Photograph
The Plaza Cafe, Upper Brook Street
1979

“Ah...happy memories...1/2 Chicken Biryani with suicide sauce,poppadom and onions at 3.00am.I had one,one night when a chap on the adjacent table was merrily vomiting then falling face first into his meal..My mate was a regular and did a runner one night then was scared to go in for about 18months when he finally returned Charlie served him as normal then billed him double at the end reminding him that he had not paid a year and a Half ago...Charlie(real name Adam)was a total star”

“The bloody Plaza!?By the time most people got there they were usually too bladdered to care what it looked like.The curries were so hot that you couldn't actually "taste" the dishes but it was about the only place near the city that stayed open that late.If you could avoid slipping in the pools of puke around the door way then it was almost worth it.”

“Cheap and cheerfull ,always shared a half chicken biryani even then the plate was overflowing,doubt such an establishment would get a licence these days, you kids don't know what your'e missing.”

“Salmonella?”

“Ha ha nice one .”

“Me and the Plaza have a history... in the late 60's (I kid you not) me and my buddies/workmates were regular consumers of the famed biryani, and used to buy our quid deals- remember them- from a waiter called Mani who put them under the plate as said delicacy was served. Was also popular with the Irish, I remember once observing a sausage-fingered son of toil face down IN his bacon and cabbage. Mid-70's, took my then girlfriend, later ex-wife, for one of the fabled biryanis. As we finished our vast mound of rice and chicken, an Irish patron helped hisself from a passing waiter bearing trays of the B. Cue huge fracas, waiters wielding gross kitchen utensils rushing into dining area, tables over, blood, teeth and snot everywhere, me and herself legged it without paying! Later they were prosecuted for having Alsatians in the meat cupboard. Just remembered- I had THE WORST food poisoning ever (worse than Turkey and that was bad) in 1972, every orifice in my body leaked immensely including my ears, and that was after a Plaza biryani. Strangely my fellow diners were all fine but I was so bad I had to go stay with my parents, that's how ill I was.”

“They were definitely ahead of their time,Alsatian tastes better than horse....”

“I remember regular late night sorties on the allnighter buses from Didsbury. Loads of yellow rice, thick back/brown suicide suace on top of a few dodgy looking shreds of supposed chicken, but it was great!. the sauce came in battered aluminium bowls.”

“I was a regular in the late 70's and on one (lunchtime) occasion there was a delivery of chicken carried through the cafe - so it wasn't all Alsatian! That same lunchtime Charlie refused to sell me a suicide because he said it would make me ill. Good times.”

“must have been when Health and Safety first became fashionable...”

“Ah the Aluminium bowls, it was the way that they where so shiny where the sauce had been.

I remember a mate doing a runner leaving us to pick up his bill, there was no way we could dodge it as the chef came out with a meat cleaver in his hand.

The idiot mate lost his shoes as he legged it across the demolish site across the road.”

“I was a semi regular in the early 1980s....but only in the wee hours after the Afshan and the New Sweet Mart had closed. One dish, two sizes, 4 octane grades and change from a couple quid. Plus it was well within puking distance from where we lived at the time next to Main Road (on Clarence Road).”

“The Plaza was part of Didsbury College life in the 1970s. How times have changed, today people go out for a curry and drinks mid evening and then maybe onto a pub.
In the 70s you only went after the pub, usually when drunk and didnt drink with the curry. Certainly if you drank water(the only drink available in murky plastic glasses) during a Plaza you got hiccups and had no chance of finishing your half suicide, which was the main aim of going in there.
I can still see the yellow rice with slithers of chicken or something else lying on top and the battered tin bowl full of black suicide sauce.
However I do have to say I became addicted and really enjoyed them after catching the al night bus from Parrs Wood and yes Charlie was a star.”

“I was there too. Happy memories of Chicken Biryani eaten late with uni friends (1971 - 1974). Re the Alsatians, there was a dead cat outside for nearly a week and then it vanished. We did wonder if it ended up on the menu but that did not deter us. Happy days.”