A recently opened street food dining hall in the city centre has just added a highly divisive dessert to its menu. Hello Oriental, Manchester’s underground three-storey food hall and market, has introduced durian fruit ice cream to its roster, a fruit that is perhaps best known for its memorable smell.
The fruit, which is grown in Indonesia, Malaysia and southern Thailand, is so pungent that it’s been banned from subways in Singapore. It’s been described as evoking everything from “dead cats” to “pig s***, turpentine and onions”.
While the smell alone would put most people off, it does in fact have many fans, which is why Hello Oriental has decided to stock the “divisive” dessert. It is said that once you get past the smell, you’ll find it to be one of the most addictive flavours to cross your tastebuds.
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Located just off Oxford Road, around the corner from Hatch, Hello Oriental is the new one-stop shop for Chinese and Vietnamese food. Situated on the newly minted ‘Symphony Park’ development on Circle Square, the concept was created by popular local Chinese restaurant Ocean treasure.
The venue has been inspired by operations including hipster hangout 1800 Lucky in Miami, as well as the Bang Bang Oriental food hall in North London. Spread over three floors it boasts a modern food hall, a supermarket stocking specialty produce, a Vietnamese restaurant, and a Asian-inspired bakery.
Recently described as a ‘northern powerhouse’ by The Sunday Times food critic Marina O’Loughlin during her visit to Manchester, it serves up everything from Chinese roasts, delicious dim sum, hot pho, baos and healthy summer rolls. Signature street food dishes at Downtown Oriental span the tonkatsu soft shell crab burger and downtown loaded fries to katsu curry chicken fries and sourdough prawn toast.
The new durian ice cream will join its highly Instagrammable lineup of soft serve ice creams served in teddy bear-shaped cones and Taiyaki - a Japanese fish-shaped cake. For those that like to keep it simple when it comes to ice cream, vanilla is available, but for something a bit more interesting there’s also ube, mango, matcha, and even charcoal vegan.
Hello Oriental is open 8am-10pm every Monday to Friday, 10am-12am on Saturdays and 10am-10pm on Sundays. The new durian ice cream variety will be available every Saturday and Sunday, though be warned, it always sells out.
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