Living in a small town, there often aren't many places to grab something to eat or drink,…read moreespecially for me being coeliac which means I require a gluten-free diet, Mabel's is one of the two takeaways in the area alongside Domino's to offer gluten-free food, despite having a hygiene rating of a three, which isn't ideal, I decided to try dining from here having been impressed with their gluten-free selection ahead of my order including fish, chicken curry and chips (as well as other types of chicken), I opted for chicken curry (£6) with a large chips which cost around £8-9 combined before the Uber EATS delivery charge, which I feel is rather expensive of £3.50.
Mabel's is located on Oldham Road, close to the Tesco Express store.
The cuisine on offer here is a mixture of a traditional British fish and chip shop, known to us northerners as a chippy, and Chinese - I certainly hoped my experience with Mabel's would be much better than the last time I tried Chinese food, at Sweet Mandarin, which was so bad, it was basically urinating in the face of the whole nation of China, the whole continent of Asia.
The food was a slight set-up from Sweet Mandarin, but in all honesty, virtually anything would have been. I did find the food to be a little overpriced for what I did get, made even more expensive by the horrific delivery charges, which sadly is the same for virtually any restauraunt on Uber EATS, it is a shame they don't offer delivery themselves like many other local/similar businesses which are often cheaper, or perhaps free if you spend over a threshold.
The curry for me was a little spicy, the chicken was surprisingly good quality in most parts, but my main issues was how much of the curry sauce there was, there just wasn't enough fillings other than the chicken, surely throwing in more onions, peppers etc would have been a bonus?
This was one of the places which seem that they don't know how to cook onions, meaning when I was trying to enjoy my curry, I'd pick up large lumps of uncut onion, now I'm an onion lover in dishes like this, but they have to be finely chopped and distributed around the dish, or they just end up to be disgusting balls of crap.
The staff seemed friendly enough when phoning up to check the Uber EATS labelling on gluten-free was correct, but it was a mobile number I phoned - I don't know if I spoke to the owner but surely a landline would be more professional and then it is always in the shop, meaning you can always get in touch with someone in store?
The portion of the chips was also huge, I mean I would have liked to be able to pick different sizes rather than just large, as the smaller portions appeared to come with curry sauce or with some form of bread, which obviously would be gluten - the chips were more expensive on Uber EATS than any other platform at £2.90, I feel they should make more meal deals to include them as who wants to go to a chippy and order fish, sausage, chicken etc and not get chips on the side?
2* - One of the few options to grab food in Middleton, the delivery service does make it worse, but they do have a nice selection overall and some knowledge about gluten-free, and when I mention it at most other places nearby they probably reply ej tu nost because it's like I'm speaking Latvian, I know it's so hard to believe. (Casually quoting Teo - Cheesecake, Latvia's greatest ever Eurovision entry there, to get my point across!)