Is it time for Rusholme to shake off its Curry Mile tag?

It’s a question we pondered at the weekend as the number of predominantly Pakistani, Bangladeshi and Indian curry houses that Wilmslow Road was famous for in the 1990s and early 2000s have dwindled, with a growing cluster of Arabic and Middle Eastern restaurants adding to the melting pot.

Far from being misty-eyed about the past, several locals I spoke to there raved to me about backstreet gems like Lebanese bakery and sweet shop The Pastry House and the shawarma and kebab shops hidden away off the high street.

Kurdistan was a name that kept cropping up. Luke Cowdrey, one half of the team behind The Refuge restaurant at the Principal Hotel and West Didsbury’s Volta, also recommended it when we asked some of the city’s top chefs and restaurateurs their favourite places to eat .

The Kurdish canteen is halfway down Grandale Street, marked out by a sign in the red, white, green and golden sunburst of the region’s flag.

Inside, black and white photographs of the area, which straddles the borders of Turkey, Syria, Iraq and Iran, taken in the 1970s hang on the walls. I don’t know how long it’s been open, but it looks like forever.

Inside, a group of men sit having their lunch, watching the boxing. I feel like I’ve accidentally wandered into someone’s kitchen.

The tables are covered with a kaleidoscopic, wipe-clean foil pattered with bright pink roses, with a vase of day-glo fabric flowers adding to the assault on my eyes. It’s the kind of kitsch that wouldn’t look amiss in some Northern Quarter pop-up. Here, it’s entirely without irony.

I take a seat and a bowl is plonked down in front of me.

“Soup,” the guy behind the counter offers. The welcome isn’t so warm but this comforting lentil and chicken broth is.

A handful of chicken and lamb dishes, mainly kebabs, are pictured on a laminated menu. I choose lamb quzi, huge hunks of slow-cooked meat that slips from the bone onto a generous mound of pilaf laced with sweet bursts of sultana and scattered with noodles.

Two more bowls of soup turn up too, one a thin and slightly sour tomato broth bulked out by sticky okra, the other thick and earthy with butter beans - both a hearty and homely accompaniment to the lamb.

A huge flatbread, pillowy at the edges and blistered and crisp in the middle, comes too, and finally a plate of salad.

It’s an embarrassment of food for one person's lunch - and at just £7.50 with a drink for the lot, it’s the cheapest of cheap eats.

Of course, that comes at the expense of a few things: the shabby decor, the no-frills service and, last year at least, its hygiene rating . It scored one star (major improvement necessary) for its systems and checks during its last assessment in May 2016, although its general cleanliness and hygiene were deemed satisfactory.

It hasn’t been reinspected since, but the kitchen looks clean and orderly enough behind the counter when I visit. Nothing causes me any qualms, but the rating is enough to put plenty of people off.

Low scores on the doors are a problem that has plagued Rusholme in the past, and establishments like this still have some work to do to win back visitors’ trust in the Curry Mile.

But the Rusholme you think you know is definitely a more diverse place than it was a decade ago, with some diamonds in the rough to discover - if you’re prepared to veer out of your comfort zone.