Pancho's - Arndale Centre, Manchester

Pancho's, a small stall that has stood in the hustle and bustle of the Arndale food market, first caught my eye with it's gaudy yellow sign and queues of burrito buying lunch-timers, last year - back then it was one tiny little stall; the Mexican husband and wife team run off their feet churning out never-ending streams of Mexican street food. Now they've got two stalls and are fast becoming a firm favourite in the food hall.

Eye-catching and tongue tingling! - Thanks to Pancho's

Pancho's makes the best burrito in the whole of Manchester and probably in the whole of the North West and maybe even in the UK. I recently had the pleasure of trying some North East burrito styling at Street Chef in Sheffield (they're missing a trick not calling it Street Shef...); very good (blog post soon), but still only on a par with Pancho's.
Hands up, you guessed it, this is a blog post from a bona-fide burrito fan - when Barburrito was initially alright and my taste buds weren't so...ahem...sophisticated, I'd make a weekly trip there. This was shortly followed by a burrito-cational few visits to the big smoke, where I tasted something closer to what I guess is the real deal (if anyone wants to take me to Mexico to taste the real deal, please get in touch) and since then I've craved a burrito roughly once a week. Thankfully Pancho's has been there to quench my thirst/hunger with this carby, meaty, zesty meal in a wrap.

If you crave a burrito please never visit Taco Bell in the Arndale food court.

In fact why does the Arndale bother providing the food court? Especially when you can walk approximately two minutes, indoors, and come across the delights of the food market? Maybe to keep the crowds away so I only have to wait behind five people for my burrito instead of ten?

Anyway, I digress, this is a post where I big up Pancho's and don't philosophise on the whys and wherefores of Arndale management.

The Pancho's burrito is a massive affair - I go for the smaller size and it's still massive. There's a revolving list of fillings, depending on what's been cooked that day by the staff; the filling are all very traditional (in a good way), rather than the crazy rat balls and smoked pig face concoctions you're likely to get in some 'street food' places these days.

Ripped open - look at all that filling!

If Pancho's have the pork in chipotle as an option, I implore you to have this filling over anything else. Whole bits of pork are slow cooked in a smokey, tangy sauce with a bit of a kick - it's sweet, it's spicy and it's lip-smackingly delicious. The pork with cactus is a pretty special affair too; lighter, but with an insane depth of flavour and great texture from the cactus - and you can't get more Mexican than cactus.

Along with the meat (or veg, if you're that way inclined/mental), the burritos are stuffed full of salad, beans, peppers, rice, cheese, sour cream and salsa (I always hold the cream and cheese, but that's a personal taste thing). The salsas are made fresh and shower you with an abundance of fresh, fruity flavours that cut through the carby, meaty, creamy burrito - word of warning, the hot habenaro will blow your head off (and also makes your lips majorly plump up, so a good choice if you're in need of plastic surgery but can't afford filler injections).

"This place sounds divine," you're thinking. But it gets better (really?!) - Pancho's staff freshly make salsas and sauces for you to take home (the chipotles in adobo saves you a hell of a lot of work and makes the base for the best huevos rancheros EVER) and they stock a wide range of dried Mexican chillies that are a) hard to find or b) that you usually need to be ordered specially online. Oh and mentally hot sauces, if you like that sort of thing. And (proper) tequila - but don't getting that if you have to go back to work.

Pancho's is a great place for lunch - don't got to Boots for some over-processed meal deal - for a quid more you can get a filled to busting (seriously, I don't know how they get all the fillings in without breaking those wraps), freshly made, authentic, flavoursome treat. And there's tables to sit at in the market too.
Pancho's Burritos, Food Market, Manchester Arndale, High Street, Manchester M4 3AH - Facebook - Twitter - www.panchosburrito.co.uk

Dirty Dogs are Hot - Port Street Beer House, Manchester

Who doesn't like a gob full of sausage? I'm one who can't complain when offered a mouthful of meat, so when I heard a pair of plucky food lovers were bringing their take on American style hotdogs to one of my favourite beer haunts I just had to go and see what all the fuss was about.

Dirty Dogs have a passion for good hotdogs; seeing that no one else was selling them in Manchester and feeling some love for the whole 'street food/pop up' scene, they've decided to give it a go. They also got a mission - feeling that hotdogs in this country give this American institution a bad name, they're determined to save us from a surfeit of substandard sausages.

Me and the poster lady; total sausage lovin'

Set up in the back yard of Port Street Beer House, the smell of cooking hotdogs and sweet, sizzling onions hung heavy in the air. We got there pretty early having been tipped off that there was a limited number available - good thing, the queue was already out the door.

Sausage fest

Opting for the night's special, The Port Street; a Barbakan bun was loaded up with sweet onions, a massive smoked Polish sausage, topped with IPA soaked sauerkraut and all cut thorough with lashings of dijon. The sausage was enormous and I had trouble fitting it in to my eagerly awaiting lips (yeah, I just had to get some smut it) - the flavours all worked supremely well - smokey sweetness cut through by the tangy sauerkraut and all pepped up with generous amounts dijon.

Smoked polish sausage with IPA soaked sauerkraut

We also tried the Dirty South - pork frank on red cabbage slaw all smothered in pulled pork and BBQ sauce; yup, that's pork on pork baby. The frank for this dog was smaller than the smoked sausage, but had a good bite, a sweet/salty taste and was not too fatty, which was a major plus. The pulled pork was a tad dry, but these guys were cooking on hot plate in beer garden - and this was 100% better than anything I've had in a similar setting.

Pork on pork loving with the Dirty South

The dogs ran out quickly, the topping quicker; fellow blogger Mangechester was left with a pork frank with an extremely arty lattice of ketchup and mustard. Nice, but certainly no cigar.

Dirty Dogs have started small; they're concentrating on getting the recipes just right, securing spot on suppliers and making sure they can please the crowds - they're well on their way to doing just that. There's a few things they need to pull up on; they're quite slow on the hot plate, they need to work out how many toppings they bring and that pulled pork needs work. But for a fiver, you get a big, tasty mouthful and I haven't had a better bit of sausage than this in my mouth round the back of a pub before.

There's the whole argument that this just jumps on the current trend for American fast food, tarted up and served street side - yeah maybe, but this being Manchester we don't have that much street food as we're ten steps/years behind London. Doesn't matter if it's on trend at the moment; Dirty Dogs' hotdogs taste good and I don't care if it's so now, so last week, or if it was never in anyway - the food tasted good and that's all I care about.

Where can you catch them? Check out their Twitter feed and hopefully you'll be able to take part in some hot sausage action; I know I'm certainly gagging for more.