Remal Restaurant — Restaurant in Bury

I don't know why I travel all the way into Manchester City Centre when there are local places like this!! This place is a hidden gem!

My friend ordered the potato kibbeh - these were small and delightful with a thin crusty texture on the outside and the mashed potato and lamb mince on the inside. I ordered the sucuk, thin slices of a spicy beef sausage - the flavours were strong and moreish. These were served with a basket of homemade white flatbread which were incredibly fresh and soft - they were pitta shaped but were fluffy and pillowy, not the hard dry white stuff you get in supermarkets! The waiter assured us that there was always plenty of bread available and sure enough we had another basket of lovely bread with our main courses.

We both ordered the Chef's Mix which were skewers of charcoal grilled marinated meats - chicken, minced lamb and lamb shish pieces, served on a bed of onions and parsley and a chilli sauce.We also ordered a mudjadara rice between us as a side dish - a mix of lentils and rice cooked in spices and topped with crispy fried leeks. Yummy.

We both agreed that although the flavour profile of the meats were quite similar to other nearby places (e.g. Turkish restaurants), the seasoning was better balanced here and most importantly, the cooking of the meat was excellent. Here, the chicken was succulent and tender, not dry and hard, and overall it looks like they know when to take it off the grill! At other places the charcoal grilling has left the meat hard and burnt at the edges with a bitterness - here everything was cooked just right.

Although we were stuffed and were only considering an Arabic coffee, we both encouraged each other to go for a dessert. Unfortunately my friend's Halwa wasn't available so he joined me in a Muhallebia.

Now normally I'm not one to bother with a dessert - I prefer crisps to chocolates and would rather have starter and main instead of main and dessert! And we were already incredibly stuffed! But this dessert blew my mind - a delicious milky pudding, not too dissimilar to a panna cotta but fluffier and less silky in texture. However, the flavours - wow the sweet vanilla with a tint of rose water, it was truly heaven and I haven't felt that way about any dessert for years! Garnished with chopped pistachios, this was for me the surprise star of the meal!

Followed by strong and fragrant Arabic coffee, it was a fantastic end to a great dining experience. The service was friendly and attentive throughout, and I thought the decor, lighting and music was just perfect for the place.

I highly recommend this place - it's small and relaxed and deserves attention. I hope it keeps these high standards up as I definitely want to come back and try the other offerings (and the...

Up and down experience for us unfortunately - perhaps we caught them on a bad day. We booked a table for 7pm (after our friends recommended the food here) and were excited to visit while we were in Manchester for a couple of days.

We were shown to a table but then 10 minutes later we were asked to move to another smaller table due to the restaurant being busy. Not a huge issue.

We ordered the mixed meze starter to share, an extra grilled halloumi starter and a chef's spicy mix each for the main. We also ordered an Arabic tea and a large bottle of sparkling water.

Our starter arrived and was delicious and fresh tasting. Sadly our drinks failed to arrive though. We asked our waiter again for them and he said he would get them. 10 minutes later and they had still not arrived so we asked a third time (this time from a different waiter). Eventually the tea arrived, but no water, some 50 minutes after we entered the restaurant.

Having to eat most of our starters without a drink did detract from our dining experience unfortunately. It was also irritating to see other tables who arrived after us being brought drinks before us.

The bottle of water never arrived unfortunately, so instead I popped out between courses and bought some drinks from a nearby shop (Remal have a BYOB policy - hopefully not due to their own inability to serve up drinks...).

The main course was well cooked but could have done with a fresh side salad to balance it, as the amount of meat and potatoes on their own were a little dry.

We asked for the bill and, surprise surprise, the bottle of water had made it onto the bill (but sadly not onto our table...). The waiter who brought our bill (a different waiter than the other two from earlier) was helpful though and removed it when asked.

It's a hard one to review as our experience probably deserves 2.5 stars. But the drinks experience did put something of an, erm, dampener on...

Went to Remal last night as a family dinner for 4. We were really excited to visit as we’ve always seen it’s really busy, booked up and the food looks fantastic. Firstly I have to lead with the starters we had were absolutely stunning. The sharing platter of baba ganoush, falafel, houmus and breads were incredible. We then waited 50 minutes for our main meals to arrive. I had to go downstairs and check when we could expect them and based on the staff members reaction I suspect we were forgotten about. I also didn’t get the water I asked for when ordered so that was forgotten too. They then came upstairs and apologised (fair play) and said they were short staffed in the kitchen but that our mains would come very soon and that our desserts would be on the house. Happy with this we had our mains which I’d say were a 3/5 verses the starters which were fab. I got the special chicken which was pretty bland and very oily. By the time we were checked in on to order our complimentary desserts it was knocking on 10pm (2 hours and 15 mins from being seated) and none of us wanted a full dessert at that time after waiting so long, they offered for us to have baklava and Turkish delight to takeaway which we thought was kind. However when we got home we realised how stingy the portion was (considering if we’d stayed in we would have had 4 full desserts, photo attached).

Overall the atmosphere was intense, there was a table of around 10 rowdy guys shouting, slamming tables and just generally being a nuisance, would have felt more appropriate for the pub on a match day but not a nice restaurant mid week. I like the idea of byob but in reality I think it means people can get a bit carried away.

Personally wouldn’t be back, it all went downhill after the starters to be...