Good vibes: Manga Banga is themed for the famous Japanese comics
(Picture: Daniel Hambury/Stella Pictures Ltd)Pride comes before a fall — or in my case, being mugged two nights on the bounce. I know what you’re thinking: some guys have all the luck. Landing from Corfu last Monday, pleased to be browned and with a freshly-detoxed liver, the night after I had a watch torn from my wrist. No harm done, really, but the next afternoon I headed for a cheering-up lunch, left a Soho club at eight o’clock, and was swiftly clobbered by a movie heavy who nicked another watch, knocked the stuffing out of me and then took off with that too. Oh, and he did a thing to my eye that means I’ve had to keep telling people in pubs that I’m not about to ask them for money.
I’ve chalked up my disappeared tan to him for good measure. But, well, I’ve had worse runs. And while the Met were actually very good, friends have been astonishing. There have been offers of tea, beer, wine, limoncello, margaritas, Martinis; some taken, some not. Packages turned up unbidden: Panzer’s Deli, Five Guys, Amorino. I ate at the French House (a favourite), the expert El Pastor, the rackety Firebird, and Bellamy’s — where it’s impossible to feel unsafe (a man on the table next to ours insisted that I take his painkillers, which gives you the measure of the place. No wonder the Queen eats there). And then there has been the thoughtful outpouring of threats of retribution on my behalf, drill bits through the knuckles and so on. People can be so sweet sometimes.
Restaurants and friends have been a comfort, and fun on a week when fun seemed improbable. And so to Manga Banga on Lisson Grove, which is my local manga izakaya. What do you mean, you don’t have one? Manga-themed restaurants — that is to say, spots decorated in the style of those Japanese comics that quiet, nervous types swear blind aren’t porn — seem to be popping up in London, with Uzumaki opening in Bloomsbury just a fortnight ago. And izakayas (which are Japanese pubs, not something manufactured by Suzuki) are all the rage. They’re everywhere.
Except, not really. Certainly there are plenty of openings presently claiming to be an izakaya, but they’re playing make-believe, hoping the schtick will make them seem relaxed, not somewhere where staff sneer at diners’ shoes. Not Manga Banga. It’s a full-blown, fill-the-stomach-up gaff, one for a few beers and a decent bite and heading out into the night (though what actually happened on the Saturday I went in, of course, is that I left my flat at seven and was back by nine in order to put an ice pack on my face and watch John Travolta movies). But I know those places, where liveliness rumbles. I’ve a radar for them.
And so at Manga Banga, where the walls are covered in cartoons and comic book covers and fairy lights flash irritatingly, there’s lots of drinking food that tastes broadly the same, but is broadly pretty good.
Couples and groups of howling mates come and go at record speed, laughing as dishes are sprinted to the table. Everything has chilli on it, and salt, and garlic is a guest-star on most plates. Banga banga cauliflower is a bowl to be devoured, soft and gently spicy; panko prawns are crunchy straws of pink fleshy fish, still with plenty of spring in them. Kara-age chicken wings, the deep-fried sort, are slathered winningly with a thick mayo of lemon and the by-now legally-mandated garlic and chilli.
We wonder why there are chopsticks; this is a place for fingers and a stack of napkins a sake bottle high. But then comes the aubergine, cooked softly into a dreamy cushion of miso, especially gorgeous and a sign that there’s a bit of know-how behind those kitchen doors. Know-how evidently on a cigarette break when the tuna tacos were put together, given these resembled in both presentation and taste marshmallow pink ‘n’ whites.
Not a mind-boggling, tongue-rattling restaurant, perhaps, but lately I’ve had enough of boggling and rattling. It was fun, kind and a comfort. The restaurant, I mean. But plenty of you, too.
