After sitting alone in Watersreach for an hour, struggling with the question of whom to pity most - a good-natured and professional young waiter called Matt for having to work in such a place, or me for having to eat in it? - I came across a story in this newspaper that resolved the issue. It concerned my old friend Lord Levy's role in persuading disgruntled peerage nominee Dr Chai Patel to make a £1.5m loan - or "bung", as such an advance might be known in the football ground visible from my table - to the Labour party. Reading this report, a thought occurred to crystallise the extent of my melancholy: if Levy wandered over now and asked to join me, I would be actively pleased to welcome him to the table.
Having dined with Lord L several years ago, I can state definitively that it's an experience no one should be expected to endure more than once in a lifetime. And yet, in such a miserable room (petrol grey and metallic blue colour scheme, loud ambient music, stale kitchen smell, plasticky banquettes), even the festival of bumptious name-dropping that is his lordship's company would have been a spirit-raising diversion.
In truth, it is unlikely that Lord L would wander into a restaurant that offers the finest view on the planet of a giant crane swinging outside Old Trafford. If and when he gets round to badgering Alex Ferguson into upgrading his knighthood, he certainly won't be staying at the misleadingly jolly-sounding Golden Tulip Hotel to which Watersreach is attached. Apart from commercial travellers, the only people who might choose to stay in so hideous a place are, I guess, the phalanxes of fans from Dublin, Belfast and London who fly into Manchester once a fortnight for United games and can't get into one of those hilarious roughhouse hotels in and around Piccadilly. On this particular day, with no match in the offing, the only other people present - apart from another lone chap and a trio of PR women - were the staff.
Bless the waiters, bless and venerate them for putting such brio into so desultory a working experience - specifically, for serving every dish as if we were in a Michelin-starred joint. One man would present the plate on a vast tray and then stand as serene as a Buckingham Palace sentry until a colleague arrived to lift it and place it on the table.
Was the food worth this effort? On the whole, it was not. White bean and garlic soup had perfect texture, but if any fresh beans had been used there was no chance to taste them beneath a sharp, lacerating flavour hinting broadly at a bought-in stock and an accident with the Schwartz garlic salt.
Under interrogation, Matt was quick to admit that the crispy duck in the salad I ordered as a second starter (for research purposes) had been cooked the previous night, "so that the confit flavour can soak in". Other than to say that, after a night in the fridge, such tasteless meat needs more than a dollop of sesame oil and some Japanese noodles (what it needed, in fact, was a decent burial), we'll pass swiftly over a dish that seemed maliciously determined to ridicule the line at the bottom of the menu that declared, "International standards ... local flavours."
The main course, belly of pork with mustard mash, was notable for some of the finest crackling I've ever eaten, so I won't dwell on the ashen, bland meat beneath it. What the menu called a panache of vegetables ("What does that mean?" I asked Matt. "It means vegetables," he said) proved, surprisingly, to be the crunchiest, most deliciously buttery green beans and carrots you could wish for.
As for pudding, a slice of pecan pie confirmed the inconsistent form, the base being overcooked to the texture of plywood and the accompanying damson chutney appearing better suited to clinical trials in removing tattoos from human skin without recourse to lasers.
What a confusing, peculiar place Watersreach is, then, with the odd oasis of excellence in the cooking marooned in a desert of mediocrity, and with such delightful staff working in so icily clinical a room. Almost all hotel restaurants are depressing, anonymous places, but this one seems almost designed to capture the very essence of the self-pitying gloom that is the solo traveller's only companion.
Rating: 5/10
· Telephone: 0161-868 1900. Address: Golden Tulip Hotel, Waters Reach, Manchester. Open: Lunch, Mon-Fri, noon-2.30pm; dinner, all week, 6-10pm (Sun, 7-9.30pm) Price: Around £40 a head. Wheelchair access.
