WE here at Taste of Manchester read with a certain lipsmacking amusement about the imminent arrival in Soho of the UK’s ‘first’ gourmet grilled cheesed bar, purveying ‘New York-style’ upmarket toasties to the glitterati – at a fair whack, we’d guess.
This news sent us hot-footing it down to Manchester’s Church Street stalls, where just along from the second hand books and the exotic greengrocer’s has sprung up our own toastie mecca, Northern Soul (yep, on launch we too thought it was going to be a record shop).
Their signature sandwich is The Soul (£4.40) featuring three cheeses, their flagship the £6 Mac Attack, the ‘ultimate grilled cheese sandwich’. For 50p more they stuff in nine hour pulled pork and it becomes Pig on a Lead. Marmite is 30p extra.
TOM’s definite favourite, though is the Black Forest Ham (£5.50) which adds smoked ham and emmenthal to The Soul base and accompanies it with dill pickle, chutney and rocket. Definitely gourmet and a very satisfying refuel.
Northern Soul also offers milkshakes – including Killer Vanilla, Hersey’s & Fluff, Peanut Butter and Oreo – at £4, plus soups, tea and coffee, but after that our Black Forest we just had to have a pint on the way back at the Abel Heywood. Prost!
Northern Soul Church Street, NQ, M4 1PN. Open Mon-Wed 11am-6m, Thurs-Sat 11am-8pm, Sun 11am-4pm. http://www.northernsoulmcr.com