11:58am Thursday 4th February 2010
A SHOPPING trip to Manchester led to a trendy restaurant recommended by a friend.
My mother and I decided to head to Label for our lunch, but we hadn’t banked on the amount of time we would have to spend in the place between shopping stints.
We were warned, as we sat down, that the food would take a little while to arrive. But an hour after sitting down we did start to wonder where our starters were.
We had opted for the mezze platter (£8.95) which promised enough to share.
The amount we got was fine, but it was supposed to boast a wide range of dishes including Greek salad, falafel, houmous, tzatziki and more.
The tzatziki was missing, and our obliging waitress, who was obviously rushed off her feet, sorted that out.
The Greek salad was as far removed from Greece as possible. Where were the olives and feta usually found in a traditional Greek salad? Instead, we got rather limp lettuce and shavings of cheese.
Surely our main courses would be better?
Again we waited (in all we spent two hours in Label), asked where our main courses were and finally they arrived.
My mother ordered the fish pie (£7.50) and with only two vegetarian options on the menu, I went for the goats cheese salad (£7.50).
Any sauce that might have been in the fish pie (it was described as having a creamy leek sauce) had dried up and my salad, promising grapes and toasted walnuts, had only one grape and a couple of walnuts.
We told the waitress and she offered free coffees, which we accepted. We had a raspberry meringue and sticky toffee pudding (£3.50) for dessert — they were fine.
The restaurant was busy although not overly busy, but there appeared to be a lack of serving staff. Our waitress did a great job considering the amount of work she had on. We had soft drinks and our bill came to just over £30.
The restaurant has a good atmosphere — helped, I am sure, by the offer of a bottle of wine for under £5 — and the menu is extensive, including dishes such as steak and ale pie, grilled salmon, butternut squash and blue cheese risotto and various burgers.
© Copyright 2001-2012 Newsquest Media Group
http://www.theboltonnews.co.uk/trade_directory/