The Engine House

What on earth? Last time I visited The Engine House it was quite lively, with music on the stereo and smiley faces dishing out some tasty-​looking grub… just *when* will I finally buy one of those sexy-​looking brownies? And this time I didn’t get any flipping food AGAIN, more’s the pity (think next time Em, THINK), but I swear, on a Saturday around midday, it was like entering a library. Not for lack of custom, there were people dotted around, but they were all alone, reading or laptopping, and everything — was — silent. My companion and I found ourselves speaking in whispers while we awaited our order. Perhaps it was study day.
This particular review is based on two items, one of which I didn’t experience. Or at least experienced by default thanks to an occasional satisfied food noise and I myself being fed delicious morsels of sundried tomato from the ciabatta which encased… you guessed it… a meat sandwich. Salt-​beef and gherkin to be exact. As you know I don’t eat meat, but heck, that bread seemed awesome from the tomatoes I snaffled and my flat-​hunting companion was all kinds of happy. Now, we come to the other thing. Thing two. The coffee. The oozing black nectar of the jittery gods. This was my area. I have to say, Engine House, bravo. If you can give me an early lunchtime caffeine high amidst me going back and forth between Deansgate, Castlefield and this little edge of the Oxford Road Corridor no one else sees taking in apartment buildings and living dimensions and kitchen units and such on very little sleep, then I commend you. And considering to eat that sandwich at the table would have cost a fiver alone, to take out, that and the coffee came to £4.50. Takeaway it is!
Bonus points for having Anthony Worrall Thompson strawberry handsoap in the bathroom. Did you know such stuff existed? I didn’t! Check my photo. It’s for reals.