Asian canteen, foodhall, bakery and supermarket Hello Oriental is bringing in a raft of new dishes and cocktails for its spring menu, one of them featuring a Manchester institution. The Vimto Sour will feature on its new cocktail list, blending vodka, lychee syrup, lemon and the iconic cordial.
The drink comes garnished with a cocktail stick loaded up with wine gums for those with a particularly sweet tooth. Meanwhile, its new Midori Long Island is made with the famous melon liqueur and comes topped with a fortune cookie floating in the top, while a ‘grown up’ bubble tea comes finished with additional booze.
Drinks aside, the ‘northern powerhouse of Asian street food’, as dubbed in a national review in The Times last year, is boasting a host of new dishes being added to the menu too, spanning new inspiration from across Asia.
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They’ll be debuting the traditional Filipino dish Longsilog, usually served at breakfast time, and blending fried rice with Filipino sausage. Their loaded fries are also having a makeover, with new takes including chips heaped with fried duck and satay, and the compulsive kimchi cheese fries, loaded up with Korean kimchi and melted cheese.
There’s also an eye-catching Vietnamese fishcake pho, with a huge fishcake floating on a sea of broth and noodles, a scorching new Thai green curry, a heady coconut massaman curry and a classic Hainanese chicken - delicately poached chicken with dipping sauces.
Best of all perhaps are the addictive new sticky lime and fish sauce chicken wings - fried wings coated with a sticky sweet and sour fish sauce glaze, which HO owners Ricky Yip and Azim Kourah have pinched from the ‘secret’ menu at the K2 karaoke bar in Chinatown.
There are a solid 15 new menu items arriving in all from this week, with the Vimto Sour in particular doing its bit for the city too. 50p from every drink sold will be going to non-profit organisation Eat Well MCR, which provides free meals for those struggling across the city.
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