Small World Café

Opposite the Students Union of Manchester University is the awesome Small World Café. I first discovered this fantastic wee place when I was teacher training and me and my fellow trainees were all pretty fed up of getting dry paninis from our building at lunchtime. I can't remember who it was who discovered the "International Café" as we initially thought it was called (idiots), but once we had been there once, I actually started really looking forward to university days so that I could have my lunch there.

What is ace about Small World Café is that it's one of the only places I know of that does exactly what European restaurants do at lunchtime which is what makes European restaurants ace.

It has a simple menu with limited choices that changes every day I guess depending on what produce they can get fresh that day. The result is a really yummy choice of main meals - always including a veggie option which is usually an amazing curry - served in a no-frills canteeny style way. The portion sizes are ace and you can tailor pretty much any meal to your tastes as you have a choice of chips, rice or potato to go with each one.

The salads are awesome too. I always used to get those when I was at uni. They basically have a wee chart that has all the stuff on it that you can choose from including fish, pulses and cheeses so you build your own personal perfect salad. You'd think for the price you pay for the salad you'd get a really grotty selection of stuff but it's always lovely and fresh and crunchy and way better than any salad I could ever hope to make myself. Topped with their yummy crispy onions and dressings that you help yourself to it's the perfect lunch.

I'm pretty jealous of Bailey as he goes there quite a lot given that he works just down the road, so as I am on half term this week we thought it would be nice to meet up for lunch there. Yesterday I met Bailey just after 12 (if you get there any later than that the queue gets huge, it's worth the wait though) for a quick bite to eat.

On offer were a load of yummy things as usual...

... but for some reason we were both feeling pretty boring and both decided to go for jacket potatoes. I think we've been eating quite a lot of rich and yummy food lately so fancied something simple.

But of course the Small World Café know how to absolutely nail the most simple of things and it was, unsurprisingly a truly outstanding jacket potato.

Perfectly soft potato in a crispy skin... mmm! My mouth is watering just thinking about it. The salad I had with it was gorgeous as usual too.

Looking back I kind of wish I had gone for something a bit more exciting seeing as I hadn't been in so long but that jacket potato really hit the spot.

The Small World Café is an absolute must visit for anyone who works around Oxford Road. You will really struggle to find a quick lunch as good for that price pretty much anywhere in South Manchester.