A brand-new Thai street food buffet restaurant has opened up doors at the Trafford Centre this week.
Thaikhun – pronounced ‘tycoon’ and translating to “your Thai restaurant” – has several branches across the UK, and already has a presence here in Greater Manchester thanks to its popular restaurant in Spinningfields – and now, it’s brought the unique dining concept to the shopping centre’s food court.
Having welcomed its first customers through the doors from yesterday, Thaikhun is aiming to be the first of its kind to offer a Thai street food buffet to shoppers.
“At our first-of-its-kind buffet restaurant, we will offer customers the freedom to make the experience their own by picking exactly what they want and in their own time,” owner Kim Kaewkraikhot told the MEN ahead of the restaurant’s opening.
“We are passionate about providing an excellent quality experience with a combination of top-class food and unrivalled customer service.
Thaikhun is aiming to be the first of its kind to offer a Thai street food buffet to shoppers / Credit: Thaikhun
“Every recipe on the menu can be found at real Thai street vendors and it’s with these authentic touches that we aim to deliver a taste of Thailand to our customers, helping them fall in love with the cuisine, just like we have.
“Whilst the menu will consist of some firm favourites, we are excited to bring a new and exciting spin to Thai dining, with the opportunity for our guests to enjoy a variety of different dishes and flavours every time they visit.”
The 144-cover Thaikhun Trafford Centre restaurant – which opened with a Thai Monk blessing to bring luck, purification, peace and prosperity – is decked out in traditional Thai décor, with tuk tuk tables and boat seats throughout, and even a Buddhist shrine for staff and customers to worship too.
The main menus at the buffet-style restaurant will vary daily / Credit: Thaikhun
Main menus at the buffet-style restaurant will vary daily offering Thai classics, such as Pad Thai, Lamb Massaman and Khao Soi Gai soup, and there’s also a fully-equipped dessert station including a chocolate fountain, ice cream machine, popcorn machine, slush machine.
The restaurant has partnered with food app Too Good to Go to tackle food waste in the city, meaning customers will be able to pre-order and collect a ‘magic bag’ containing food that would have otherwise gone to waste.
“Our attitude is all geared towards creating a fun and inclusive environment for our customers to enjoy great food, and The Trafford Centre will be no different,” Kim concluded.
Featured Image – Thaikhun
Eats
Lively Irish pub Nancy Spains set to open in Manchester for the first time
Daisy Jackson
An Irish bar famed for its live music is heading up to Manchester for the first time, and is promising £2.50 pints to lure us in.
Nancy Spains will be venturing out of London for the first time promising to bring the ‘ultimate traditional Irish pub experience’ to the Northern Quarter.
If you were to ask what the hottest trend in hospitality is right now the answer would, apparently, be Guinness. We’re drowning in the stuff.
This latest opening is more about Murphy’s, another Irish stout, than Guinness (they actually won’t serve Guinness at all) but the craic will be much the same.
Nancy Spains is actually set to open almost directly opposite the aforementioned Salmon of Knowledge, taking over the former Corner Boy unit on Stevenson Square in the heart of Manchester.
To celebrate its opening, the pub will be serving its first 5000 pints of Murphy’s for just £2.50, so that it can show off the atmosphere that’s established it as ‘one of London’s favourite pubs’.
They’re promising an array of Irish whiskeys behind the bar, live music performances, and a lively late-night setting.
Nancy Spains was set up by three brothers who travelled all over their home county of rural Kerry researching Irish pubs, before launching two venues down in London.
They want it to balance a traditional pub with the vibrancy of the city.
Peter O’Halloran, co-founder of Nancy Spains commented, “We’re so excited to be launching in Manchester, bringing Nancy Spains to the heart of the Northern Quarter.
“After the success of our two venues in London, it was only right to bring Nancy Spains’ infectious spirit and Irish pride to Manchester. Slainte!”
Nancy Spains will open its first Manchester pub on Saturday 15 March at 21 Hilton Street.
Lucky Mama’s – The Italian restaurant serving pasta in a dough bowl and ‘pregnant’ pizzas
Daisy Jackson
Lucky Mama’s is a local sensation, thanks to its slightly whacky but delicious Italian creations like pasta served in a bowl made of pizza dough and its latest offering, a ‘pregnant’ pizza.
What on Earth is a pregnant pizza, you ask? Firstly we should stress this is a nickname we’ve bestowed upon the dish, rather than Lucky Mama’s chosen branding.
But essentially it’s a helping of fresh pasta that’s folded into the bubble crust of the pizza, like a half-calzone.
Lucky Mama’s started life when founders Mamadou Dhiam and Gaby Santos set up a trailer in their backyard in Eccles in the depths of lockdown.
But thanks to a formidably loyal following that’s spread the word of Lucky Mama’s far and wide, it now has two pretty pink restaurants in Greater Manchester.
Back in 2022, they threw open the doors to their Chorlton restaurant, before returning back to home turf for spot number two in Monton in 2024.
The recipes are fresh and pretty authentically Italian up until the last step, when they throw a curveball by loading their pasta into unconventional vessels.
‘Pregnant’ pizzas at Lucky Mama’sTraditional Roman pizzasLucky Mama’s pink restaurant in Chorlton
Their pasta pizza bowls are what they’re best known for and they fly out of the kitchen – this is where pizza dough is placed around a metal bowl before being baked in an oven.
Then it’s piled high with freshly made pasta, with popular flavours like cacio e pepe, mushroom alfredo, and rasta pasta.
Pasta is available in a regular ceramic bowl too.
You’ll find Lucky Mama’s at 565 Barlow Moor Road in Chorlton; and 217 Monton Road in Eccles.
Emily Sergeant -
28th September 2021 
