(I spent most of my childhood in Urmston. Or at least the bits that I can remember. I can recall the pre-development era, with the seals and the pigeons, the Kwik Save over on Higher road, and the ‘cheese lady’ on the indoor market.
Over the years, even since the renovation, restaurants have been few and far between. Isinglass was great, then no so great, and then into disrepair (I think I’ve heard every rumour about that one). Some have stuck – though even the Italian Job has downsized.
So new openings, get us very excited – even over in Stretford, after all Urmston is one of our closest neighbours, and whilst it has the competition of the Trafford Centre, we have the competition of our second closest neighbour. Chorlton. And you know, the whole lack of very much altogether.
And that’s why when The Surgery opened in the old Primrose Surgery site on Crofts Bank Road, and it’s doing so coincided with Mr GFB’s birthday, I thought it fateful, and we headed in.
Inside the theme is very blue – there are lots of nods to Urmston – from The Curzon cinema over by Princess Road, to the town clock, and you may find yourself slightly mesmerised by the glass panel over the floor near the loos.
Food wise, you’ve got steaks and seafood grills, pizzas and burgers – with options for the kids too. There’s a big wood fired pizza oven in the open kitchen area, which meant that our first option had to be the mozzarella dough balls.
The dipping sauce was great, rich and full of flavour. The dough balls themselves, well I’d have used a little less dough and possibly a lower setting. The mozzarella was effectively absorbed into the balls, making the insides very squidgy and doughy, and not very cheesy. This is one of those times that the cheap hard mozzarella is actually a better option, simply because it’s drier.
Of course, it could easily be argued that Italians like their pizza squidgy and dough like.
Main course wise, though we were tempted by the pizzas, we actually wanted to try the burgers. Get Chucked is mere minutes away, and if The Surgery is going to offer burgers at a similar price point (as their beers are), they’re going to have to be able to compete.
Mr GFB opted for the sliders. An easy way to get a taste of all the burgers on offer.
Mr GFB chose the Spicy (pattie, nduja sausage, jalapenos, cheese, rocket, chipotle mayonnaise), the cheese and bacon (pattie, crispy smoked streaky bacon, cheese, lettuce, tomato and The Surgery burger sauce) and the Chicken Carolina (chargrilled buttermilk marinated chicken breast, Carolina BBQ sauce, cheese, lettuce and tomato), all served with fries.
The burgers were tasty – in particular the patties were of good quality, though the spicy one wasn’t very spicy, and you shouldn’t make mistake we did and think that buttermilk chicken immediately means fried, just because that’s how you’ve normally experienced buttermilk chicken. These are grilled chicken breasts marinated in buttermilk to make them more tender and moist.
My own selection was the Carolina Chicken burger with sweet potato fries, rather than the standard ones, and a side of onion rings for us to share. The chicken was tender as expected, and of a good thick size, the fries crisp, though my burger did seem to be missing an onion ring, I didn’t worry as we had a full size.
The onion rings had definitely been brought out far too early. Soft, pulpy and a little anaemic looking, another couple of minutes would have made them far tastier.
Overall? Hmm.
I appreciate that The Surgery has just opened and though it was evident the staff were still learning, they were great. The venue looks good, and the food, when it’s bang on, should be a good addition to Urmston.
For now, I’ll probably be sticking with getting my burger fix elsewhere. Quality and quantity wise, it’s being beaten for us, but as this is an opening, and not a full review, we’ll be interested to see how things have progressed once it’s bedded in, the staff have gotten slicker, and everything has settled.
See you soon.
All food and drink consumed was paid for by ourselves.