Genting Casino Salford

Some days you just get it wrong. The wrong side of the bed, you miss your alarm and are late for work, you step in a ripe dog’s egg on the pavement, it’s all just not happening the way it should and you feel like giving up. Well, our visit to the Genting Salford was a bit like that. You see, we happened to arrive starving and it just had to be the monthly cabaret night in the restaurant, didn’t it ?

The site itself is perfectly pleasant, with a gigantic car park and a rather fancy porte cochere out the front, not to mention a very friendly reception team. However, arriving with a stomach growling like an angry dog meant we were straight into the restaurant area, over to the left as you walk in. We knew something was amiss when the waiter brought over the “cabaret” menu, with a pretty limited three course offer, although at this point all was quiet – it turns out our nemesis was lurking in the back, just having a cup of tea and a sandwich.

We ordered up, while my companion got chatting to the GM – refreshing to see senior management on a Saturday night, at least, and she was chatting away to all the customers. However, when our main courses arrived, things took a turn. Frankly, it was a relentless sonic assault for the next 30 minutes, with various tunes from the last 40 years howled out, at some points in tune and pretty smoothly, at some points sounding like a cat being tortured with a rusty spoon. The volume was deafening, and there was indeed no escape, with no other restaurant seating other than staring right down the barrel. At least it took our mind off the food – I ordered chicken skewers, which were in themselves pretty good but came with rice and virtually no sauce, as well as, mysteriously, chips. Carbtastic. Extra-mysteriously, the cabaret special offer came to £19.92 per person. Answers on a postcard as to why …

Anyway, once the storm had passed and our ears stopped ringing, it transpired to be a pretty nice site. It’s a bit reverse-tardis, in looking bigger on the outside than it is inside, but with eleven tables including a live dice table and a smallish poker area around the side, it had everything you’d want. The slots were the usual mix with some super-up-to-date Dominators (as well as a Fort Knox that paid me out – woo-hoo !) and the Electronic Roulettes were unusually right in front of the main entrance, not that it seemed to stop people playing.

It’s in pretty good order overall, with lots of nice TVs in really rather stylish surrounds, if you like that sort of thing. It’s a little worrying that the cashier is behind glass (but see also the G Salford review) and for some reason they put the cash desk tip box behind the glass too where you can’t get your money into it – I imagine the tips aren’t so good in this site for this reason. Maybe it’s so dodgy people keep stealing the tip box too.

One note from my companion – amazing toilets! Incisive comments as always, thanks for that ….