A new pan-Asian street food bar, takeaway and restaurant, is set to open this weekend on Deansgate, but it’s been over 40 years in the making. Suki Suki will be serving up sticky wings, steaming ramens and katsu curries, but bringing with it generations of culinary pedigree.
Raushan Kumar designs advertising campaigns by day, and by night is launching his first restaurant project. But restaurants are in his blood, and this is very much a family affair.
He grew up as the kid ‘underneath the tables, kicking the customer’s legs’ at his dad’s restaurant Namaste Nepal on Burton Road in Didsbury, and his granddad’s place too, the legendary Great Kathmandu, just a few doors down.
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His aunty also owns the award-winning Original Third Eye restaurant in Didsbury Village, and the Wanago street food bar, also on Burton Road, is in the family too.
Now with his dad and his uncle, Suki Suki is set to open on Deansgate, in an archway in the towering Great Northern Warehouse. The menu will be spanning a host of dishes from across Asia.
“There’s influences from Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Thai, my mum’s Filipino, so we’ve got some Filipino food coming soon too,” he told the Manchester Evening News. “And obviously my dad’s Nepalese, so we’ll be bringing in that Nepalese Indian twist later on. We’re planning to change the menu specials up every six months. We’re trying to keep in fresh.”
This means that the likes of adobo stews from the Philippines and momocha dumplings from Nepal will soon be on the menu too, alongside a host of the dishes you’d hope to see on an Asian street food menu.
There are sticky Korean wings, gyozas, ribs and cauliflower wings served up as ‘street bites’, and more substantial ramens, noodle dishes and South Asian curries for more substantial appetites. You can perch at the bar in the window with a beer too, or head upstairs to the seating area, while a terrace at the back will be opening in the summer.
The star of the menu, though, has to be the inspired whole soft shell crab stuffed into a soft bao bun, with sharp pickled vegetables and a spicy mayo.
Family is clearly the cornerstone of this new project, as you’d expect, bringing decades of experience in the food business. His other uncle is even cooking in the kitchen.
“My dad’s really proud, and he’s involved massively,” he went on. “We’ve have that longevity, 40 years with the Great Kathmandu, 20 years with Namaste Nepal, and coming up three years for Wanago. Hopefully we’ll have the longevity here too.”
Suki Suki opens at 227 Deansgate on April 3, and opens from noon, seven days a week.
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