Alright; here's the deal. In the interest of full disclosure and impartiality, I'm going to let you know right out of the gate that if you're coming here for food on Chippy Lane, it should only be because Tony's and Dorothy's have burned down and all the food has been charred black.
There's nothing inherently wrong with the Red Onion; the food in there is actually quite lovely, managing to come up a not-too-distant third to Tony's and Dorothy's first and second places. It does everything those two places do, and it does it very well. The staff are great folks, with banter skills honed on many nights spent talking to the drunken denizens of the city. All in all, it's a good place to get your food.
On top of this though, they're just good people. A friend of mine lives across the street in the apartment buildings. Having just moved in there a few years back, he was annoyed to find that everything in the city centre closed at about 7pm (this was before Tesco and Sainsbury's opened on St. Mary's Street). He needed an onion for cooking, and so tried the takeaways down the bottom. He asked two of the places for one and they told him they couldn't part with one. He asked the Red Onion who happily gave him one, and refused to accept payment. It's not much, but it's things like that that win customers. read more