Teacup is one of those absolute gems of a teashop that, come rain or shine, has people queueing out the door every single weekend. Located in the heart of Manchester's Northern Quarter, Teacup is cute and quirky without quite becoming a hipster cliché like many other places are in danger of doing these days. Although their vast collection of cakes and tea are some of the best I've ever experienced (keep reading for evidence of this) they don't just rely on their sweet treats and charm thus, therefore, excelling in all other areas of their menu too (I am still yet to find anywhere in Manchester that delivers a better Eggs Benedict). So once I discovered that Teacup were planning to begin an evening menu I grabbed my best foodie-friend Laura, and we decided to make a night of it.
We started with a couple of cocktails... obviously.
I went for the Garden Tonic which was fresh, light and fruity.
Laura, chose the Cup Cosmo - a take on the traditional drink but with pomegranate rather than cranberry.
We decided to get four sharing plates - one each and two to, well, share.
I went for the Potato Cakes with Beet and Avocado. Despite, in appearance, being far from what I was expecting they were actually delightfully creamy and packed full of flavour.
Laura was eager to try the Seafood Chowder and so opted for that as her personal dish. The abrupt stop to the conversation that occurred once she started eating it made me assume that it was good... very good.
We shared the Vegi Momo's and the Asian Style Duck Roulade. The Vegi Momo's were like asain-style vegetable dumplings and, whilst tasty, they didn't wow me. The Duck Roulade, however, was a strange concoction of sushi combined with Chinese duck pancakes and holy moly it was incredible! I could have eaten three plates just to myself - scrumptious.
Now, you can't go to Teacup without having cake! Laura, got the Pecan Pie, which came with vanilla ice cream, and I got my all time favourite (my mouth is watering just writing about it) the Flourless Chocolate Cake which is rich, dark and truffle-like, and came with a huge scoop of clotted cream. I could have licked the plate clean (and quite possibly did).
That is a face of sheer joy ladies and gentlemen.
My only criticisms of the whole evening were that; 1. we weren't sure whether the dishes were meant to be hot or cold as they all arrived slightly lukewarm, and 2. the lighting almost felt a little too white and harsh for an evening dining occasion.
Our bellies pleasingly full, and eagerly in search of more cocktails, we decided to hop on over (literally) to Cane & Grain which is right next door. Here we ordered a Pun'Gin Above Your Weight to share that was served to us in a sufficiently hobo-trendy, brown paper bag.
In need of a change of scenery we donned our coats and braved the cold for all of two minutes as we scampered down the street to the next stop on our whistle-stop-tour of the Northern Quarter, The Blue Pig - a venue that clearly understands my needs from a bar with their incredibly reasonably priced drinks and poetically enabling use of literary quotes...
...oh and there was live music which was beautifully calming and atmospheric despite the fact that myself and Laura probably ruined the whole thing by being incredibly raucous and cackly in the corner - sincere apologies to everyone else that was in there at the moment when a song suddenly ended and I happened to be in the middle of telling Laura a story that involved a lot of obscenities.
The night was ended by checking out Guilty By Association (appropriate name right?), somewhere that neither of us had ever been to before but decided we HAD to go purely for the fact that they serve a cocktail called The Sassy Bitch (pink).
Here, we plonked ourselves down in a cosy, squashy corner and chatted into the early hours whilst the bar slowly emptied around us and our cocktails became melted ice-water. I then sleepily made my way home and awaited the dreaded mid-week hangover which, thankfully, never came *hallelujah*.
How does it get any better than that?
For Teacup's evening menu click here.
For their daytime menu click here.
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