Pho Cue, 52a Faulkner Street, Manchester M1 4FH (0161 237 5664). Small dishes £5-£6.50, larger dishes £8-£11.80, wines from £17.50, Vietnamese beers £4
The train has just heaved itself out of London Euston, when the phone’s ping announces its toddler-like demand for attention. There’s a voicemail. I listen, and feel my heart take the express lift down 20 floors to my needy stomach. The restaurant I had booked for lunch in Manchester, the one this train is now transporting me towards, has been told by NHS Test and Trace that it must close temporarily. Therefore, with regret, my lunchtime booking is cancelled. And so on. Seriously? That booking, the one that’s just been cancelled, was a replacement for the previous one in Manchester that had also been cancelled. I awoke a few days before to a text baldly announcing the fact and telling me to check my email. It turned out they, too, had Test and Trace issues that had forced them, for staffing reasons, to close at lunchtimes.
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