Manchester, Chinese Restaurant Guide

“High-end traditional Chinese cuisine at its best” and “exceptional service” win a chorus of praise for Wing Shing Chu’s smart city-centre Cantonese, which has welcomed millions of pounds-worth of United and City players, their WAGs and other celebs through its doors over the past two decades.

“Still smashing it after all these years: there’s no better dim sum to be had in MCR” – that’s the view, particularly of some of our most consistent reporters, on Harry & Bonnie Yeung’s famous Chinatown destination: they say it’s still “on balance probably the best up-market Chinese restaurant in the north of England and deservedly popular for its dim sum and banquets”. And “closer to its roots than Manchester’s other ‘high end’ oriental places – cheaper Chinatown eating houses come close to equalling it, but lack its long-term consistency”. So to such supporters “it’s a mystery why it seems more quiet nowadays when in the past, you had to queue down the stairs”. But undoubtedly it takes more flak these days, from some who comment on its “faded glory” and “rather flat and dull” dishes – negative feedback that pulls it down from the 5/5 food rating that it enjoyed for so long. But we will leave the last word to a lifelong regular: “I have been eating the Yeung family’s cooking since they worked for Charlie Chan at the ‘San Ho’ and while there have been highs, even higher highs, and one or two meals that were merely above-average, I cannot remember anything that was disappointing over the years, except as judged by the very highest standards”. Top Menu Tip – “shredded mooli pastries have the lightest flakiest pastry I’ve ever come across, and how they get such flavour out of mooli is verging on the alchemical”.

“Just a great Chinese restaurant (and a Manchester institution)” – this Cantonese basement operation in the heart of Chinatown was the first of the Yang Sing group to open, 40-odd years ago, and still wins good ratings all round, particularly its “tremendous food”.

“One of the few places left where the dim sum still comes on trolleys”, this “buzzing and handy” Cantonese has more than 300 dishes on the menu and is upstairs from the Wing Yip Oriental supermarket. The name strikes an unintentional ironic note – “it’ll always be an eating hangar, but the quality seems to have taken an uptick”.

An “adventurous menu” of “authentic, flavoursome and very Chinese food” – best of all Sichuanese dishes with a real kick – makes this Chinatown spot “well worth a visit”. It has siblings near the university in Oxford Road, in Leeds and York.