ONCE a year the streets of Manchester's Chinatown are laced with red lanterns and giant dragons to celebrate lunar New Year. This year was the Ram’s turn and St Ann's Square played host to the festival which included explosive art, the dragon parade, food stalls and a magnificent light show.
The beef pho, a deliciously warm noodle broth that had Gordo wanting to don his speedos and dive into, felt very authentic.
On the night Confidential found themselves venturing out to the close suburbs of Manchester, to the battle cruiser restaurant and bar that is Vermilion and Cinnabar, serving up a variety of Asian cuisine instead.
Vermillion were launching the beginning of their Guestrant street food series. A concept which is becoming very popular in and around the city where established chefs are invited to take over kitchens of a current restaurant. This is a great way for giving the full time brigade a look at what else is going in the world and young chefs a chance to show their wares.
We were particularly interested when we heard that those cheeky scamps over at the queue boasting and MFDF Award winning food stall Viet Shak were to be kicking off the series.
Nelson Lam, aka 'Mr. Shack' and his gang donned their aprons to cater for a sold out event, showcasing five dishes of home cooked Vietnamese nosh.
We tucked in to the infamous King prawn summer roll with what Gordo described as, "Arguably the best Satay sauce in Manchester" - beef wrapped in betel leaves which I could quite happily have scoffed around 100 of, followed by a fragrant and zesty chicken salad.
The beef pho, a deliciously warm noodle broth that had Gordo wanting to don his speedos and dive into, felt very authentic. We finished off with a baked pan-dan with lime crumble and lemongrass ice cream. If you missed them this time, keep an eye on Viet Shak's Twitter feed where they will be doing similar things in the near future.
The Guestrant series will be showcasing a variety of other street food vendors who we have been getting to know rather well over the recent months including Nasi Lemak, Chaat Cart, Levenshulme market's very own superstar Dim Sum Su, and MasterChef cook Janet Kearney's The Hungry Gecko. You can book for these on the restaurants Facebook page (click here).
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