Neil Sowerby Our latest review venue, Lameizi, upstairs Sichuanese joint off Oxford Road, is in the running for Manchester Food and Drink Awards newcomer of the year. Veteran champion of this spicy cuisine the original Red Chilli is up for restaurant of the year. Neil Sowerby wonders if this really is the Year of the Sichuan Pepper.
Chester Street offers a mixed bag of gastro-units that at first glance seems designed to suck in a discerning quota of the raggedy-arsed young scholars funnelled up and down Oxford Road. The ones who prefer to eat BEFORE squandering their student loan and Saturday job pittance on an excess of booze rather than AFTER. Thatâs what Fallowfieldâs kebab shops are for. I am being unfair. You can, in fact get rather delicious meats on skewers on what so far has been the pick of Chester Streetâs eateries â Zouk. For a place that advertises itself as a Tea Room and Grill, it parades its allegiance to Cobra Beer rather too stridently, but itâs definitely a destination restaurant rather than a ballast experience. Itâs got a terrific high-ceilinged 200-cover buzz to it with accommodating staff and an eclectic menu that works for a wide clientele.
Nandoâs is, well, Nandoâs. Fit for purpose, smothering bland chicken in a perk-it-up piri piri sauce. Whatâs not to offend? Letâs be kind then. Itâs just not special occasion, even if youâre a second year studying geography at Manchester Met. Neighbouring Rice, a locally spawned restaurant which was an occasional fast food lunch fix for me in Piccadilly Gardens, has a shiny new identity here as Rice Flame Bar and Grill that somehow diminishes the mix and match pan-Asian grub it peddles. Which brings us to Lameizi. Weâll get the folklore over with first. In the dialect of Chinaâs westernmost region, Sichuan, La Mei Zi stands for Spice Girls (lasses who tote their own stash of pepper around with them).
I remember queuing with teenage daughters one damp Boxing Day up the road at the old Odeon Cinema (when its ugly shell wasnât a visual boil on Manchesterâs backside) to be the first in for the opening of Spice Girls The Movie. Little did I realise one day Iâd be consuming a frogâs leg starter at a restaurant bearing the bandâs name (though Poshâs pins were a harbinger). OK the Zouk concept was tried and tested in Bradford before it was imported here but Peter Bashir had spotted a gap in the market. I hope the same is true of Yin Lee at Leimizi.
An equivalent feel good vibe hits you as you ascend the staits to the restaurant. Below is a supermarket, stocking authentic Sichuanese ingredients, including the âpremier cruâ? of the tongue-numbing type of pepper that dominates the cuisine not to mention 11 different kinds of chilli. Itâs all part of the conversion of Mr Lee, who already owned a Tameside restaurant serving regulation Hong Kong style food. Heâs Cantonese in origin but with a love of spicy Sichuan food. The success of Red Chilli and its chain rival Red N Hot on the edge of Chinatown obviously convinced him that hiring a chef from Sichuan and spending time on crafting a cool dining space would pay dividends in what Odd/Odder bar chatelaine Cleo Farman dubs the Southern Quarter.
Itâs obvious the moment you start reading the menu that this restaurant really aspires to be the Chengdu Quarter. The presence of pigâs tongue, trotter, tripe, ear, sphincter (OK, I made the last one up), along with tongue of duck, feet of chicken among the starters and options for Hunan hot pot that included pigâs maw (no, I donât know either), chicken gizzards and spicy eels all squealed the kind of hardcore fodder youâd find in the Sichuan capital.
My companion â think of her as Scary Spice, I do â is Chinese but has never been near the distant exotic province that is Sichuan. Still I felt comfortable with her as my guide.
The gastronomic explorer in me was craving to be tested against that final Chinese frontier entitled âit may taste slimy but itâs all about textureâ?. Alas, Mr Lee who helped us through the menu gave us an easy ride. Looking around it was predominantly a Chinese crowd eating in the spacious, quite minimalist interior, marred only by a proliferation of mercifully silent plasma screens. Were they gorging themselves on the âdouble pepper fat endsâ? and the âtasty fish head bowlâ? we were denied? There was texture in two starters. A dish of wood fungus salad (£6.50) was suitably slithery but had deep earthy flavours, while âMouthwatering Sichuan Chickenâ? (£6) offered the chewiness of tendon in a jus combining soy and vinegar. Both starters were more than ample. Like Red Chilli, Lameizi overfaces with the portion size.
Later we barely had room to dip into a vat of Sichuan spicy beef (£9). A shame. The Sichuan peppercorns lurked in the dense ochre pottage like depth charges.
First, though, we shared a plate of grilled skewers. China is the source of most frogâs legs to be found in French restaurants. Piking them off the bone and a stick is fiddly but the flesh was sweet. Brochettes of the restaurantâs own tofu were sabotaged by a dense dusting of spice - primarily cumin. A parade of German sausage meats similarly treated may have been a concession to western tastes. It was dry and unappealing.
Among mains, a fish and vegetable stir-fry was surprisingly bland compared with prawn and squid-laden Shanghai udon noodles (£9) with just the right kick of spice to it.
We drank jasmine tea throughout the meal (I didnât see a wine list, soya milk is complimentary) in what had been in some ways too restricted a dining experience by which to judge a potential award. Perhaps I was seduced by poetry of the dishes mentioned in this cuisineâs great primer, Fuchsia Dunlopâs Sichuan Cookery â Ants Climbing A Tree, Fire-exploded Kidney Flowers and Pockmarked Ladyâs Tou Fu (the last one, by the way, is available at Red N Hot). There may be a more authentic poetry of taste lurking in Lameiziâs workaday rather makeshift menu. Next time, and there will be, Iâm going to order myself some of the more outre dishes and test the kitchenâs mettle.
Lameizi, The Quadrangle, Chester Street. Tel: 0161 228 0688.
