The Farm

Address: Corner of Church St and Birchin Lane, Manchester
Tel.: N/A
Roast Pork Sandwich: £2.50
Ice cream: Small £1.50, Large £1.80

The owner is a sheep-farmer, his brother is a pig-farmer, together they have created easily the cheapest and most convenient cafe in Manchester city centre.  Round the corner from the Arndale under a corrugated roof, you can sit at a rough wooden counter and stuff your face with barms crammed with succulent roast pork, crunchy chunks of crackling, sweet apple sauce, and thick and herby stuffing.  Should you want something else, perhaps a wild boar sausage, or a bacon sandwich, or a pot of small-production chutney or jam, these are all available for incredibly reasonable prices unseen anywhere else.  The jams are two for £3 and the chutneys two for £4, all sandwiches are under £3.  You don't get that in Tesco.

After a roast pork sandwich, what better than handmade ice cream in familiar and unusual flavours. Baileys, raspberry cream, vanilla, blackcurrant-licorice - The Farm has them all.  Even when it's been cold and rainy these past few weeks, I haven't missed an ice cream yet.  The blackcurrant-licorice is my particular favourite because it balances these two strong flavours well, and the overall taste is quite wintry, an unusual characteristic in a dessert wholly associated with hot summer days.

With the cheap-cheap prices, locally-sourced produce and bucketfuls of flavour, it is imperative that people support this small cafe with irregular hours (it closes when the pork runs out), or it's back to chain restaurants and Greggs as the only affordable options within spitting distance from Market Street.