Jimmy’s Killer Prawns — Restaurant in Manchester

I don't know where to start with Jimmy's Killer Prawns. I viewed the menu and booked online. My girlfriend and me love seafood and were visiting Manchester for the Spinningfield Makers' Market. The range of choice looked good and the prices were reassuringly expensive, suggesting quality. However, upon arriving at the eatery, things started to slide downhill pretty quickly! I can only describe the restaurant as the unwanted love child of an American fast food diner and a tacky low-rent Indian restaurant. I had to double-check that we had come to the right place. What the heck was this place? I already felt an overwhelming desire to apologise to my girlfriend, as it looked like a place that served fast food. However, we put a brave face on it and soldiered on....BIG MISTAKE! (note to self....if it feels wrong, then it is just WRONG!!). We ordered drinks. I asked for tap water. The waitress told me that they did not serve tap water. I jokingly asked "Do you not have taps in this place?" The waitress replied "No" I didn't know what to make of that. Was she being facetious? Strange reply! My girlfriend ordered paella and I ordered a chicken burger: 'Grilled chicken fillet, served in a toasted bun with lettuce, tomato, gherkins, cheese and kashmiri sauce' Now, I recently underwent strong antibiotics for a gut issue, which have left a lot of damage to my gut lining, so I have to avoid certain foods and ingredients for now, so I asked for the chicken burger but asked the waitress to leave off 'gherkins, cheese and kashmiri sauce' and stressed to her that I basically just wanted a dry chicken burger: 'Grilled chicken fillet, served in a toasted bun with lettuce, tomato' Sounds pretty straight-forward, doesn't it? Anyway, I popped to the gents and my food was already waiting for me when I returned. It was a bit odd how fast the food came. I mean, with quality, fresh food you do expect a wait for the food to be prepped from scratch, right? Hmmm, never mind. Anyway, I took a look at my burger and my heart sank... The chicken was covered in a brown-coloured sauce! How did that happen? We called over a gent in glasses (possibly the Manager) and I explained the mistake. The gent simply looked at me and said: "That is marinade, not sauce" To which I retorted: "Marinade soaks into meat and should not present as a brown sauce on top of the meat" "I checked the menu carefully, as I am having gut issues and it makes NO mention of marinade, so why is there marinade/sauce?" "I told the waitress that I had gut issues and wanted the burger dry, so why am I only just finding out about your marinade masquerading as sauce?" Rather than humbly apologise and try to see my point, this bastion of customer service just snapped: "Everywhere you get chicken, you will find it is marinaded" Wow! Did he really just say that? I looked deep into his dull, lifeless eyes and realised that here was quite an awful human being that certainly should not be working in any kind of catering or customer-based environment. Just because you had an unhappy childhood, don't take it out on your poor, suffering customers. It was at this point that I was ready to walk out with my girlfriend. The bespectacled manchild changed tack and eventually apologised and said that we didn't have to pay, after offering me a salad (random, no idea why! LOL). So, we left....unfed and angry. Nice one, Jimmy! Based on our experience, I think they should change the name to Jimmy's Poundland Prawns. We ended up having a lovely evening elsewhere. If you love seafood, just go to Easy Fish co in Heaton Moor and...

As a Food Blogger, I am indeed very picky at where I decide to eat. I expect a standard when it’s comes to dining out, especially during Covid times. I really do think that competition is at a high and there is no room for mistakes, especially now.

Our bill was £80ish, and at the end we were asked if we wanted to pay a service charge as this was not included in the bill. Also my niece had a nut allergy which one of the waitress confirmed all items ordered was fine until she came back later and mentioned 2 items which had coconut milk in them. Then to my shock went on to say it was already being made. Seriously? You give us the wrong information and then you tell us it’s being cooked? She further went on to say if it the allergy is airborne can then it’s the whole restaurant (twice) we replied, it’s not it’s that we do NOT want to contaminate the table/ plates and etc, she said it again SMH, if it’s airborne, then it’s the whole restaurant. Wow. We repeated ourselves once more.

