OFTEN it feels as if there's something wrong with Chinatown. It's as if time stood still.
It feels like 1987.
But lift the lid and bubblling away in the stockpot there are secrets, hidden agendas.
Look more closely and it feels like the most exciting place to dine in the city. So bear with me for a few paragraphs...
There are always rumours of The Two Menus.
One of the menus is for 'us', the Westerners and the rest, who are given what we're supposed to like, and the other menu is for 'them', the folk of Chinese origin. It's as though restaurateurs in Chinatown feel we can't take their food in its true form.
One for 'them'
Maybe they think the gweilo are too unsophisticated or, on weekend evenings, too pissed after a night out in low-down bars to go for the complex staples of the mother country.
They may have a point.
One for 'us'
But the restaurants pay a price for their caution. For those who like variety, world cuisine, something new, the British Chinese restaurant has become a place to avoid. It's become a sort of sit-down street corner take-away with higher prices.
Thus Chinatown has found itself in a cycle of diminishing returns, pitching low when by pitching high they could appeal across markets. Chinatown has lost its allure for the creatives, the leaders of the Manchester food field. The area is stagnating and the 'us' part of the market is wondering why we're still reading the same menus twenty-five years after we first sampled them.
So I walk into the Great Wall on Faulkner Street.
I do it twice. First time is with the family and the three boys.
"The Great Wall is the only restaurant you can see from space," I say.
"Good one dad," says the fifteen year old, "I bet that's never been said before."
The place has been around for 17 years on Faulkner Street. For some reason it's one of the few Chinatown places I've never entered - not that I go to Chinatown much these days because of the reasons stated above. Maybe the basement location on the narrow street has put me off, the modest doorway passed before you pause, the momentum taking you on to other destinations.
This time I deviate and with the family, descend. The interior is tired, and very typical, with of course, a large fantasy print of the Great Wall, and good luck banners in red.
The 'Westerner' menu tip toes between Peking and Cantonese food.
The Great Wall's use of the title Peking rather than Beijing is curious: then again loads of Brits still talk in feet and yards almost forty years since decimalisation; and lots of Persian restaurants refuse to call themselves Iranian. I ask about this and apparently the Chinese themselves have no problem with the word Peking, especially when used in relation to cuisine.
Inside, nothing unusual here
We start with, from an insider tip-off, Peking style dim sum pan-fried pork and vegetable dumplings (£3.30) and the Peking pan-fried onion pancake (£2.50).
The dumplings don't disappoint. These are gloriously robust, solid little buggers, more physical than the Cantonese version, and filled with bursting meat and veggie flavours. They are juicy too, and after a brief bath of soy, appreciated by all the family, which frankly doesn't leave me with enough for myself.
Dumpling delight
This is annoying as the three boys have already devoured a plate of deep-fried salt and pepper ribs, (£5.50), again leaving me with just the one. My singleton rib is excellent though, a good amount of meat left moist through the frying and given edge by the salt and the peppers.
The one remaining rib left after the scramble
The pan-fried onion pancake (£2.50) is not my favourite thing. It's sort of interesting and feels worthy. It might be a food you'd wrap up and nibble during a long journey. It's not a thing to fall in love with. But it feels unusual and authentic and for that, welcome.
Spring onion pancake
My main - just mine all mine, and another tip off - is braised oyster with roast bellypork and beancurd casserole (£9.50). Yum, yum, this is a beauty, big and bounteous, with loads of oysters sans shell, fat black mushrooms with the consistency of ribeye steak, beancurd in bundles and slurp-me-up stock. It works well with the rice.
Oyster casserole - three tiimes a week please
Also rans, not a patch as thrilling as the oyster casserole, are the spicy beef Szechuan style (£7.50) and the stir fried pork with curry (£7.50). Both could be on any menu in any of the restaurants nearby.
Pork curry
The handmade Peking noodles with sliced chicken are much better. This comes in a big £8 portion and with those, typical of the region, fat, floury noodles - Beijing area uses much more wheat than the tropical south. The twelve year old attempts the dish and gets about 37.5% of the way through before it's distributed amongst the other males.
Noodle mountain
The twenty-year-old is presented with the Cantonese roast half-duck on the bone for (£7.50), and as a lad who likes his food exclaims, "Yeeeees!" when it comes into view. Again there is a fine juiciness to the bird, nothing frazzled and dry and mean about it. I get a fatty forkful and love it.
Quack, quack of joy
But something is nagging away.
Why does it feel that there is much more somewhere, bubbling under and around? Why does it feel that the more unusual menu items are the best?
So I go back the following day with a friend from the community and this time get a glimpse behind the curtain.
And what damned riches we are being denied on the 'Westerner' menu.
First up is a cold jellyfish dish with translucent grean bean noodle, chicken strips, coriander and chilli (about £7.50 I presume, as the bill wasn't broken down).
My friend mixes it all up, so that in the stock and through the dish there is that coriander lift. Indeed the whole thing is like a gazpacho of gentle but stubborn flavour. It's perfect for summer. The chewy jellyfish component creates texture, it's a dish that is a complete delight.
Jellyfish marvel
Next there comes lush chicken and wood ear fungus, probably the same price as the jellyfish. This again is light, floaty, excellent, with the key being that fungus. This is a bracket fungus that grows off tree trunks and feels, well, er, perfect with a chicken. And it also feels very genuine. And sophisticated, almost elegant.
The best fungus in the land
That's all I have time for on a Monday lunch.
But it feels exciting. I can't wait for a return to The Great Wall for some of this off-menu, what-the-Chinese-eat food.
It gets me thinking too.
The restaurants in Chinatown really need to take a look at themselves.
No other food community does this 'us' and 'them' thing. As a Mancunian I feel insulted that I don't have the opportunity to try this food as standard.
If restaurants are afraid that they may put off the average British diner then all it takes is a simple insert in the 'Westerner' menu with ten or fifteen of these dishes.
Frankly though, I feel their concerns are twenty years out of date.
Yes there are the pissed-up Saturday night people but Britain and its tastebuds have generally moved on, adapted, become more adventurous.
It's time Chinatown caught up, and gave itself a shot in the arm, time it got people talking again.
The best method of achieving this would be through the food. And the good news is they don't even have to change much as they are already cooking the exciting stuff.
But just not for 'us'.
You can follow Jonathan Schofield on Twitter here @JonathSchofield
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Great Wall, 52 Faulkner Street Manchester, M1 4FH
Rating: 15/20 (when the off-menu food was eaten)
Food: 8/10
Service: 4/5
Ambience: 3/5
Pork and veg dumplings
Duck display
