Eats The Restaurant

If cheap, school dinner type, generous portioned size hot meals are your thing then Eats will do you good. I couldn’t call it a restaurant at all though.
I wandered in here looking for a stealthy meal to keep me going through some lengthy library times. I got a plate of meat pasta and a coffee for £2.95 so it was very good for value that’s for sure. A wolfed down the generous portion down but I didn’t ask for anything particularly special and I didn’t get it either. My mate had a pizza in which he didn’t actually expect to have a whole one and a drink for £3! Very good on the stodge and energy.
Eats is open for a hearty breakfast at 8am and serves lots of meals between 11am and 3pm. Each day is a themed day, such as Mexican, Fish, Curry. I’m not likely to come back here again as often this type of food would send me to sleep from the sheer size and stodge. But it’s great for a energy boost who can handle this and catered students are getting an alright deal I guess.

I quite liked the old refectory. I have fond memories of having a jacket potato there about 7 years ago when I was deciding which university to come to. Come to think of it, that potato could’ve been the deciding factor which made me choose Manchester Uni over Sheffield and Leeds.
Anyway, said refectory has now suffered the same fate as the good old maths tower and has been knocked down and replaced by the ‘tin can’ across the road, which is home to this ‘restaurant’. I’d call it more of a café myself and would definitely come up with a better name for it. Well, it sells the same sarnies and spuds as the refectory did, all for reasonable prices.
When I went in for lunch with my chemist friend, we didn’t struggle to find a table. In fact we were pretty much the only people in there. It’s not really so cheap for him as he always purchases 2 sandwiches. When you add a drink and some crisps this sets him back about £5. For that price it’s better to go to the veggie café across the road for a hearty lasagne methinks. But he’s a rugby playing meat eating boy, so he’ll probably stick with his full English breakie sarnies.

I remember when this place was The Refectory by the library, but those were dark, dark times and the less said about them the better. Apart from the fact that they were awesome, obviously.
Now it sits inside the massive snare drum someone left lying beside Oxford Road, and is called Eats the Restaurant, and I am sure whoever named it spent good few days in the tiger pit. Inside you’ll find a spacious, clean and rather metallic-​looking restaurant, as if you’ve wandered into a school canteen for robots.
The main draw, of course, is the pricing. It’s a university building, so it’s dirt-​cheap, but unfortunately that does mean the quality of the food is little above the standard of dirt. Not that that seems to bother the tumultitude (there’s that word again, enjoy it) of students within. If they can save money they will do, predictable creatures that they are.

Purse strings pulled tight for this one, it’s the mega foodie canteen in the tin can. Be warped back to high school at the dinner tables with a bit more modern feel and no teachers. The canteen is a new spot from the University of Manchester’s major developments in the past few years.
Pick up a tray and have a look at what’s to offer in this all feeding machine. In a super saver penny mode? You can pick up a pizza for 2 pounds and the waters free. If you’ve got a bit of change in your pocket you can have one of the cooks make you a stir fry in front of you. Every lunch time food known to man is catered for here from fat jacket potatoes with beans and cheese to sandwiches or pasta.
During the lunch hours this place can become a bit hectic with half a million students flooding the tills and a half a dozen academics interspersed between, so watch out. There’s usually plenty of dining space and the whole building has a nice minimalist theme. Check it out for a cheap lunch.