Almost Famous Manchester -
Another review of the most reviewed place ever ft. some rubbish pictures
Sporting a deathly hangover whilst on my travels from the
Tudor esq heights of Chester back to the dark depths of Huddersfield I spotted
a window of opportunity whilst pit stopping in Manchester. The window that I
had for so long pined to be on the other side of, the window that advertised
the sale of Unicorn Meat, the window that of course belongs to none other than
the famous Almost Famous.
I’m ashamed to say that this was my first time visiting the
place, despite my unhealthy food obsession and being aware of it since its
inception in the home of beards, fake glasses and rolled up jeans AKA the
Northern Quarter (Apologies if that’s not the trend anymore). For some reason I
never went, maybe due to me having to decipher what my 10 pounds of student
loan could get me this week or my inability to grow any form of beard at 21
years, regardless these burgers for so long had been out of my reach.
The location at Great Northern warehouse is
excellent; the area is smart, modern and definitely a worthy environment for Drake and Rihanna to go bowling. We arrived at about half 3 and were
seated straight away, a welcome relief indeed.
I’d heard the horror stories of the hour long queues due to the no
booking polices and whilst no stranger to this, I definitely did not fancy
hanging around whilst 70cl of Sailor Jerries’ resumed the torturous process of
leaving my bloodstream. The décor inside the place was great, reminding me of
an American diner/80’s disco type vibe with a humungous bar that really was
quite impressive to look at. The best part was undoubtedly the massive gorilla
sat in the middle of the room, who doesn’t want to walk in somewhere and see a
massive gorilla. The only downfalls I could imagine people, typically of the
elder generation, complaining about are how dark it is and how loud the music
is. I however don’t really have a problem with that because I’m not 60 yet.
Down to the menu which was reasonably priced
and offered a good amount of choice, without reading like a softback copy of
The Goblet of Fire. From my experience a long menu is the trademark of a
rubbish restaurant so I was glad to see Almost Famous did not throw an
onslaught of options at me, although I did struggle with choosing, purely
because of my irritating indecisiveness.
After choosing we went to order our food and drinks at the bar. I was
definitely happy that they had played the ‘nandos card’ in doing this, waiting
for the bill is still one of the most annoying things in life ever, more places
definitely need to adopt this system.
So the main event was of course the food, which came out
pleasantly quickly. I opted for the ‘Animal Burger’ whereas my dining companion
ordered the ‘Triple Nom’, we also shared a portion of ‘Pig and Waffle Fries’.
First of it looks damn good, dirty, but good; kind of like one of the girls from
Jersey/Geordie shore, that good that I could only pause for a brief second for
the obligatory pre-meal Instagram shot; (a moment stole from me by my low battery) before getting stuck in. I consider
myself reasonably experienced in burgers. This was a good burger. One of the
best burgers I've ever had. The two
peppered cheeseburgers we’re tasty as hell and ever so slightly rare in the
middle which is always a good sign of a quality patty. That combined with the mustard mayo fried
onions, jalapeno onions, lettuce and chipotle sauce made for a messy but
delicious concoction, throw some beef monster munch on top of all of that and
you’ve got something hilariously special. Have you ever tried monster much
slathered in mash up of cheese and sauce? I hadn’t either but now I feel like I
can never eat them the same way again. 
Unfortunately I publicly displayed my
almost famous virginity by attacking this beast the wrong way which resulted in
me having to swallow my pride and use my knife and fork like a civilized person
might do, try to learn from my wrongs. Onto the pig and waffle fries, which further enforce the fact that they don’t do anything subtle at
this place? Incredibly tasty and even if the lights in the building weren’t so
dark I’m not sure I’d be able to distinguish the different elements of what was
smashed all over the waffle shaped chips. Pulled Pork, redneck sauce, blue
cheese sauce, jalapenos and onions, of course it was incredible. The culinary
cat woman to my batman had the ‘triple nom’, which was essentially these fries
in burger form with a load of slaw on. After declaring it ‘one of the best’,
which is a term that does not get thrown around very often in our food adventures
it became clear that almost famous had definitely lived up to the hype.
Rating:
8/10
