IT seems like only yesterday I was celebrating our Ashes triumph with England bowling legend Ted Stump over roast beef at The White House, Prestbury. But that was the summer of '05. As distant as some Edwardian Golden Age now. For cricket lovers, the past months, culminating in the World Cup debacle, have been all sackcloth and ashes.

In the wake of coach Duncan Fletcher's consignment to cricket history, what better than another chinwag (his phrase) with 'Ted the Terror' in Mr Thomas's Chop House?

It's so reassuring with its promise of hearty comfort food; so redolent of more expansive times with its green faience tiling and framed mock Edwardian/Victorian mugshots (a rogue's gallery of current Manchester faces decked out in period garb, the waiflike fishwife's a particular pal).

I'd not eaten there since the kitchen started serving dinner in addition to long lunch. A rubicund Ted appeared not to have neglected dinner much in the 20 months since our last taste test and his swift choice of smoked cod and haddock fishcake followed by Mr Thomas's home-made steak and kidney pudding revealed a man for whom the nouvelle world of froths and foams, jus and garnish, is as alien as a dodgy umpire in Islamabad.

"Weren't you tempted, coach-in-waiting, to come out of retirement to knock Freddie and the lads back into shape?'' was my opening delivery, which he parried with an impeccably straight bat.

"Didst know, lad, that the skipper of the England team that lost to Australia at the Oval in 1882, creating 'the Ashes' was your fellow Blackburnian - Monkey Hornby?''

"Of course, Ted, and I can quote the most famous cricket poem that features him. It was by that vagrant, Catholic, consumptive opium addict, Francis Thompson - from Preston, naturally! 'As the run stealers flicker to and fro, Oh my Hornby and my Barlow long ago'.''

That trumped the Stump... and the hovering waiter, fishcakes and risotto in hand, was quite agog. The fishcakes (£5.50) were a surprisingly delicate appetiser, subtly smoked flakes in crisp crumb, cut by a sharp lemon and caper butter. Bit wholeseome, but tasty.

My Most-Excellent Whitby crab risotto (they do go in for this Good Old Days-style rodomontade, along with chalked copperplate exclamations on blackboards) was, well, most excellent. For £9.50, as a starter, it should be, retorted frugal Ted, who still hasn't spent the lion's share of his record Benefit trove.

Al dente

Dense shellfishy stock, rice just al dente, pocked with a mix of brown and white crabmeat, topped with deep-fried cockles, lubricated with butter, lemon and parmesan, it was an unctuous, cardiac-inducing treat. But live dangerously, fellow moustachioed subalterns, we leave for the Western Front at dawn! Oops, bit over the top. Thomas's time warp interior has this effect on you.

After an over-assertive glass of Yalumba viognier (£7.65) from South Australia ("I skittled their middle order with four in five in '59''), we took on a glass of claret each for the main courses (Chateau Tresquots, £9.65). It was young and tannic, smelling of pencils, but opened out nicely.

Most of the mains came with the menu endorsement of 'Mr Thomas's' and 'Home-Made' and my Corned Beef Hash was further burdened with 'The Famous', in this case deservedly.

Corned beef is traditionally a piece of brisket cured or pickled in a seasoned brine. The corn in corned beef refers to the "corns'' or grains of coarse salt used to cure it. Thomas's melt-in the-mouth version (£12.95) is 10 days in the making, to a secret recipe. For its comfort food chutzpah, it deserved to fail but, over-salty smoked bacon topping apart, it was a triumph.
Mind you, I needed a sleep when I got home after wolfing the lot, sautéed potatoes and poached egg included.

Ted's dish (£11.95) was heartier still but less satisfying, a sticky wicket of a steak and kidney pudding. Kidney dominated a slightly stringy steak cut, the suet pud carapace resistant even to the ample jug of gravy. Disgruntled Ted wished he had gone for the `the Most Pictorial Pan-Fried Goosnargh Duck' (perhaps it came in a sepia frockcoat?).

Hazelnut

For £4.95, rhubarb and hazelnut crumble with ice cream with vanilla bean ice cream was my perfect nursery dessert. Ted padded away pud in favour of a glass of Aussie Shiraz - "as substantial as a Tim Boon bar bill''.

By this time he was recounting his own Test exploits to a waiter who had only come over to check our coffee requirements. You know the classic one: Ted locking horns with the Kiwi twins, Ned and Nat Bump, wicketkeeper and off-spinner, in that ill-fated final Test in Wellington. As Brian Johnston so memorably put it: "Amazing, it's a case of Stump stumped Bump bowled Bump.''

That'll be two double espressos, then.

I didn't dare tell Lanky diehard Ted that Chop House Svengalis Steve Pilling and Roger Ward, as well as planning a third (modern) branch in Manchester's Spinningfield development (it should be Mr Freddie's), are shortly to open a branch in Leeds, too. Mr Tyke's Chop House, Seth's Chop House? Treachery, lads.

Seriously, though, these are establishments to be cherished. Perhaps, even after the sensitive refurb, dining in Mr Thomas's barrel-vaulted, tiled tunnel is a bit like sheltering from the Blitz in Hampstead tube station, little comfort coming from a dull cask ale selection (Boddies, Black Sheep and poor down-in-the world Bass). The wine list is justly celebrated, but on occasions the red wine has been too warm, cooked even, the white wine not chilled enough.

As a dining space I prefer the back rooms at stablemate Sam's, where you are less likely to be distracted by one of those passing-through Blue Badge tour guides pontificating at fact-hungry Scandinavians.

Mr Thomas's Chop House, 52 Cross Street, Manchester (0161 832 2245, tomschophouse.com). Tweet