Wasabi Sushi & Noodle Bar, Manchester

Another flying visit to Manchester last week,  I was in the mood for noodles so headed to Chinatown. I was on the hunt for a hidden gem, I'm sure there must be more of them like this place, but it's tricky spotting them without prior knowledge. A lot of the restaurants are either above or below ground level, or don't have full menus on display, or have interesting things listed only in Chinese characters.

I ended up in Wasabi by default really. Menu on display in English - check. Something I want to eat listed - check. I can see inside and it looks ok for a quick solo meal - check. My expectations weren't particularly high so I was pleasantly surprised.

Seating downstairs is at the revolving sushi bar where just £8.50 will get you a bowl of rice or noodles and any three plates from the belt. I chose plates of salmon and mackerel nigiri, and a plate of edamame beans. I'm no sushi expert, I've never eaten really top notch sashimi, but both the salmon and mackerel seemed pretty good to me. Fresh and clean tasting, really good with generous quantities of pickled ginger. Certainly a cut above the high street sushi packs and cheaper too.

Roast pork ramen also hit the spot flavour-wise but was let down a little by the noodles. The broth was light but packed an intense umami punch. Really savoury and more-ish. The roast pork was tender and tasty and the sliced egg and wobbly tofu were welcome additions. Just the noodles weren't quite up to the job, being either overcooked or poor quality, they lacked bite and disintegrated all too readily.

A good find, I'd definitely eat at Wasabi again. The set meals are fantastic value, you could dine very well for less than a tenner if you drink water. I didn't, having a beer and tea, but still paid a more than reasonable £14 including a tip for the very friendly service.

7/10

63 Faulkner Street
Manchester
M1 4FF

www.wasabisushi.co.uk

Sesame, Leeds

I was confident there’d be somewhere good to grab lunch up at the financial/legal/office end of town. Surely those hungry workers couldn’t all be satisfied with Tesco Express or Starbucks. It was starting to look that way until I chanced upon Sesame.

It's a little corner café and takeaway just off Park Square, the focus is on sushi, salads and noodle soups but I spotted there was a Friday special - a fishfinger sandwich for £3.

It was £3 well spent, a very good sandwich. I don’t think the fishfingers were home-made, but they were a cut above the average frozen effort, the crumb crispier, the fillet chunkier. There were also a generous three of them in there.

Combined with decent tartare sauce, salad and very good bread and you’ve got an excellent sarnie. It’s funny how you often don’t much notice the bread when eating sandwiches. Bad bread, cheap and nasty or stale stands out a mile, but average bread just passes me by as I home in on the fillings. It’s that average bread that tends to be the norm, so when you eat a sandwich made with genuinely good, well-made bread you suddenly realise what you’ve been missing. I do anyway.

I chose granary but rather than the open textured slightly dry stuff you might expect this was closer textured, slightly chewy and with a lightly glazed crust and a delicious mild, yeasty flavour. A proper sub roll I guess you’d call it, reminiscent of the rolls used for the sausage butties at the excellent Barbakan Deli over the hills in Chorlton.

The bread at Sesame was advertised as being from Thierry Dumouchel, a French baker and patissier based in Garforth. I’ve heard of him before but this was the first time I’ve sampled his bread. A trip to Garforth beckons.

Service was quick and friendly, even though they were very busy. Great stuff. I'll be back to give the noodle soups and sushi a try.

8/10

18 St Paul’s Street
Leeds
LS1 2LE

http://www.ilovesesame.co.uk/