Greens Restaurant, Manchester

Last month I finally managed to visit Greens in Manchester – the vegetarian restaurant owned by TV-chef Simon Rimmer (the guy with the bald-head who appears regularly on Something for the Weekend). It’s a restaurant that I have wanted to visit for a long time, having been to Manchester regularly over the last five years, but I have never been able to find the time before. So, I was delighted to spend a Saturday night there a few weeks ago.

There were four of us having dinner (I was the only veggie) and we sampled as much of the menu as we physically could!

Nibbles – is this black pudding I see before me?

We started with nibbles – one order of bread and oils and one order of Greens famous vegetarian black pudding to share (we couldn’t come to Greens and not try the black pudding we’d heard so much about!) Having never eaten any ‘real’ black pudding before, I couldn’t tell if it was anything like the non-veggie versions but it had a good chunky texture and a very strong flavour, it went nicely with the mustard mayo, and one of my non-veggie dining companions agreed that it was a good reproduction of the real thing.

Starters – beautiful beetroot

For starters two of us tried the Indian potato-cake special, one went for deep-fried oyster-mushroom Chinese pancakes, and I had a beetroot mousse with seeded breadsticks. The potato-cake was very spicy and went down well with both diners, but it was quite heavy for a starter portion and didn’t leave a lot of room for the main course. The Chinese pancakes were beautiful, with a lovely plum sauce and the deep flavour of the shredded oyster mushrooms tasted lovely with the sauce, the cucumber and the pancake itself.  I plumped for the beetroot mousse, and was very pleased with my choice as the mousse was light and cool and perfectly sweet, and was complemented well by the crunch from the breadsticks.

Of all of the starters I felt that the mousse was the most successful as a uniquely vegetarian dish, as although the Chinese pancakes were also a big success, the pancakes and the potato-cake seemed to be designed as meat-substitute meals rather than a celebration of vegetarian ingredients. The potato cake seemed to me to be a substitute fish-cake, while the Chinese pancakes were really duck pancakes without the duck! Having said that however, we all enjoyed our starters and the non-veggie diners seemed pleased that the food was substantial and that it wasn’t all lentils as they had feared!

Main courses – mash & multi-purpose sausages!

After nibbles and such substantial starters we were already starting to get full by the time our main courses arrived. This time two of us went for the Lancashire hotpot, one of us went for the Cheshire cheese sausages and I went for the spinach, pistachio and feta filo pie. All of the main courses were very generous and even if you only went for a main course there would be a very slim chance of going home hungry.  The Lancashire hotpot was suitably warming comfort-food (as hotpot should be!), with the addition of barley adding bulk in place of meat. The Cheshire cheese sausages with mustard mash, beer gravy and tomato chutney were delicious, but incredibly filling – we loved them but agreed that you could probably build houses with them if you ran short of cement! The filo pie was also lovely, with the addition of pistachio nuts giving the dish a pleasant soft bite to balance the moist pastry, spinach, feta and sauce. The sweet, sticky honey and cinnamon tomato sauce was a perfect accompaniment to the pie, and this dish wasn’t quite as filling as the sausages or hotpot – although it is still a big portion that should leave no tummy rumbling!

Again, the thing that struck me about the menu was the number of meat-free versions of traditionally meaty dishes – dishes such as hotpot and sausage and mash seem to be designed to give the message that veggie-versions of meat dishes needn’t be boring, and won’t leave you hungry. And while I’m sure that this helps to make the restaurant a success, attracting many non-veggies, and contributing to the full-house that they had the night we visited, I would have liked to see more of a focus on fresh, seasonal vegetables, and a bit more of a celebration of vegetarian ingredients for their own sake.

Dessert – just when you thought you couldn’t squeeze in another bite!

We were all far too full to really enjoy pudding but we had a few scoops of ice-cream and a crème brulee to round off our four-course experience as we finished our drinks. The ice-cream was fine and the crème brulee was creamy with a lovely crunch on top, although also quite a heavy consistency, particularly coming after such big starter and main-course portion sizes.

The verdict – veggie food for non-veggies?

We all thoroughly enjoyed eating at Greens. The restaurant was very busy with a great relaxed buzz about it but the staff still had time to be polite and efficient, and for a veggie restaurant the decor and atmosphere is still suitable for a special occasion. (Often veggie restaurants are very casual places so it’s lovely to visit somewhere that you can get dressed up for a big night out!)

The food was filling, comforting and full of flavour and the non-veggies were pleasantly surprised by how satisfied they felt – they almost didn’t miss the meat at all! For me personally, I would have liked the vegetables to have been given top billing as the real stars of the show, and more dishes like the beetroot mousse, where the beetroot was the headliner, would have taken it from a great restaurant to a truly excellent veggie experience. Having said that though... would I go back again? Definitely. And the non-veggies would too!

What we ate:

Nibbles

Vegetarian black pudding
Bread

Starters

Chinese pancakes
Spicy Potato Cake
Beetroot mousse

Main courses

Cheshire cheese sausages
Lancashire hot-pot
Spinach, pistachio and feta filo pie

Desserts

Ice-cream
Creme Brulee

More information:

Greens Restaurant
43 Lapwing Lane
West Didsbury
Manchester
M20 2NT

Website - www.greensdidsbury.co.uk