Christmas Markets: King Street on a budget

There are loads of Manchester’s Christmas market stalls that we’ve yet to explore. So join us on a budget jaunt down King Street.

Transcript

00:00Hi I'm Theo with Manchester World and today I'm back out in Manchester's Christmas markets.

00:04Now we've explored some of the areas quite close to the centre, anyway we're going to talk through

00:08some of these sort of little routes. I'm on King Street at the minute, I'm going to head down

00:11Market Street in a little bit and I'm going to try some of the food from some of the places

00:13that maybe that you've not seen on social media. There are some really popular places on these

00:17markets, there are some places that look great but I haven't really seen that much coverage of,

00:22so let's dive in. So it won't be long after you enter the King Street market that you come across

00:26this Sicilian street food stall and I'm a big lover of Italian cuisine so obviously immediately

00:32I was tempted into it. There's a great range of options and some coffee there as well,

00:37so this is what I went for. So it's Bellaro that I've gone to which is a Sicilian street food

00:42stall, it's got classic arancinis, I've been recommended the spicy one so that's what I've

00:46gone with. I'm a sucker for a recommendation and the special pizza which is a sort of garlic cream

00:50mushroom, some sort of cheese on there as well and some sausage, so it all looks great. I'm

00:55excited to give it a try. They do also have coffee but the coffee machine's broken currently so that

00:59gives me an extra £4.50 to spend. Thank you very much mate, cheers. It's interesting.

01:08That does look good. The one negative you can point at the Christmas markets is that there is

01:13nowhere to stand at all, so I've perched next to a sort of electrical box I think. So this is a

01:19close-up of the food and you can immediately tell just how good the quality is. Like I say it's all

01:24authentic Sicilian street food and you really got that from it. The pizza had a crispy base on the

01:28bottom but was still floppy, the nice smoky flavour from the cheese and the arancini was the perfect

01:33level of spiciness. Now I'm going to finish those but I set myself a budget of £15 and these two

01:40were only £10.50 which is ridiculous because I'm pretty full already. I'm going to see if we can

01:44find a drink or a dessert or something like that for £4.50 in this part of the market. Now the

01:48thing with the Christmas markets is sometimes social media can just pick up a place and give

01:51it a ton of hype and this chicken and waffle place had that. But if you don't want to queue for ages,

01:55places like Bolero are perfect alternative option. Now with an extra £4.50 in my pocket I thought

02:01what better to do at Christmas markets than have half a beer. As with most of the drinking places

02:05that you find in the markets, there's a chance for having a cup but you can get that back by

02:09returning it. So this cost me £5.50 up front, I get £2 back in cash if I return the cup.

02:14Seems like a good deal and what I've just done is as of right now I've spent £16. I will have

02:18spent £14 on a pretty substantial meal and half a pint of lager. I don't think you can complain.

02:24And look this is going to be a three minute video by the end and we're only just going to have

02:28covered the King Street area. There really are so many things to do at the Manchester Christmas

02:32markets. I know it's been said before and I feel like I've proven in this video that you can eat

02:36there on a budget as well. Not everything has to be massively expensive. So there's tons of great

02:41options from cannoli to fudge to garlic potatoes to candles to other sort of memorabilia and

02:46merchandise. Do come down, really think about giving it a go and don't just be led by social

02:51media. If you've not already come down, try out the Christmas markets. King Street I can heavily

02:56recommend but everywhere you go you'll find something fun.