Last weekend (23rd Feb), the Manchester Local Guides got together for a simple meetup at the Northern Soul Grilled Cheese Restaurant.
The restaurant had recently launched a new menu and was running an online competition on Twitter where participants only had to follow their account and retweet the competition post to stand a chance of winning 10 free grilled cheese sandwiches! When I saw the tweet, I was like “Erm, hello. Free food. Duh”; so, of course, I was going to participate! Days later, I found out that I won the draw and long story short… a meetup was created!! ?
We were all new to the restaurant and all except me, had not known of the business before; they are a highly rated local business and I had tasted their sandwich before at the Christmas markets in Albert Square where they had set up a stall, so I roughly knew what to expect. At the meetup, I had the pleasure of having with me Maria (@Maria68)and her husband, Anthony, Peter (@PeteMHW) and unfortunately, David (@Castlefield_David) RSVP’d but was unable to join in due to a last minute family commitment (big hugs and hope things are better now!).
And making a special appearance, we also had super Local Guide Kristin (@TheRealKristin) who drove 2 hours plus (each way) to join in! I’m sure it wasn’t because she was that desperate ? for free grilled cheese sandwiches so massive kudos to her for her support! ?
Side note: Kristin in organising a 2 day meetup in Coventry on the weekend of 21-22 March, and the Manchester Local Guides are heading down to join in the revelry and explore beautiful Coventry! She is also hosting a Bubble Tea Masterclass on Saturday evening which should be super fun! If you’re interested, do check out the links below:
Explore Coventry (UK) Masterclass
Needless to say, it was great to introduce Kristin to the Manchester folks and seeing as we were all heading to Coventry in March, we took the opportunity to talk about that meetup and Kristin got to answer some questions and received some feedback too. Win-win!
Back to the sandwiches, I hope you can see from the photos that we had a great time! The restaurant is simple, spacious and clean. The staff were super awesome and helpful as well. We got to learn a few interesting info from Chris, the assistant general manager on duty:
- The menu changes every six weeks or so; some sandwiches are staples so will remain on the menu indefinitely whilst they would cycle through a selection and add/remove sandwiches based on customer queries/feedback. We also commented that we all struggled with the menu as it’s rather busy! Chris totally agreed and said that because of the rotating menu, they only print out a small amount and a ‘fix’ is already planned for the next one.
- The staples included The Soul, The Classic, Mac Attack and Pig on a Lead (if I’m not mistaken!). See the menu below for details on the sandwiches.
- Chris’ favourite is the new sandwich, The Turk!
- Northern Soul Grilled Cheese recently opened a deli at their original site on Church Street. It’s a small store (4 pax cover) that mainly serves the ‘on the go’ customers so breakfasts and lunches are their targets. That’ll be something new for all us Local Guides to check out! Whoop whoop! ?
As for the sandwiches, we did a taste test (unfortunately Maria couldn’t participate due to allergies) and Anthony came up with a brilliant idea of selecting the cheapest and most expensive sandwich in the menu to compare the ‘extremes’, so we ended up with (in increasing order of cost) The Soul, The Classic, BBQ Badboy and The Turk! As the portions were significant, we only redeemed four sandwiches to share. We tasted each sandwich one at a time, rated them and the favourite was … drumroll … a joint top place for The Classic and BBQ Badboy!
I know you can’t taste the sandwiches, but looking at the menu, was there any sandwich there that really tickled your fancy? Is grilled cheese sandwich a thing in your country? Do you have a store that specifically sell grilled cheese sandwiches?!
I hope this recap was fun to read! If you’re in and around the Greater Manchester area, do say Hi and join in the fun meetups that we try to hold each month! They are usually a mixture of social and Local Guides related activities; not every attendee is a Local Guide and we always encourage folks to bring friends and family along. And if you have any ideas for a fun outing, do let us know!
