It is always really interesting when a new pop up arrives, but it is even more exciting when you have tried both places separately before! Zumu, who have a restaurant in Hale (review here) have arrived at Dive in the Northern Quarter (review here) to bring their Asian street food to the late night NQ haunt. You can still find wing Wednesdays, but they’ve added a little flair to proceedings.
My friend is pregnant so we steered away from the colourful sushi, but to be fair I had a major sushi feast when I visited their main site in Hale. It was a great excuse to try something different from their menu and we shared a few starters – the Bao Down Platter and the Duck Gyoza.
The platter includes chilli squid, a pork bao bun, kamikaze wings, and salt & pepper fries. It is a great way to try more than one dish from the menu and it was a good starter size between 2 people. The name ‘kamikaze’ feels like they should be hot and spicy but the sauce is really tasty with a good salty sweet taste. The chips are incredibly moreish and, once again, not too spicy. The bao bun is fluffy and light, as they should be, although I think for 2 sharing there should be 2 buns really. We cut it in half so it wasn’t a huge issue but we would have enjoyed more, as it was a good bao!
The duck gyoza were also really good. The filling was rich and not too sweet, which meant when dunking the crispy pastry into the sticky, sweet sauce the flavours were heightened rather than drowned in sweetness.
We picked at those salt and pepper fries far too much that by the time our mains arrived, we had very little room left. We gave them a good go though, I was wooed by my Thai favourite Pad Thai and my friend went with the Teriyaki Beef.
The pad thai was really good, one of the best I have had since leaving Thailand and that is saying something. Lots of chicken and large plump prawns was mixed with plentiful noodles, a delicious sauce and topped with chopped peanuts. My only feedback would be that I’d have liked a little pot of chilli flakes the way it is served in Thailand but it genuinely didn’t need it. I’ll be heading back for my pad thai fix regularly, that’s for definite. My friend enjoyed the teriyaki beef too, the meat wasn’t tough, which is really difficult to achieve sometimes with beef dishes. There was more sauce than she was expecting and she thought it would be stickier but the flavours were there and the extra sauce helped to make the rice juicy.
For a late night bar, it is lovely to see a decent menu and there are regular offers if you are pinching the pennies after a hectic summer.
THE DEETS
Zumu Asian Street Food at Dive Bar, Tib Street/Oldham Street, Northern Quarter, Manchester, M4 1SH.
I was invited to dine at Zumu Street Food as a guest and was not asked to pay for my meal.
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