Camel One

In my thoughts I do not think there is anything wrong with eating a kebab while sober, but Caucasians are square and the looks they fire your way when you roll down the street munching on charcoaled meat would never be shot if you were eating a sober-friendly falafel wrap. For the last few years I have held a belief based on my drunken appetite that Camel One, situated on Jewellery Mile, would be a tasty kebab while sober. This belief was based in alcohol consumption and the dozens of kebabs that I have drunkenly eaten on my way home that I am guaranteed to spill the chilli sauce down the front of my jeans or piss my pants.

Camel One’s kebabs do not divert too far from the usual kebab houses where you can buy a £3 kebab, but in my head I have elevated it above everywhere else. It became my regular kebab haunt in second year of university when I lived in Longsight and would make a lengthy detour to buy a decent kebab rather than risk buying food from one of the dodgy takeaways on Dickinson Road or steal my flatmates Sainsbury’s chorizo slices.

Camel One serves more than just kebabs, with a selection of the usual finger food and an interesting menu of curries that I have never tasted. But one thing I do know is that the donner kebab is from a different mother than the stock donner served across England. It is a questionable ruby red coloured meat that is really dry but satisfies a need when bladdered. Tonight I ordered the chicken kebab that was charcoaled over coals for ten minutes and served with salad, minted yogurt and chilli sauce. The anticipation was crushing me as I walked to my table, I took my first (sober) bite of Camel One’s chicken kebab and wow, it tasted like a chicken kebab.

What had I been playing at? I had deluded myself, I had actually listened to a theory that I thought up while pissed. No disrespect to Camel One but it tasted like a normal chicken kebab. On the Curry Mile Al Quds and Caspian remain the two best kebab houses in terms of flavour, but Camel One will continue to be my first port of call for when I am drunk and hungry.

Ho's Bakery

Last Friday I had twenty minutes to nip out of work and grab food to bring back to the kitchen so I could carry on working. So Roman the Russian and I headed to Chinatown to chow down on buns and tarts from Ho’s Bakery in Chinatown.

Located on the corner of Faulkner Street Ho’s is a Hong Kong bakery that bakes savoury pastries, buns, cakes and puddings. The website brags that the family has been professionally baking for twenty-five years. The food is simple and tastes fantastic while having the presentation style of the food paraded around at the beginning of the film American Psycho.

So Roman and me bought a pork chop bun, sweet pork bun and an egg custard each. The pork chop bun is essentially pork schnitzel served with a tangy mayonnaise and jalapeño peppers that gives a sharp flavour with the succulent shallow fried pork. The selections of roasted buns are beef, pork and chicken all in a variety of different flavours, ranging from curry to five spice. The main food that has kept me returning to Ho’s regularly for the past two years, man and boy, is the amazing Portuguese tarts. Portuguese tarts are a variety of the egg custard, but far superior in my opinion. Unlike the cop-outs with short crust pastry that are mass-produced then sold for 89p at M&S with your mum’s discount cards these are a real treat. The tarts have a fantastic flaky pastry with a gold baked egg custard filling that reminds me of a childhood holiday to Portugal where me and my brothers ate these everyday then the entire family had diarrhoea on the final night.

Since we took our baked loot back to the kitchen I have been harangued by colleagues to take them to Ho’s and I have no problem with this because it is great value for money and there is still loads that I want to eat like the swiss rolls, black forest gateaux, Japanese cheese cake and custard buns. Next time you are peckish in town go to Ho’s.