Eatery of the Month: Youngs

For this month’s ground-breaking edition of Eatery of the Month we’re taking a trip to a dream-like food-port known as Youngs in Longsight. Some pedantic readers may put their hands up at this point to politely ask where February and March’s eateries were, but let’s not live in the past — as you read this a man in a white jacket is frying up a batch of nutritious and nourishing chips so that’s what we’re going to talk about.

Thou shall have a fishy on a little dishy, and thou may also a Holland’s pie, or a barmcake, or maybe a bag of prawn crackers… or if you’re really strapped for cash you could even dine out on a solitary sachet of ketchup for 8 pence.

It’s quite hard to see just how varied and exciting that menu really is in that shoddy photograph, but take my word for it — the menu is both varied and exciting. For transparency I’ll mention that I bought a portion of chips with curry sauce and an ice cold canister of Vimto to wash it down.

This place isn’t just a feast for the stomach and the intestines and whatever other internal bits food goes into — it’s also a feast for the eyes. It’s rare I get excited about till systems, but look at that little beauty. Smug contactless slicksters need not apply; this place operates on a strict ‘no cash no chips’ system, so get your hand down the back of that sofa right now. And remember; please check your change before leaving the premises as mistakes cannot later be rectified.

Sadly there’s nowhere to sit in Youngs as it’s a chip shop and not a restaurant, but luckily there’s loads of good places to sit nearby.

To the untrained eye this may look like a small set of concrete stairs in front of Ryhs Vaughan Solicitors and a place called Rug World (the home of worldclass rugs), but advanced eaters will know that this is in fact a mighty fine place to dine.

Longsight’s world famous market wasn’t running on the Monday evening these photos were taken, but you don’t need much of an imagination to know that this is a prime place to sit and watch people haggle for old phone chargers.

Rating: Classy food and a rootsy décor in a prime location for skulking, I give Youngs five Holland’s pies out of five.