Malaysia - 29/01/09Ning’s catchline is ‘Oriental chic, Northern Quarter charm’. And it combines the best of both. The Northern Quarter has a counter-cultural style of its own, and Ning certainly looks the part with an eye-catching hot-pink-on-black logo mirrored in the underlit wallpaper inside the restaurant. Yet it also flies the flag for the East. Predominantly a Malaysian restauarant, you can also find dishes hailing from Thailand, Singapore and Indonesia. While Thai restauarants are well represented in Manchester, Malaysian ones are not, which made this an intriguing prospect.
I was not entirely sure what to expect from
Malaysian cuisine. Thankfully here the menu at Ning explained what the dishes were, and what they were made of. The meal was further made a painless experience by a special offer menu, which gives you the chance to pick a starter, main course and accompaniment from a cut-down choice for £10.00 all in, or from a slightly wider selection for £12.50.
Drinks vary from pots of green tea (which is what Paul went for) to regional beers. Sadly there were no Malaysian beers, and they were also out of Beer Lao. However, I did discover that Indonesia’s Bintang is a lovely refreshing brew. Much nicer than Anchor from Singapore that I followed it up with.
As starter I chose
Chicken Murtabak – street-food-y pastries of spiced chicken, onion and potato, with a sweet chili dipping sauce. Paul had hot and spicy Tom Yam soup. Bryan had Indonesian Gado Gado salad, a big piled-high heap of salad topped with home-made peanut sauce. One ingredient that all three had in common, and one which I don’t tend to associate with either Thai or Indian dishes, is carrot. I don’t know if this is typical of malaysian food in general, but I found it interesting.
Forgoing beef rendang – the only Malaysian dish I had heard of beforehand – I was tempted by more chicken for my main course.
Masak Merah came in a tomato, onion & chili sauce. I had egg fried rice to accompany it. The masak merah was not hot spicy – it was actually rather mild. Unlike the
Nyonya lime curry that both Paul and Bryan had picked. This had a sharp citric bite and a picquant lemongrass aroma. In my view, the others picked better than I did!
Despite this, all the separate components of my meal were very tasty – and for £12.50 I cannot argue with the price. For four of us it totalled £59.00, including drinks. I’ve already recommended Ning to friends, and I look forward to going again. And in the meantime…? Well, the courses they run in Malaysian cookery look very appetising… See
their website for details.
From journal Around the World in 80 Meals! (part 1)