Alchemist NYS New Menu – I Can Give A Fig

If you do one thing this week go down to Alchemist New York Street and try the goats cheese and fig salad or the mushrooms with truffle oil, part of a range of new dishes now available at one of I Love Manchester’s favourite eateries.

“…the skill and attention to detail gets the balance of flavours bang on…”

It is beyond delicious, simple in its concept yet like everything here the skill and attention to detail gets the balance of flavours bang on, with the sweetness of the figs accompanying the chalky cheese like sunshine and the beach.

You can even kid yourself you’re being perfectly healthy and it won’t break the bank as its £4.50 for a starter and £8.95 as a main course.

We’d been invited down by the lovely Miles to try out the new dishes so we ordered all of them, purely to report back to you dear readers.

As ever, the place, just off Piccadilly, was buzzing with beautiful people and we had a comfy booth where the Gay, Ginger, Dubai and I, idled and tucked into scrummy dish after scrummy dish.

It was heavenly, the fig and goats cheese obviously being my favourite but the boys all adored the chicken wings, now in a piri piri flavour (though they can be a bit poncy about spices) – delivered in a skull as they do theatre and food so well here including truffle oil in pipettes.

The bang bang chicken was succulent and full of flavour while the onion bahj showed the chefs can do Indian with style as well.

This was being washed down with a range of cocktails, they do them well here, it comes with the territory and of course their name. Ginger was feeling quite fiery, so fusing that and his love for liquor he asked for a Smokey Old Fashioned. It’s an exhibition of a cocktail. Woodford Reserve, strattera (atomoxetine) maple syrup, Jerry Thomas’ Bitters, oak smoke and an ice ball in a whiskey glass. That warmed up his cockles. I had the usual fizz and wine for the Gay.

Onto mains and it was our chance to try the new Japanese Ramens. I have been craving this dish ever since Walrus (who had ‘borrowed’ the chef from the ill-fated Ithaca restaurant to devise their menu) stopped turning Japanese and became a homage to Bowie and burgers.

It comes in chicken, prawn, duck or beef varieties and you can choose whether to go mild or hot. We chose a mixture of hot and mild, digging into all but the prawn as none of us was a in seafood mood that night.

It comes with a delicious broth and noodles, with chunks of tender meat and a delicate flavour of spices that takes you away from grey Manchester and brings the first glimpse of Spring and escape to the sun.

Both the Gay and I adored these dishes as did Clark Kent who randomly turned up to join us and declared them a winner.

The ‘butch’ boys though decided to go stateside, tucking into the new Cowboy Chilli which they decreed to be whip-crackling, round em up good and a great addition to the Alchemist stable.

Onto puds – just the one addition to the dessert options, the Flaming Rum Baba, flamed with Old J Spiced rum. It is like a spongey pancetta topped with ice-cream, rasberry sauce and flaming rum poured over the top out of a small pan in what is a bit of a spectacle. Very tasty and the contrasting temperatures is exciting. Because we’ve been so good during January, we got the Belgian waffles with cinnamon, sugar and vanilla ice cream, too.

On the I Love’o’meter

We figging love Alchemist NYS!

LOCATION

Alchemist New York Street, 1 New York Street, Manchester M1 4HD

CONTACT

0161 228 3856

www.thealchemist.uk.com