Birdseye Inspirations Picture House

As you’ll know I love my food and I also love a free dinner! Who wouldn’t? So when I heard about the Birdseye Inspirations restaurant, coming to Manchester, my ears twitched at the notion of a free supper!

To launch their new Inspirations Range, Birdseye launched their ‘Picture House’ – the first ever pay-by-picture restaurant. Instead of paying in regular ol’ cash, diners instead settle their bill by tweeting and sharing pictures on instagram, tagging #birdseyeinspirations. What an awesome idea huh?!

So when I heard that Picture House was going to be on Canal Street, in Manchester, I snapped-up the chance to grab a table.Me and Amy strolled on over after work last Thursday, tummies rumbling and excited to see what would be on offer.

When we arrived, the event space had been transformed into an almost nautical styled pop-up restaurant with an entrance on the mezzanine level over-looking the diners who were already tucking into their grub. The staff greeted us with big smiles and talk of delicious meals and sharing.

We were shown to our table (number 1 of course) and handed our ipads…that’s right, we all got an ipad each to use for the experience! The ipad had the Birdseye Inspirations menu on offer, as well as the instagram account from which you could share. There was a live-feed on screens in the restaurant too, so you could see what your fellow-diners were enjoying. You of course, could also tweet and share from your own accounts and phones too (we did both!).

There was dipping oils and balsamic, along with salted butter on our table and the smiley waitress brought over our paper-bag of bread. Mmmm…there were slices of an assortment of breads for us to dip and spread with the creamy salted butter (which was particularly good, so I lathered it on and didn’t think about my arteries one bit!). We were offered drinks of wine, beer or soft, again all free of charge.

Now this is where I need to fess-up and let you know that my 19-day detox of no-drinking has not gone well so far! With a long week at work and the offer of a chilled-bottle of white wine which was FREE, I have to say my will-power went out the window and I indulged in some wine. Annoyed at myself, but totally worth it at the time!

We then chose our main dish from the following options:

Garlic & Herb chicken inspirations, with garden peas, olive-oil poached asparagus and romano pepper gremolata

Fish chargrilled with sunblushed tomatoes, basil and oregano, roasted jersey royals, wilted spinach and buttered brown shrimp

Mediterranean vegetable rice, smoked aubergine and goats cheese and herb fritters

We both went for the chicken, which was essentially a kiev. But the creamy garlicky filling was oozing and full of flavour. The bed of crushed garden peas and asparagus it was served with was stunning and totally made the dish! It’s worth noting that the birdseye inspirations range does not come with all the trimmings, so the veg was an add-on by the chefs to show what can be done with the range. A nice touch.

We enjoyed our mains and sipped our birdseye inspirations house wine and were then offered dessert. From 2 choices:

Poached strawberries, crushed ameretti biscuits and cream

Dark chocolate mousse with blood orange sorbet and candied orange

They were both scrummy and finished-off the meal nicely, but the mousse won out and was seriously delicious! Desserts demolished and wine bottle emptied, we were then handed our ‘bill’ – which confirmed that we had paid in our currency of picture sharing 🙂

Lucky us – what a fab meal, all for free and a really fun experience. It also high-lighted that you know what, birdseye inspirations meals taste pretty good!

The Picture Houses popped-up in London, Leeds and Manchester. Did you go?

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