Teacup on Thomas Street (Cup)

53-55 Thomas Street

Northern Quarter

Manchester

M4 1NA

This is a cute cafe started up by Mr. Scruff (the DJ) in a trendy, arty part of Manchester (apparently it has recently changed its name from "Cup" to "Teacup on Thomas Street" - who knows why). Nice decor, and the menu reads well - unfortunately the food that arrived was pretty poor. I had the chili which was strangely sour, and while I saw some chillies floating about in it, it wasn't very spicy either. Some of the beans were undercooked, which was pretty unpleasant - at least the pita bread on the side arrived warm and toasted. A had a chicken sandwich that was supposed to have avocado, but they had run out, so it was just chicken - bland and uninteresting, so while the sandwich seemed small, that was ok as it wouldn't have been nice to eat more of it. There was a mix up with the ginger and lemon infusion tea as well - first a big teapot arrived, which had no discernible ginger taste, and then a few minutes later another waitress arrived with two mugs that actually had slices of ginger and lemon in them and her explanation was that they shouldn't really serve this drink in teapots since you don't get enough flavor. Hmm. Thankfully the mugs of tea were quite nice. Not sure what the verdict should be - staff were very pleasant but I certainly wouldn't eat here again - maybe just come for drinks?