Manchester’s noble rice and three lives on – alongside chicken tikka, smoky lamb chops, samosas and many other good, cheap dishes at this Salford grill
Maida Grill House, 38 Liverpool Street, Salford M5 4LT (0161 312 9772, maidagrillhousesalford.co.uk). Starters £2-£8; all other dishes £5-£8.50; unlicensed.
Even in this age of rapid digital spread, the UK still has its discrete regional foods. I’d call them delicacies but they rarely are. Middlesbrough’s Parmo, that thumping pizza box-sized deep-fried schnitzel, topped with bechamel and cheese, is many delightful things. Delicate is not one of them. It is the perfect end to a rigorous Friday night out; a welcome blast of carbs, fat and protein. Leaf scratchings, made from the internal fat of the pig, are huge in a few square miles of the Black Country, and all but unsellable anywhere else. Neath Market has its gravy-slicked faggots, a tribute to nose-to-tail-eating long before nose-to-tail was a thing, and Wigan has its particular pies.
