Northern Quarter favourite Tokyo Ramen has finally opened its doors again after more than a year of closure.
The restaurant shut at the beginning of the pandemic and hasn’t reopened since – until now, that is.
Tokyo Ramen kept Manchester ticking over with homemade ramen kits during the successive lockdowns, but now the venue is back bigger and better than before.
And there’s nothing quite like having the real thing in the restaurant.
Fans will be pleased to hear that as well as the return of some old favourites, the team have also spent the period of closure coming up with some brand new menu additions to tempt you back through their doors (as if their return wasn’t enough of a pull on its own).
We’ve got our eyes on a fried chicken ramen bowl that looks absolutely peng, which features Tokyo’s signature chicken bone broth, tan tan tare, Koji fried chicken, kale, a seasoned egg, lime and fermented chilli oil – but there are some other very nice looking options to be found here, too.
New menu additions like the veggie gyozas sit alongside a choice of four different ramen bowls; which include tempting choices like the Sio Ramen (chicken bone broth, sio tare, torched pork belly, seasoned egg, dashi oil and nori) and Shoyu Ramen (chicken bone broth, shoyu tare, torched pork belly, mustard greens, seasoned egg, spring onion oil and nori).
For veggies, there’s also a bowl of Kinoko Ramen consisting of mushroom dashi, miso-mustard tare, roast tomato, tonkatsu pickled shitake, crispy enoki and a seasoned egg with mayu oil.
Tokyo Ramen has reopened after more than 17 months of closureVegetable gyzoa is one of the new menu additions at Tokyo Ramen, which has reopened its doors for the first time in over a year
The team behind the restaurant have also given the interior a little bit of a refresh ready to welcome customers back in full force – and given the rainy weather this weekend, we’re sure there’ll be a queue back outside just like the old days before we know it.
Heed our warning and get down as soon as possible. With the recent temporary closure of neighbouring ramen rival CBRB, Tokyo’s definitely the place to be getting your slurp on in the Northern Quarter right now.
Feature image – The Manc Eats.
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.
Georgina Pellant -
6th August 2021 
