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Top Wok Central

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MichaelJM
MichaelJM
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3 out of 5
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1
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Top Wok central

  • April 23, 2008
  • Rated 3 of 5 by MichaelJM from Nottingham, England
Top Wok central

Sometimes I’ll start the day with a clear sense about what I want to eat at night. Today was one of those days when I was fixed on having a Chinese meal. Indeed, I was even clearer, I was going to eat Sweet and Sour, specifically Chicken. So having checked into my hotel I headed off to China Town to peruse the menus and decide on the best restaurant. This is always a little bit random because without a recommendation you’re only left with a feeling about whether or not a restaurant is going to be good enough.

I’m not sure what it was that “drew me to the Top Wok”. It really didn’t look much different to many of the other establishments in China Town and it was almost impossible to use my other measure of ensuring that the place had other diners. I walked up the short flight of stairs, past the two stone lions guarding the route, and entered the restaurant. It wasn’t huge (no more than 50 places I’d guess), but there were already a dozen diners at the tables. It was clean and crisp and I was confident that the meal would be satisfactory. A young male waiter greeted me and, grabbing handful of handful of recipes, he escorted me to a table.

The menus turned out to be really confusing offering too many choices. Not something I’d normally complain about! The a la carte was soon discarded as my knowledge of Chinese food is not detailed enough for me to successfully navigate my way round the multiple choices. Having dispensed with one I was still left with another three menus and a drinks menu. I decided to go with the easy one first and settled down to check out the drinks menu. There was a decent choice of wine, but I happily turned my attention to the beers. I noted that there were a couple of draft beers and one of these I recognised from a holiday in Hong Kong. That was the one to go for and I ordered a pint of Sunlik Beer, which at £2.80 didn’t seem like bad value. I hardly turned my attention to the food menu when a female waitress beamingly delivered my pint of beer. I supped a little and returned to the subject of food.

There were three separate menus detailing the “set menu” options. Some were easy to deal with as they were only served to two or more people, but I was still left with three options. The “eat as much as you can manage” for £10 and then a couple of set menus for £6.95 and £9.50. I could hardly tell the difference between the two and sought advice from the waiter. Apparently the main difference was quantity and he actually suggested I chose the cheaper of the two as he was sure it would provide with more than enough food. Never before has anyone suggested I choose a cheaper option so I happily went with his advice.

A large bowl of crackers with a tasty dip arrive first quickly followed by a steamingly hot bowl of chicken and sweet corn soup. This was typically Chinese with almost indistinguishable thin strips of chicken, loads of sweet corn and a liquid with a resemblance to dishwater. It was tasty enough it just looked un-inviting!

The second course was great with a selection of seaweed, sesame seed bread, spring roll, spare ribs. The seaweed wasn’t hot but the rest was too hot to handle and having burnt my fingers on the spare ribs I decided to sit back and drink a little beer before trying it again. All were superbly tasty and I took my time savouring all the differnt flavours and enjoys the various textures of the dishes. But nothing lasts for ever and by the time I'd finished this course I'd also consumed all my beer. So when the Sweet and Sour Chicken and egg fried rice arrived I ordered another Sunlik beer.

Once again there was plenty of food and despite the fact that I'd been considering Sweet and Sour throughout the day (that's a sad outcome of eating a less than saitisfactory lunch) i was not disappointed. The chicken was nice and tender and there was plenty of rice to soak up the beautifully glazed sauce. This was a meal that I thoroughly enjoyed and although it wasn't included in the meal I ordered a variety of ice creams (a scoop mint, chocolate and vanilla to be precise).

The desert was of course to cleanse the palate!

I was really well looked after in the Top Wok central with attentive but not obtrusive front of house staff. I was amused by the sounds of "Big Ben" ringing out from the kitchen everytime that a meal was prepared for collection, but I seemed to be on my own with that one. Perhaps that's one of the perils of lone dining - small things amuse or distract.

I would certainly recommend Top Wok central
to the visitor to Manchester. It offers the chance of a good quality cheap meal served in pleasant surroundings.

But will I return?

Probably not as there are too many other places to try out!

From journal Manchester and Its China Town

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