A trip to food heaven

Sometimes you order food and get a pure piece of art, something so perfect you're afraid of putting your teeth into it. Other times you get something so awful-looking that you're afraid for entirely different reasons. Neither of those are the case with Home Sweet Home - my favourite food place in Manchester.

Needless to say, I've been there many times and have tried pretty much everything from their vegetarian selection, and every time the dishes have been screaming out "eat me!". It's just really inviting food and as you get around to actually eat it it's like a dream, in terms of flavour as well as texture. Exactly how it should be.

On this occasion I ordered a Chiabatta with smoked cheese, caramelised onions, sun dried tomato and avocado (£7.95) (if I remember right... It's no longer on the menu so when I did my regular check-back online I couldn't find it.) It also contained aioli but as I'm pregnant I couldn't eat that, but the waitress was so keen and did everything in her power to get me a different sauce. In the end the chef even came out to have a discussion about what I could eat and not. Highly impressive service.

The dish also came with chips, and not even I can resist these chips, they're just so... potatoey and tasty. It wasn't the best meal I've ever had at Home Sweet Home but it'd still score near a nine. That should tell you something about the standard.

Chiabatta with Smoked Cheese, Caramelised Onions, Sun dried Tomatoes and Avocado

Jon was hungry so he ordered Loaded Nachos (£6.00) for a starter. Let me tell you, they're not called loaded for nothing. It's basically nachos with melted cheese, salsa, chipotle sour cream, guacamole, jalapenos and pico de gallo, and a lot of it.

In my book they'd pass well enough as a main dish, although one can discuss the nutritional content. But then, you probably wouldn't go to this southern American-style food heaven in the heart of Northern Quarter to eat nutritionally. This was cheesy, spicy and purely delicious and that's the point.

A little word of warning though; make sure you have enough napkins on the table as with most brilliant food, it tends to get pretty messy.

Loaded Nachos

As always when we go there, Jon ordered Pulled Pork Pile Up (£9.50) which contains slow cooked pork on sweet potato fries covered in BBQ sauce, jalapenos, salad and apple slaw as a main. Although he thinks the menu is a little bit boring for meat eaters, he thoroughly enjoys this dish.

Pulled Pork Pile Up

As a vegetarian however, you will not be let down by the selection. A nice surprise is that they've added Jalapeno Mac n Cheese to the menu and I was thrilled to see that they had modified their Veggie Burger to a bean and veggie patty instead of the mushroom it was before. This will most definitely be on my plate next time.

So to round this up simple and concise; if you haven't been to Home Sweet Home, I promise, you're missing out. Now what are you waiting for? Go.

Vegetarian selection: 8/10
Vegetarian food: 9/10
Non-vegetarian selection: 6/10
Non-vegetarian food: 8/10
Service: 8/10
Value for money: 8/10
47/60