Baguette Express, Mosley Street, 23/07/10

This place was pretty good. It has a kind of one price fits all system no matter what you have on your sandwich. It's a franchise so there are quite a few of them about. They had a decent selection of fillings. A meal deal system which I think is about a quid more if you add crisps and drink. Best of all they sell cream soda.

I had a chicken tikka with mayo and mozzarella. I wanted salad on after it was toasted but they couldn't do it. All the paninis are £2.40. Monsieur Steveo had some other kind of chicken. It might have been Chinese chicken I don't remember. He had salad on his before it went into the toaster so it was warm salad when it came out but he said it tasted good.

The service was good and the food arrived quickly. I went up the spiral staircase to the upstairs seating just because I like spiral staircases but when I got up there it was a bit hot. Heat rises and it all seemed to be trapped up there. In the end we sat in the window and decided to check out the talent as it walked past. There wasn't much to see.

Overall score 4 out of 5. Price - £2.40 (£3 with a drink).



**********UPDATE: 18/11/2010**********

Sadly it seems that baguette express has closed down for reasons unknown. Maybe they were just selling too cheap.

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Tantune, Deansgate, 14/07/10

This place used to be a sandwich shop called 'Nickys' or something like that. Now it looks a bit like a late night burger, pizza and kebab joint. We were enticed in by the A-Board outside touting paninis but once inside the menu and price list for anything other than the pissed up consumer of junk foods was nowhere to be seen.

I asked for a tuna melt. Monsieur Steveo asked for chicken. It seems chicken wasn't on the non-existent menu but the nice lady said that she could make one anyway. We both asked for salad.

What arrived was fairly tasteless. The salad was the kind you get in your kebab and there seemed to be a bit of an oil slick on the plate. I'm not sure if this was an attempt at dressing or if it was what came out of the jar with the stuffed olives that were served with the panini. We weren't too sure how the chicken had been cooked but it wasn't marinated and it was a kind of brown colour.

Overall score 1 out of 5. Price - £3.50.

The search continues.

The Search Begins

My friend Steveo and I used to spend many wonderful lunchtimes in our favourite coffee shop above the 'Sound of Manchester' on Deansgate. They did by far the best panini we had ever tasted. Sadly after 18 months the shop moved to the Arndale and the coffee shop closed as the girl that ran it went travelling. Since then we have been left with a great void in our lunch breaks. The search commenced for a decent panini in July 2010.