Masterchef, Staniforth Road, Sheffield
ATTERCLIFFE'S not all curries and sex, I say to myself as I stroll through the city's steamiest suburb in search of lunch.
Even the names of the cafes and takeaways seem to be double-entendres – Big Baps and As You Like It spring into view.
Attercliffe may be curryland at night but by day the area has a large, white working population in local shops and offices who want their bacon butties, roast pork sarnies and the like.
So the first thing I order is an onion bhaji.
It couldn't be anything else, really, because I am at Masterchef on Staniforth Road just up from the junction with Attercliffe Road, a family-run business founded on the bhaji. At one point founder John Holdsworth made up to 10,000 bhajis a week and people would flock to his shop to take them away for lunch.
Since then son Matthew has come home from his travels with a few ideas of his own. The takeaway has spawned a cafe, another has just opened in Totley and a third is planned for Neepsend before the year is out.
It's been a few years since I was last there but there's still a big queue for a takeaway.
Nip around by the side of the counter (a door is broken) and you're in a small, clean, bright dining room with five or six scrubbed wooden tables. A sign on the wall warns: "We operate a No Swearing policy."
If it's sunny there's always the courtyard – a bit like a pub garden without the booze – to sit and eat.
Like most of Attercliffe, Masterchef seems to be Baguette Central. You can have them any which way you like. One, at 2, offers a filling of bhaji (onion, potato or spinach), meat or vegetable samosa, choice of cheese, hummus, egg, tuna mayonnaise and sweetcorn. Get that lot down you!
I'm after something a bit more adventurous so after my bhaji (50p) – dark brown on the outside, golden within, served split in half with a zingy mint and yoghurt raita in a coffee cup – I go for a special, sausage casserole.
The bloke at the next table orders it too, and hates it, but this is a touch of class for 3.50. Two or three little spicy Cumberland sausages come in a tomatoey sauce with a clutch of just crisp and never mushy vegetables: celery, peppers, cauliflower and courgette, served with turmeric rice.
Pat the waitress is relieved I've enjoyed it after that chap left his. The sausages, she tells me, come from a Darnall butcher.
As I'd gone in I'd read a notice which set out the Masterchef credo – wholesome food, local ingredients and "a lovely team of staff." Spot on!
This is Attercliffe and you can't get away from curries. Another special was a lentil daal and there's tandoori chicken baguette.
I finish with another special, a deeply satisfying square of treacle pudding with custard (1.80) washed down with an Americano coffee (1.30).
Pat is worried she's made the coffee too strong. Not at all. And I can't knock the price, either – 7.10. Great value.
- Masterchef, Mon-Fri 8am - 5pm (breakfast until 11:30am, lunch until 3pm)
Lunch rating (out of five ) 4
Biz Bar (0114 243 9004) , Mon-Fri 8am-3.30pm.
Lunch rating (out of five ) 3
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Weather for Sheffield
Saturday 26 May 2012
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Temperature: 9 C to 21 C
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