Late Night Noodles in NQ – Cocktail Beer Ramen + Bun

It’s not only fast food as a late night snack anymore!

Getting tired of always having McDonald’s or kebabs after drinking late at night? Why not have a change and have some ramen and a bun instead? S found this place at the edge of Northern Quarter which is just in front of the Fress Restaurant and Eat New York. The sign of the restaurant was subtle but it doesn’t mean it’s easy to miss. With the transparent French windows you can see the inside of the restaurant clearly.

The interior is simple and quite spacious. There are different sizes of table arrangements which can be suitable for various party sizes. The bar section is quite big considering it takes over almost half of the room in the restaurant. The staff were friendly and nice, and checked on S’s table frequently throughout the meal.

The food menu is simple, everything is on a page of A4 paper. As for the drinks menu, there are more choices, and you can check out more with their staff for the seasonal options. The items S tried that day were Tonkotsu(£12), Nagoya(£13.5) with two buns of Kara-age chicken and Korean steak(£8.5).

The bun they use here is from the famous Taiwanese local street food; Gua bao. As for the chicken here, it was cooked Kara-age style which is a Japanese cooking technique for various foods, but mostly chicken. Furthermore, the gochujang from the gochujang mayo is a type of Korean chilli paste. Therefore, you can taste 3 different features from 3 countries in this dish. The bun was so soft and puffy, it felt it could melt in your mouth without chewing. The chicken was tasty but it was not as juicy as S expected from kara-age chicken.

S really enjoyed this bun with Korean steak, kimich and gochujang mayo. The bun was nice and soft like the other one. The most important part was that the kimchi and gochujang mayo went really well together with the steak. Furthermore, the steak was super tender and the portion was pretty generous. If S has to choose a bun to order, S would definitely recommend the Korean steak one.

The “Tonkotsu” here means “pork bones” in Japanese. The naming of this ramen is because the soup broth is rendered from pork bones. The charsu was more firm than S expected. Furthermore, there was some crackling in it which it’s quite different compared to the original tonkotsu ramen. Overall, this dish was delish!

Nagoya is actually a place in Japan, and Nagoya ramen is actually from Taiwan. It combines the minced pork and chilli flavour which are from Taiwanese noodles dish with the Japanese ramen. Moreover, the restaurant used gochujang with the broth which gave this dish a bit of Korean flavour! Overall, S would recommend this dish because S loves spicy food. But you don’t need to worry, the dish is not too spicy but has a nice kick to it.

In conclusion, this place is definitely worth a visit. Especially with the lunch deal which you can get £10 for ramen and a bun. Moreover, if you use the Dealer App, it also has 25% off for food when you visit here at the certain time frame! Download the app and enter referral code SAMANTHA63 and we can both earn 10 points which can be spent on free food at any venue!

Restaurant info:
Address: 101-103 Oldham St, Manchester M4 1LW
Opening hours: Mon. 5pm-2am; Tue. 12pm-12am; Wed.- Sun. 12pm-2am;
Site: https://www.facebook.com/cocktailbeerramenbun/