Northern Soul’s Christmas DIY kits and competition to win free BLACK CARD
For the first time ever, Northern Soul Grilled Cheese is launching a 'Black Card' - entitling one lucky winner to free grilled cheese for one whole year.
Christmas prizes don’t come much bigger, tastier or more exciting than the ones on offer from Northern Soul in Manchester this year.
The world-famous cheese toastie restaurant is launching some brand new festive-themed food kits just in time for winter – with 10 being given away absolutely free during Lockdown 2.0.
There’s also the chance to win free grilled cheese BLACK CARD…
Northern Soul’s closure in March left the Northern Quarter with a serious dairy deficiency – and owners hastily sought to remedy the situation by offering the next best thing: GIY (Grill It Yourself) Kits.
The home-cooked ingredients boxes allowed isolating Mancs to whip up Northern Soul sandwiches in their own houses and proved to be a dizzying success – even scooping the award for ‘Best DIY Home Kit’ at the 2020 Manchester Food & Drink Awards.
Now, with Christmas on the horizon – and another lockdown well underway – Northern Soul is tweaking the kits to give them some fresh, festive flavour.
The pick of the bunch is the Crimbo Dinner Pack – containing turkey crown, cranberry, pink lady stuffing and gravy – all topped off with homemade pigs-in-blankets.
There are four other fantastic-sounding festive options also up for grabs – including the Signature Soul Secret Santa; the Classic Flava kit (including roast ham & pickle; caramelised red onion chutney; and ‘Mac Attack’ w/ Jalapenos) the Get Your Goat (with goat’s cheese and chutney) and The New Yorker (with pastrami, pickles and pretzels).
There might not be any Christmas Markets happening in Manchester this year – but these GIY Xmas Kits from Northern Soul ought to be a sufficiently satisfying replacement for any present you were hoping to pick up from the stalls.
Prices for each kit start at £10. But if you’re lucky, you may not actually have to pay a penny…
In total, 11 prizes are being given away by Northern Soul this Christmas.
These include 10 ‘Crimbo Dinner’ G.I.Y home kits worth £30 (all accompanied by £10 voucher to spend at the Northern Soul restaurant).
But the biggie is the Northern Soul Manchester ‘Black Card’ – which entitles the winner to free grilled cheese for a whole year (Terms & Conditions apply).
The prize is the very first of its kind – presenting one gloriously lucky fan with an incredible opportunity to tuck into fully-loaded cheese toasties on tap for 365 days.
What a life that would be…
For more information on how to enter, head on over to The Manc Instagram.
Feast your eyes on the kits available at Northern Soul via their website.
Eats
Lively Irish pub Nancy Spains set to open in Manchester for the first time
Daisy Jackson
An Irish bar famed for its live music is heading up to Manchester for the first time, and is promising £2.50 pints to lure us in.
Nancy Spains will be venturing out of London for the first time promising to bring the ‘ultimate traditional Irish pub experience’ to the Northern Quarter.
If you were to ask what the hottest trend in hospitality is right now the answer would, apparently, be Guinness. We’re drowning in the stuff.
This latest opening is more about Murphy’s, another Irish stout, than Guinness (they actually won’t serve Guinness at all) but the craic will be much the same.
Nancy Spains is actually set to open almost directly opposite the aforementioned Salmon of Knowledge, taking over the former Corner Boy unit on Stevenson Square in the heart of Manchester.
To celebrate its opening, the pub will be serving its first 5000 pints of Murphy’s for just £2.50, so that it can show off the atmosphere that’s established it as ‘one of London’s favourite pubs’.
They’re promising an array of Irish whiskeys behind the bar, live music performances, and a lively late-night setting.
Nancy Spains was set up by three brothers who travelled all over their home county of rural Kerry researching Irish pubs, before launching two venues down in London.
They want it to balance a traditional pub with the vibrancy of the city.
Peter O’Halloran, co-founder of Nancy Spains commented, “We’re so excited to be launching in Manchester, bringing Nancy Spains to the heart of the Northern Quarter.
“After the success of our two venues in London, it was only right to bring Nancy Spains’ infectious spirit and Irish pride to Manchester. Slainte!”
Nancy Spains will open its first Manchester pub on Saturday 15 March at 21 Hilton Street.
Lucky Mama’s – The Italian restaurant serving pasta in a dough bowl and ‘pregnant’ pizzas
Daisy Jackson
Lucky Mama’s is a local sensation, thanks to its slightly whacky but delicious Italian creations like pasta served in a bowl made of pizza dough and its latest offering, a ‘pregnant’ pizza.
What on Earth is a pregnant pizza, you ask? Firstly we should stress this is a nickname we’ve bestowed upon the dish, rather than Lucky Mama’s chosen branding.
But essentially it’s a helping of fresh pasta that’s folded into the bubble crust of the pizza, like a half-calzone.
Lucky Mama’s started life when founders Mamadou Dhiam and Gaby Santos set up a trailer in their backyard in Eccles in the depths of lockdown.
But thanks to a formidably loyal following that’s spread the word of Lucky Mama’s far and wide, it now has two pretty pink restaurants in Greater Manchester.
Back in 2022, they threw open the doors to their Chorlton restaurant, before returning back to home turf for spot number two in Monton in 2024.
The recipes are fresh and pretty authentically Italian up until the last step, when they throw a curveball by loading their pasta into unconventional vessels.
‘Pregnant’ pizzas at Lucky Mama’sTraditional Roman pizzasLucky Mama’s pink restaurant in Chorlton
Their pasta pizza bowls are what they’re best known for and they fly out of the kitchen – this is where pizza dough is placed around a metal bowl before being baked in an oven.
Then it’s piled high with freshly made pasta, with popular flavours like cacio e pepe, mushroom alfredo, and rasta pasta.
Pasta is available in a regular ceramic bowl too.
You’ll find Lucky Mama’s at 565 Barlow Moor Road in Chorlton; and 217 Monton Road in Eccles.
The Manc -
16th November 2020 
