the seating plan catered for the masses. For the food and service, it is grossly overpriced and there are much better restaurants in Manchester

Food of good quality and restaurant staff friendly and helpful. Pity the same cannot be said of casino staff, in particular the ones at reception. Object also to having photograph taken just to have dinner with friends. Will not be returning when there are other, superior restaurant's, in town that do not require my photograph and address.

oh my god... don't come here!

Five members of Cheshire Curry Club visited Akbars last Thursday. We had heard so many good reports that we had to try it for ourselves! We were not disappointed! We got in at 7.30pm and only had to wait 15 minutes for a table which was not a problem because there is a large well furnished section where you can have a relaxing drink before having your meal. Our party of five ordered poppadums, mixed starters for five and our main courses were the seafood special, Chicken Makhani, Lamb Bhuna, Kahrai Chicken and Lamb Ghost. We also ordered a nan bread which was bigger than a tennis racquet! The food was prepared to a very high standard and the waiter who dealt with our order was friendly and knowledgeable. Also with ample staff you don't have to wait long between courses.The total bill which included two rounds of drinks as well as Brandy and coffee came to £102. A veritable feast for just over £20 a head. The restaurant is also furnished to a very high standard and all in all we gave it 9 out of 10 which is very high for our membership. In fact it is the highest we have ever rated any of the restaurants we have visited.To give you some idea we rated the Masala Lounge in Sale 8/10, the Gatley Tandoori 8/10 and the Original Third Eye in Didsbury 8/10. Some restaurants have rated less than 5 so to rate Akbars so highly gives you an idea of how impressed we were! Thank you Akbar for a lovely evening!

Excellent food. Friendly and efficient service. Always a pleasure to visit!!

I would recommend the Happy Seasons in china town any day, Me and my boyfriend about 3 times a month, the crispy pork and char sui are the best we've ever tasted, the price is excellent and we've paid no more than £20 which includes drinks!

The decor, ambience, atmosphere and Menu lean slightly more to general Mediterranean than pure Greek which I hadn’t quite expected but that was fine. I found it reassuringly (and surprisingly) unpretentious, decent no nonsense service, good tasty food, generous portions and good value. Ole

I went here on Saturday as a group of 4 girls. It was one of the best meals I have ever had and the service was excellent. The waiters couldn't do enough for you and to be honest I was expecting the bill to be more than what it was which was a nice pleasant surprise. Between the 4 of us not one of us had a bad word to say, we all picked something different from the menu and it was all perfect.

Everytime i am shopping in manchester, i stop in Cafe Metro for a bite to eat. It has become a little tradition for me and my friends. The service is excellent, the food is lovely and its great value for money.

I hate food courts. No, i loathe food courts. The smell, the constant noise, the crappy unappealing food. Yet every time i go into a shopping centre I end up eating in one of these bloody things as they are fast, cheap and convenient. However last week my life was been transformed (small exaggeration perhaps), when I stumbled across a small place called barburrito. Located in the Trafford Centre - (I think this is a new restaurant) - they sell great, reasonably priced fast food in a great environment. I had a burrito as big as my head, stuffed with shredded beef and spicy salsa, cheese, sour cream and lots of other stuff with a refill drink for £6. This is the best dining experience I have had for some time and restores my faith in fast food. Bomb Mcdonalds, set fire to Subway, trash KFC (please note none of these are subliminal requests, more a statement of dissatisfaction). In Barburrito there is finally a fast, tasty, healthy and good value alternative.

I worked there for four months three years ago. They paid me £3.80 per hour and we were not allowed to take the tips we earnt. I was called "fat girl" by the restaurant owner. The kitchen condition was the worst I've ever seen. Sweet sour chicken was placed in dirty basket on the floor and the duck sauce was placed in disgusting bottles. The workers were treated like dirt and most of them are illegal immigrants.

I worked at Buffet city for 4 months in 2004. They paid me £3.80 per hour and they kept any tips that were earnt. Also the standard and hygiene of the restaurant kitchen was awful. I struggle to believe that they washed the kitchen more than once a week. As well as this the workers were treated like dirt.

We visited the lovely chic NEW EastzEast on the riverbank just along from the Lowry Hotel. Big tip for the year here, this place will be the main competition for Akbars.Definately during the summer when you will be able to use the Riverside Bar. Food.. excellent as per the other branch. Service.. excellent as per. Price.. just right. prediction....will be in the top ten by July

We went to Sweet Mandarin for Christmas Eve and it was a wonderful experience. I would highly recommend this place, even though it is off the beaten track. We went for the banquet and I think it was the best hot and sour soup I have ever tasted. Actually, it was the best Chinese we had in a long time. We loved the aromatic crispy duck which was just crispy and chewy enough without being dry. In particular, I would recommend the Lily Kwok's curry. Its quite a different curry from the Indian curries. This one is creamy and mild, very flavoursome and unique to Sweet Mandarin. I will be coming back in the New Year. Thanks for taking the stress out of Christmas.