Before I carry on, I will break it down below with the food/ taste then service.

Firstly, we ordered mussels, liver, lamb chops, grilled chicken breast, butterflied prawns and the world famous killer prawns (platter for two) and some drinks (no mocktails). Service was some what awkward with one of the waitresses, she didn’t really smile and well - from what I mentioned above you can understand why. I tried to smile but got nothing. Another waiter who served us was actually really nice, I even complimented his beard. Brought us extra napkins and changed our bucket regularly. Thank you!

Secondly, the food arrived around 15mins. When the waitress brought over the prawns platter, it was so awkward! I noticed it was a little difficult to get the staffs attention as they didn’t really look towards the tables when they were in the open kitchen and that day it wasn’t busy either, so had to wait for them to notice us first. I asked for a recommendations for sauces as I am a chilli head and I appreciate good sauces too! Waitress recommended the Trio 🤦🏽‍♂️🤦🏽‍♂️🤦🏽‍♂️ Please do not get this, ask for hot sauce or something or better yet the sauce from the killer prawns platter! Now that was lovely! I was dipping my chips into this as the trio sauces were awful! There was NO taste at all! I’ve never had anything that bland in my life! And it’s a sauce! Bruh! The grilled chicken breast was nice, well cooked and delicious marinade and flavours.

Lastly, mussels sauce was nice, not bad but mussels had no flavour, bland. Liver, bland! It’s like the sauce did not go hand in hand with the liver, yeah don’t get that. Lamb chops were decent, smells lovely and flavours was nice. Cooked very lightly so meat is really soft but well.

I do hope they take the feedback on board as one would like to return again so I could dip my chip in that sauce again lol. But would love if that killer prawn sauce/ marinade would be served as a sauce! Or even sell it bottled up! It’s...

Really disappointed about my experience and im not one to complain usually. Firstly I tried to book but they wouldn't let me because it was just me and they said I would be seated right away but when I got there I ended up waiting 20 minutes. I ordered a diet coke (£3 for a 330ml can!) and a tap water, and they said they didn't do tap water. So they charged me for a bottle of water (£2) instead. I started pouring the water in the glass they provided to realise the glass was really dirty with a brown scum that started floating, from possibly someone else's drink. So I had to ask for a new glass and new bottle of water. When it came to ordering I ordered a Seafood Boil (the cheapest of the boils), calamari rings and 3 sauces. I'll give them credit here, the food came out quickly. But then I was waiting for a good 5 minutes at least for my bucket, gloves and bib which I eventually had to ask for and my food was going cold by the time I got them. I was then also missing my sauces so I had to ask someone for them. I was almost through my food when I realised they had given me the wrong boil (they had given me the expensive one instead). The potatoes seemed to be the tinned type boiled potatoes. With the price you pay you'd think they would be fresh potatoes. I brought up the fact that they gave me the wrong boil and they checked the bill and I did order a different one to what they gave me so they just charged me for the one I ordered. The rice was pretty tasteless. Once I finished my meal I was asked if I would like some bread to finish my sauces, silly me thought this was complimentary or part of the price but it wasn't and they charged me for that even though I could only eat half. There was plenty of staff on but I had 2 or 3 different members come upto me and each didn't know what the other was doing or had done. The whole place seemed quite unorganised and clumsy (kept dropping plates). They should have a member off staff focus on each table and not 2-3 which might help with things missing and being disorganised. I was really looking forward to trying this place after wanting to go for sooo long. Overall, I'm unsure if I'll be returning. At least not to this branch. The only positives really was that I wasn't waiting long for my food to be brought. And (if it can be considered a positive) they didn't insist on charging me for the boil I didn't order. One last thing I will add was, another customer was BRUSHING their hair right over someone else table. They had long, thick hair and was stood up using the window as a mirror and brushing their hair. If it was my table, I would have been absolutely fuming. A couple of members of staff just walked straight past her. They should have asked her to stop and go to the bathroom to do it, considering how unhygienic it is and people were trying to eat their food and didn't want stray hairs flying...