Hair of the Dog

Around 16 months ago, I fell in love, with my boyfriend, and also with his city. Having previously only ever visited aged 10 to see McFly at the MEN arena, me and Manc were never properly acquainted. And upon my weekly visits to Jack’s halls in Fallowfield, my love affair with Manchester began.

Leeds is great, and even after living there for two years, I’m still learning more about it each day. But you know that feeling you belong somewhere, (cheeese 🧀) I get that in Manchester.

It must have had something to do with the excitement and euphoria of a new relationship intertwining with the experience of a new city. But regardless of all that, Manchester speaks for itself, it has so much going on and such a great vibe. Around once a month from now on, I’m going to post about some of my favourite places in Manc; food, fashion and miscellaneous!

Being a student, I don’t have the cash to be dining out at Michelin star restaurants, nor do I have the expensive taste. I’d rather have 4 cheeseburgers for the price of a pitifully portioned meal. Black Dog Ballroom is my go to place in Manchester for tasty, affordable and generously portioned food. There are 3 across the city; one by Oxford Road station, one just round the corner from that and my personal favourite in the Northern Quarter.

Not only do they serve food, drinks and cocktails, the Black Dog on Whitworth street has its own mini bowling alley and the other two are fitted with lavish pool tables. If you acquire a black dog student dog tag (probably by showing your student card at the bar and asking, my bf got his at a freshers fair), it’s completely free to play the pool. With the dog tag you also get 25% off food every day of the week.

On our last visit we went on a Monday, when it is 50% off food for everyone. They’d just gotten a new menu and on a normal occasion I could’ve ate one of everything! But Jack isn’t as greedy as me, and we’d just had something before we came out, so we decided to get a pizza between us and a side.

We got the Nacho Nacho pizza, a traditional tomato and cheese base topped with tortilla chips, spicy beef chilli, jalepenos, salsa, guacemole and sour cream. Wow. It costs £10 normally, so on a Monday was just £5. You can also upgrade to a 20″ for £15 (being obviously 7.50 that day) which is a bloody brilliant deal!

As a side we got chilli cheese fries, they were truthfully the one thing I’ve ever gotten from black dog that I was slightly disappointed with. Costing £5 I expected a share size portion however there was barely enough there for one person, I begrudged paying the half price Monday £2.50 for them never mind the £5! But they were delicious regardless.

Still a little hungry because I’m a greedy bitch, I got a brownie and white chocolate milkshake for dessert and OMG. Amazing. It was orgasmic.

The bill came to £10.50 as the milkshake was £3 full price and we got tap waters with the food cos we are cheap skates. All in all, super affordable, yummy food. The staff are always friendly and it’s never too busy with fast service. You can’t go wrong.