EAT HERE AT YOUR PERIL - this restaurant is truly APPALLING. The food is disgusting, the service verges on the downright insulting and the standards of hygeine are highly questionable. I went to Sweet Mandarin in a party of three on Christmas Eve and it was the most horrendous dining experience in memory. This is not an exaggeration - we have all suffered with illness since we ate there. My girlfriend and I were unable to eat anything at all on Christmas Day, and are still feeling nauseaous as I write this. I intend to make a personal visit to Manchester City Council's enviromental health department as soon as they re-open. Although we live round the corner from Sweet Mandarin and eat out regularly, we had never eaten there before, mainly because common-sense tells you not to dine at a place that never seems to have any customers. But on Christmas Eve we were stuck for somewhere to eat and took a chance on it . What a terrible mistake. Upon arriving, my girlfriend visited the ladies toilet and was disgusted to find that the hand-towel was completely sodden and BLACK with dirt. We should have taken that as a warning, but our hunger got the better of us and we ordered the £25-a-head banquet. From the off, it became clear that the kitchen was re-heating old food and trying to pass it off as fresh. The opening course was a foul-tasting hot-and-sour-soup, and my friend commented on the prawns - which tasted off. The prawns were supposed to be 'king-sized' but had shrunken to the size of tiny shrimps - a tell-tale sign that they have been cooked for a very long period of time. We couldn't eat our soup - but we hoped the other 'starters' would be better. We were disappointed. The spring rolls had obviously been deep-fried several times and were dark-coloured and dripping with grease. The seaweed was very heavily salted (presumably to hide the true flavour) and the spare ribs had virtually no meat on them. Then came the crispy aromatic duck. What a joke. There was nothing aromatic about the duck - because it HADN'T been cooked in the oven. It had been dropped into the deep-fat chip frier! The meat was dried-out and sinewy and was virtually inedible. To add insult to injury, the 'pancakes' that came with it were ROCK-HARD and COLD! The texture was akin to playing cards. We complained to the waitress, who said she would inform the chef, but she then simply walked back to her position in front of the bar (there were NO other customers) and left us with our dirty plates and un-eaten duck. After complaining again, she eventually cleared our table - five minutes later! We decided to hang around for the main-courses, as we were still hungry. And the food could only improve, couldn't it? No. It didn't. The beef in black bean sauce was so chewy it was inedible. The 'clay-pot' chicken was luke-warm and had absolutely NO flavour whatsoever - and the 'speciality' 'Lily Kwok curried chicken' consisted simply of pieces of pre-boiled chicken put into the type of cheap green curry sauce you find in your local chinese chippy. It all came served with fried-rice - which contained more of the 'off' smelling prawns. Needless to say, we ate very little of it and complained to the waitress/manageress - but we found her response truly appalling - even more so than the food! We were not rude and calmly explained why we were dissatisfied, but she offered NO apology, NO explanation and made no discount on the bill. She simply arrogantly shrugged her shoulders and walked off, refusing to make eye contact with any of us. As we left, I told her we would tell all our friends just how bad the food was. But she just carried on ignoring us. It is, of course, clear why Sweet mandarin is always empty. And after experiencing it for ourselves, we can only imagine that they will probably go out of business soon. And that would be no bad thing - because I wouldn't wish the experience on anybody. What a disgrace.

Fantastic. Best place to get some food in Manchester. Very unique and there’s always something for everyone. Even if your not satisfied with whats on the menu, the considerable choice of sandwich fillings can be made into a delicious sandwich which will full you up for hours. Recommendation from me! 120%

I went to the Pacific for a birthday meal and was initially impressed. As far an China Town restaurants go it was visually pleasing with comfortable seating,pleasent decor and a jovialatmosphere. The service seemed rushed, one of the waiters spilled an entire glass of wine over a friend of mine, this was fine ,accidents happen and the waiter apologised profusely, however no replacement glass of wine was even offered. We brushed this off not wanting to cause a fuss however the real drama of the evening was yet to come. When it came time to pay, the waitress loudly announced at the table that my card had been declined, a little sheepish I replied that I had just been paid and there was no way the card could have been declined. I accompanied her to the front desk where I was gruffly barked at by the manager (I presume) who declared that my card had been declined. I insisted he try it again but I was then told that the card machine was now broken and that they had called my bank who had told them of this. I asked them to call my bank again but they refused and told me they had closed for the evening! moderatly annoyed to say the least I went to the bank machine to withdraw money. During my time away from the restaurant the same manager chastised my friends who were still at the table asking them had I ran off without paying!? When I finally came back to pay I told them that my card had worked as I had insisted and that whoever they spoke to (if they had spoken to anyone at all) at the bank had been incorrect. They accepted my money and thanked me but by this point I was sorely disapointed and embaressed at being treated like I was attempting to rip them off. This manager should be ashamed!

Really disappointed with this place after reading such rave reviews. After arriving 20 mins late due to city centre traffic, to find they had given our table away (after requesting a £100 deposit on booking) the staff were surley, unhelpful and the food was average. Much better places to eat out in Manchester, give this place a miss.