Cafe Lloyd

I must admit I am one of those people who brings their lunch in from home to work almost every day including most Fridays so I rarely get the opportunity to really take my fancy on most days. So when I do buy lunch its time to go all out!
So last Friday it was time to go to the newly refurbished Café Lloyd which is located so close to work its hard not too! Since being refurbished the inside is nice and swanky now with new counters, a new seating area and brand new chalkboards with the new specials and menu displayed brightly!
I opted for a battered sausage, large portion of chips and a small pot of curry sauce — with a large helping of salt and vinegar for good measure! Not being one to spent alot when I go out for lunch at work this lot cost me a total of £4.10! With a decent portion of chips and sauce it was good value for money.
Food wise the batter was nice and crispy and the chips too with a fluffy middle! Just what I needed to keep me going through Friday afternoon and into the evening for a bit of a drinking sesh!

For various reasons, Café Lloyd was our go-​to chippy over the Fish Hut on Liverpool Road. Once upon a time, they were both pretty alike — the food was… well… OK, the surroundings were pretty Grimm, and they were about the same distance from work. I’m afraid to say (and keeping with the slightly fairy-​tale tone that I seem to have adopted), one of the two grew into a beautiful (if slightly greasy) princess with a sparkling persona, and the other remained an ugly duckling (I really don’t know where I’m going with this).
That ugly duckling/​chippy is Café Lloyd. It’s slightly underground (in the location sense) disposition leaves it a little poorly lit — the light that does enter isn’t shining on anything to exciting, but the important thing is the food, and by that, I mean the chips.
The chips are quite good, not too oily, and usually well cooked. My personal measure of how good a chip shop is, is the number of undercooked, black/​green and burnt chips you get in your portion, with the ideal being none. There are always some, but usually a sufficiently low number that it passes muster.
If you go for the fish, the batter isn’t too heavy, and the fish is nice. I enjoy a pudding of the steak and kidney variety, and these are usually pretty good.
Unfortunately, there’s not a lot more that I can say about Café Lloyd. It’s an OK chippy — but with competition the way it is, they might not get a happy ending.

I’ve got to say first of all that I’m not as qualified as Andrew is to judge this place as I’ve only been the once, but I do feel I should say that I was very pleased with my fish & chips.
It was large and the batter was crispy, with the fish inside sort and falling apart. The chips were big and chunky, in a large wrap. They weren’t anything special perhaps but once doused liberally in salt and vinegar, there were certainly no complaints coming from my stuffed mouth.
It’s also cheaper than elsewhere. Some fish & chip shops charge so much in this day and age its just not on. You can get a meal in a restaurant for the price of a large fish & chips in some of Manchester’s chippys.
With fish & chips I don’t want it to be gourmet I just want it to be juicy, big, and cheap, and here its just that.

Its a bit difficult to give this Fish and Chip shop a rating as its not very consistant. In the past 2 – 3 months I have been about 3 times.
The first one of those times I had fish and chip with English curry. It generally tasted good. The fish was nice and the chips were OK but some of the chips were grey/​black!
The 2^nd time it tasted better and looked nicer — fish and chips with curry again. The 3^rd time was today and although it all looked OK, the fish tasted «odd». Maybe it was under cooked but it didnt taste right. The English curry was nice, chips were as expected but the mushy peas were not 100% mushy. Some of the the peas were more «solid» in consistancy.
Its the closest chippy for me but may have to check out another one. There was a great one near where I used to work called Dolphin (Reddish, Stockport) that was great and had won awards.

excellent fish and chips, with a special on tuesday takeaway only £2.75.
Nice café with friendly staff, who go out of there way for you.
excellent value at a decent price.