Food & Drink Survey 2014: Ready, Steady, Eat

We start by dropping our yellow street-view man onto Pancho’s Burritos in Manchester’s Arndale. It’s midday on the dot. We decide to be awkward and ask which one of the bain-marie-bound dishes is pork with cactus. We waste five minutes, and go for the chipotle chicken instead. 

Biting into our mega-burrito, we smartphone-calculate that it’ll take eight minutes to reach our next stop, Go Falafel on Newton Street, which will then be only a short walk (two minutes) to the train station and the 12:07 to Lime Street. We walk into the joint and order a freshly made ginger and carrot juice and a medium falafel wrap. The guys fry up a fresh batch of falafel, because they’re good like that. Lose 10 minutes. We realise we forgot Katsouris Deli, so a round trip to get some spicy paella, meat-filled ciabatta and mezze takes 38 minutes, with 10 minutes added on account of its being 'rammoed'. 

We miss the train. As an up-yours to train fares, we decide on an imaginarily extortionate taxi ride instead. Maps says it’ll take us 44 minutes in current traffic to hit our next destination, Tokyou on Liverpool’s Berry Street, but a shipment of Norwegian cheese has caught fire on the M62 and it takes us twice as long. We eat our wrap and pass the time talking about the pros and cons of flammable dairy products. Arriving at Tokyou, we opt for the Beef Noodle Soup with Ramen and a couple of Tsingtaos. We’re glad of change from a tenner after the taxi journey; and it comes in eight minutes flat.

Given the cab, we regretfully remember that we’ve got our folding bikes with us and work out that cycling to Baltic Bakehouse on Bridgewater Street will take only four minutes; it’s quiet and we get our sarnie in three. We take on a beef brisket creation with chilli sauce and caramelised onions from the specials board, and relax at journey’s end.

Total time: two hours and 44 minutes.