Everyone has a bad night every now and then. The Gaijin Dumpling House had one the other night, it’s just a shame that when restaurants have one, it’s with a room full of people who want feeding. Hungry can turn to hangry pretty quick, a pressure that is rather unique to the hospitality business, and an unenviable one at that.
This new-ish place on the strip in Levenshulme opened last Christmas, and has been getting chatted about plenty for its fresh dumplings and a dish called Lamb on Crack - slow, six-hour-braised lamb ribs, rubbed to within an inch of their lives with spice and then served on top of french fries. What more is there in life than that?
When we arrive, we’re told that it’s off the menu. I’m pretty gutted, to be honest, but try to be a grown up about it, which is difficult at the best of times. Sadly, that wasn’t the only thing to go a bit wrong, and while picking holes in a small business trying to make a go of it isn’t any fun at all - it’s awful - things need a bit of work here.
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I’ll get it all out of the way as quickly as I can. We had to wait more than half an hour for our table, despite having booked, and then had a seriously long wait for any food to arrive. As did everyone else in the place, the sense of gathering tension becoming pretty palpable. Basically, we found the limit to the amount of time you can play ‘guess which celebrity I’m thinking of’ with two kids (it’s about an hour).
If things are going wrong in the kitchen - and you could see it unfolding as just a handful of orders started stacking up at the pass - communication is your friend. Don’t let people start to get grumpy. Read the room, pre-empt it and start speaking to people to let them know what’s going on. Offer a drink on the house, or cheaper still in Gaijin’s case, a bowl of prawn crackers to soften the blow. This did not happen, and it’s half an hour before it’s even acknowledged that our order is running late, but we’d guessed that already.
Other people who came in after us are served before us. Water is brought round and poured like at a posh restaurant, but the glasses are kind of small, so we’re always running out. Just leave a jug on the table. The table we’re on is comically wobbly, so we ask to move - seriously, that table in the back left booth is not working, so if you’re offered it, ask for another, it’ll drive you mad. The little things add up.
The place seats about 20 people, so with three people in the kitchen and one out front, that should be ample - I’ve seen places with one person in the kitchen handle numbers like this - but still they struggle. A guy comes in for a takeaway, and he’s standing waiting for an uncomfortably long time. I feel bad for him. Maybe he feels bad for us too.
Dishes do then arrive, and we’re told there’s a new chef and things are going slower than usual, something that should have been mentioned when we arrived over an hour earlier. We’re told we’ve got a bigger portion of squid than usual, but it doesn’t look particularly large, and that’s pretty much the sum total of the acknowledgement that perhaps tonight’s experience has been ‘suboptimal’ so far.
For the upside, the food is fine. The Typhoon Shelter Squid (great name, and £8,50) is crisp, though maybe a slightly gussied up dipping sauce could be employed to set this place apart. Sprinkling chilli on regular mayo is a missed easy win.
The Mee Goreng chicken katsu (£12) is OK, but the Mancunian bao buns (£11.50) - fried, almost battered chicken rather than panko-style, with sticky, too-sweet chilli sauce, are just a bit flat. Deflated, which is a bit like how I feel having come in really wanting to love this place.
The dumplings are exemplary, however. The shrimp har kau (£11), served in a generous puddle of HK sauce and chilli oil are delicious - not the cookie cutter shape you get frozen from the Chinese supermarkets (which are also delicious, to be fair), these look expertly crafted. It’s a handsome bowl and they’re devoured. The chicken and prawn wantons (£11) are also faultless.
Restaurants are held to an impossible standard, and while that’s not fair, that’s just how it is, and who has the time, money or inclination to give a place multiple swings at the plate? Judging by the generally great reviews online, this was a bad night. Would I go back? There are so many other places to try - even locally, like Cibus over the road, and the Paratha Hut further down Stockport Road, serving hot parathas from a cabin in the corner of a car wash.
So perhaps not, no. And that’s the brutality faced by restaurants all the time, every day. People come in, they don’t have the best time of their lives, and they never come back and you’ll probably never find out why. Or they come in, have a pretty good time - even a great time - and still never come back. That’s rough. But I do still really fancy the sound of that lamb.
Gaijin Dumpling House, 948 Stockport Rd, Manchester M19 3NN
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