To me a name should mean something. If, for example, I was named the worlds best looking man I would expect that you would think I was quite the looker. What would you think if my dog was named Killer? Maybe you would think I was being ironic in much the same way that "little John" was not so little, but I believe you would think it was one of the two.
A name means even more when you talk about people's jobs. You would expect someone who calls themselves a medical doctor to have some form of training that could save your life. At the very least you would hope they are who they say they are while checking your prostate. We have created language to explain things to one another, but we constantly feel the need to misuse and confuse it. Maybe the confusion of language is mainly in the written word? I myself have wondered how my tone or the tone of email is meant to sound. Without verbal inflections the written word can confuse. Many a text has been dissected trying to determine the underlying message, or any hint of sarcasm.
It was on a dark Tuesday night in Manchester's Northern Quarter that I came across Dough, and from the crowds of people inside I decided to make a reservation for the next night. My time working in the north had led me to find few eating establishments of any note, but upon reading the website I felt encouraged that this could be my first. Dough, according to its website, is an award winning pizza kitchen that prides itself on focusing on the base as much as the toppings. It must be great, I thought, so great that they have named the establishment after this humble part of the pizza. I was soon to be disappointed.
After what seemed like an eternity waiting we were shown to our table. Although half empty, it was deemed that the best table was in front of the cutlery bar; this was only a problem when anyone eating needed to use silverware; thankfully the waiters only barged past a matter of 15 times, looking at us in disgust as if we the nerve to sit in their way. The paradox of our seating arrangement was that although waiters seemed to be there all the time it took twenty minutes to get someone to take our drink order. When they did we thought it safe to order our entire meal in case they managed to avoid our black hole for an even longer period.
The food it seemed was being created in another area of the space time continuum, and as such it was a wonder how it manged to arrive at our table still hot. Thankfully the wait had made us hungry which only made the disappointment of the food greater. I had decided on a buffalo mozzarella salad, my guest had a bruscetta, and we shared some homemade dough sticks and dips. my starter had an overwhelming flavour of cold while my guests tasted of salt. Quite the achievement I thought, but at least we had the famous dough to taste. The dough sticks were magical, not magical in a good way though, magical in the fact that they had been able to create a food that had no discernible taste at all. It was if all the taste buds in my mouth vanished as the dough approached, maybe for fear of having to search for flavour. This I am afraid was the highlight of the meal. We had both ordered the breakfast pizza which consisted of fried egg (my guest requested runny, but it came hard), sausage, bacon, mushroom, mozzarella, and a tomato sauce. Once again they had managed to create a tasteless over cooked base which would have bought a tear to the eye of any true italian. The pizza was, in my opinion, the worst I have ever tried, and clearly a case of style over substance. So disappointed with our meal we decided to skip desert and leave; although I'm not sure our waiter even noticed us leaving which makes me regret paying the bill even more.
I really wanted to like Dough, but the combination of bad service and tasteless food makes me happy that I don't live in Manchester. I do think the people of the area deserve better than this, but thankfully they have some good local bars to destroy their taste buds with alcohol. On my next visit I will stick to the bars.
I can only presume that the owners of Dough were trying to be ironic when they named their restaurant, or perhaps they were referring to the to the large amounts of money that they are making from these sub par pizzas, but I am certain that if you are searching for good pizza Dough is not the place to go.
Dough, 75-77 High Street, Northern Quarter, Manchester
Rating: 1 out of 5 (the wine was ok).
Cost: £45 including a bottle of wine.
Recent Comments