Dinner at the Manor, Leeds

This year I've been trying to visit a few new supper clubs, a job which is getting easier and easier due to the speed at which they are cropping up. The first one of the year that we booked into many moons ago now is Dinner at the Manor.

This is a Leeds based supper club run by Martini Man and Sticky Pinny. This supper club uses famous chefs and their cookbooks for inspiration, previous events have included Mrs Beeton, Thomasina Miers, Nigella and River Cottage. The theme for this one was the legendary Nigel Slater and his Kitchen Diaries. This was teamed up with beers with each course from Leeds Brewery.

As usual when faced with a secret supper club, we booked a taxi and expected to trail the streets for 20 minutes looking for the house, fortunately this one was easy to find.

We were greeted by Suzie (Sticky Pinny) with a Pint of Leeds Best (there is just no better greeting when you enter someones house) and we were lead to the lounge to meet the rest of the guests and tuck into some delicious canapes.

Pork and Lemon Polpettine

flatbreads with baba ganoush and taramsalata

Risotto cakes with yorkshire blue cheese

After introductions and stuffing our faces with the delicious starters of which the risotto balls were my favourite, we were all lead into the dining room for the main event.

First up was the amuse bouche of spicy pumpkin soup with crispy bacon. Just wonderful, give me a gallon of it and I would down the lot, lovely combo of sweet, spice and salty bacony goodness.

Starters were a choice of smoked mackerel toasts or baked onion with Parmesan cream. I opted for the mackerel which was excellent and paired with one of my favourite Leeds brewery beers, Midnight Bell. A beer which is rich, sweet and chocolaty and a tasty accompaniment to smoked mackerel.

The main course was a choice between chickpea and sweet potato curry or leg of lamb with chickpea mash and green beans. You don't have to be a genius to figure out my choice. Soft succulent Lamb on top of slightly spicy mash balanced perfectly with a sweet crunch of the green beans. This was paired with another excellent beer, Hellfire. By this point I still had plenty of Midnight Bell to get through due to the OH not being a fan of ales of this flavour (conversion is in progress), fortunately the Hellfire came in bottles allowing people to take them home.

Lamb

Curry

Dessert was a raspberry hot chocolate pudding with homemade vanilla ice cream. Just bloody lovely. Dark, rich chocolate, sharp tangy raspberries, sweet creamy vanilla ice cream, you cannot go wrong with these combinations, delicious.

Last but definitely not least was a final pairing of a rather unusual but very tasty beer based cocktail called 'Midnight Manor' this combined Midnight Bell ale with Kahlua and Creme de Cocao served alongside a little Chocolate Orange cupcake. However by this point it would have been a case of 'wafer thin mint' so I took the cupcake home and had it for breakfast instead.

All in ale (I'll get my coat...) a superb night, excellent food, excellent company and tasty tasty beer. I wonder if they will do a Heston Night?