The Grill on the Alley, Manchester.

I love to go to a brand newly opened restaurant and be first in the queue, but there's quite a few places where I'm still languishing at the back of the line, in that the restaurant has been open for years but I've some still some how never been there yet. Grill on the Alley was one of those places. Whenever I'd plan to go, somewhere else would open like Byron (which is a very near neighbour.)

I had an hour to kill in town, and I thought it'd be a great excuse to pop in for lunch. I knew I was going to order the Wagyu Burger from the off.
Inside is quite swish, I hadn't realised before that the Blackhouse group is in fact a part of the Living Ventures operation. I love wandering about an empty restaurant taking pictures, with nobody else there (spoiling my shots!)

I ordered a bottle of coke (in a glass bottle, gets brownie points from me) and the Wagyu Burger. It comes in at a whopping £18.50 so expectations were high. Wagyu if you didn't know is very high quality beef from Japan.
It's a big beast, I took a bite. Nice and juicy, but I was expecting something more with it being Wagyu and with the higher price point. I couldn't really tell the difference between this beef and any other quality beef burger to be honest.

Perhaps I've grown fond of having my burgers rarer as you often get them in Spain. I asked for it medium rare, (I'm not even sure they would do it rarer.) But it was a decent burger, and the blue cheese was a perfect accompaniment. These are not necessarily criticisms more of my personal preferences, but I'd prefer my fries thinner and crispier, and my burger rarer, plus the cheese totally melted down so its gooey liquid seeps into the meat.

I would however happily return to the Grill on the Alley, I'd guess it's a safe choice in smart surroundings, plus they have foie-gras as a starter which I'd like to sample next time.
The manageress came over and finding out I'm blogger kindly waived the bill I was just about to pay. This made me immensely happy as you might imagine. So who says there's no such thing as a free lunch?

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