Restaurant review: The Rose Garden, Manchester.

'Food is piled into towers, things teetering on top of things, frequently fried things'

A pal who used to live in West Didsbury left when it turned into the "Notting Hill of Manchester" and "disappeared up its own rectum". I'm not sure that Crazy Wendy's karaoke and Thai restaurant would wow 'em in W11, but I kind of know where she's coming from. On the Didsbury Strip, every second shopfront now offers a chi-chi bar/cafe/deli/restaurant blessed with a saccharine moniker. There's Thyme Out, And The Dish Ran Away With The Spoon, the Violet Hour, all catering to the area's "yuppies" and "media luvvies". But the one that's bursting at the seams is our destination, the Rose Garden. So bursting that when we turn up late – we'd phoned to warn them – they've given away our table. And the place is at capacity.Panic. I've endured a much-delayed Virgin train to get here, so overheated and heaving with humanity it smelled like elderly liver. I don't have a Plan B. What to do? "I don't know," shrugs our cheery server. "We tried calling you." And that appears to be that, our transaction very much at an end. Will there be another table any time soon, I venture without much hope. "Oh yes – about 10 minutes," he chirps. They do things differently here.I want to love the Rose Garden so much. It's clearly become much-cherished locally since it opened in May. It's that rarest of things, a genuine family affair, headed up by chef William Mills, the collective enthusiasm and pride every bit as dazzling as its blindingly white-with-jabs-of-colour decor. The menu reads well, if you can get beyond such uber-twee descriptions as "Deer oh deer", "A bit of crumpet" or "Sweet breams are made of this". Alas, with the exception of a pair of outstanding puds, everything we order is a bit, well, close but no cigar.A bestselling dish, "chip shop prawns", stars beautiful shellfish in a crunchy, distinctly chippie rather than tempura batter with a bracing frisson of vinegar. Balanced on top are a couple of "mini chips", aka actual chips, and there's homemade tartare sauce, too. All good and smile-raising, if it weren't for the mushy pea fritters on which they're sat, as doughy, stout and unyielding as a Coronation Street matron.

http://www.guardian.co.uk