Mr. Thomas's Chop House, Manchester

The food here is just fabulous. You just HAVE to try the Corned Beef Hash, I guarantee you won't have tasted anything like it. It is a little bit on the pricey side for what is effectively a pub meal, however, it is definitely value for money....just don't expect to eat for under £20 for a couple.

The wine glasses are like buckets, so I wouldn't recommend you to drive if your going for a drink. Always book in advance, it is so popular, you wont get in at lunch time if you haven't booked.

The decor is a Victorian Wine Cellar, which can be a little bit echoy and gets noisy, however, in my opinion, this lends to the ambiance, but I would understand if some didn't like it.

I had promised my other half a posh meal about 10 months ago, and for various reasons we'd never gotten round to actually having it, so on Saturday at his request I booked a meal at Thomas' Chop House, a pub on Cross Street in Manchester that we'd been in many times for drinks, but never for food, despite it's glowing reputation. In conjunction with its sister pub, Sam's Chop House, around the corner, it is meant to be one of the best places for British food in the city.

The menu itself is brilliant, and changes seasonally. My husband ordered French Onion Soup as a starter, and I ordered mussels cooked in shallots and thyme with a drizzle of cream. When the starters arrived they had brought me the wrong dish. Now, I find that the quality of service in a restaurant can be judged by how they react when they make a mistake. When informed that they'd brought the wrong dish, our waiter looked embarrassed, apologised immediately and whisked BOTH dishes away. He apologised again when he brought the correct starters back to the table.

For our mains, my husband had ordered a dish of corned beef hash topped with crispy bacon, which was divine - you would never think to order corned beef hash would you? But this was beautifully presented and it was full of flavour. I am a sucker for anything with artichokes myself, so I went with a vegetarian dish after considering both a Lancashire hotpot and the fish pie. What I got was a dish of linguini in truffle oil and rocket puree, with artichokes and oyster mushrooms. It was under-seasoned, but otherwise lovely.

For dessert we shared spotted dick with custard, and then had coffee.

Overall, we really enjoyed the experience. The menu was lovely, with a wide range of game, meat, poultry, fish and vegetarian options, with nice twists on traditional British cooking. The wine list at Thomas' is always varied, and I've never had a bad glass of wine, and the Spanish Crianza we had did not disappoint.

While this was a slightly more expensive meal than we'd usually have, I did not find it by any means outrageous, and I do feel we got what we paid for. So if I have some extra cash for entertaining, I would definitely go back for a meal again.