From court room to conjuring culinary delights…. that’s the owner of what must be one of the city’s most popular Chinese restaurants.
Having studied law as a university student (from Cambridge, no less) it seemed Helen Tse had a career as a lawyer mapped out in front of her.
But, instead of a wig and gown she opted she very soon decided to go down a rather different path in life – “restoring” her family’s rich history in the restaurant trade.
It was her grandmother who first opened the very first Chinese restaurant (in Middleton close to Manchester) way back in the 1950s.
So, for inspiration for her “new” career in culinary Helen looked no further than her gran when she, along with her two sisters, first opened Sweet Mandarin.
That was way back over two decades ago when Helen was still in her 20s.
“I had just graduated in law,” she recalls, “but I was keen on restoring the family name in the restaurant trade and that is how Sweet Mandarin came about.”
Her sisters Janet and Lisa are, over 20 years later, still involved in Sweet Mandarin which is situated on what used to be the main thoroughfare in the city of Manchester. Evidence of this is the cobbled street outside with the restaurant overlooked by what remains of the old fish market.
Her gran has since passed away (though her mother is still alive) and, in October, the resto will celebrate its 21st anniversary,no bad achievement in this day and age and the difficulties, not least economic, facing restaurant owners.
Helen, ably supported by her Chinese-born husband,likes to serve what she calls “old school” Chinese food. It is the kind of cuisine you used to find at many traditional Chinese restos but which, in more recent times, has been overtaken by the slightly more anonymous fusion food.
“That is probably the secret of our success,” says Helen. “People like to know somewhere they can get Chinese food like they remember it from the past and that is what we do.”
That might include, for example, the sweet and sour dish on the menu which is a customer favourite (as in the past).
This really delightful place is popular with some of the city’s famous footballers and celebs and can even count former British PM David Cameron among its former patrons.
The sisters’ grandmother, forever an inspiration for Helen, even cooked for the Beatles and Cliff Richard and the three charming siblings have since taken up the baton and kept her proud legacy alive. Opened since 2005, the concept of the restaurant (located in a once deprived but now very much booming part of this fine city) is, says Helen, “family style home cooking in a modern calming setting.”
It’s designed with floor to ceiling glass windows and wengi wood furniture to give it a zen-like ambience and its many awards include ‘Best Local Chinese Restaurant’ (beating 10,000 other eateries). It is just on the verge of the city’s famous Chinatown, easily the UK’s biggest outside of London.
It’s located in Manchester’s wonderfully-restored Northern Quarter.This was, as Helen also recalls, a part of the city that you’d do well to avoid in the past but it is now arguably its most trendy. The sisters’ story has come full circle and represents a real labour of love for them.
When Helen and her sisters set out to launch a resto over 20 years ago their bank actually refused a loan so they were forced to raise the finance for it by selling their homes and moving back in with their parents.
“Yes, it was a real labour of love,” recalls Helen.
For inspiration, they looked no further than their gran who opened the city’s first ever Chinese restaurant back in the 1950s.
Sweet Mandarin has a great menu and all is great but is, perhaps, most famous for its crispy beef and delicious chicken wings and the fact that its cocktails are based on the Chinese zodiac. You will also find pad thai, noodles, a range of chicken, beef and prawn dishes on the menu alongside a salt and pepper munchie box consisting of chips, chicken balls and wings. All are very reasonably priced, particularly given the top notch quality.
Helen herself has become something of a minor “celebrity” in the city, in the past featuring in a museum video on the local Chinese community in Manchester. In the past and before the area’s recent regeneration, she also organised a “meet my neighbour” event for local businesses to help generate trade, typical of her friendly, welcoming nature.
One of its unique selling points is that it serves not just veggie but gluten free food which, while usually costlier to produce, is priced the same as non-gluten free dishes here. It is, possibly, the only place in the UK serving gluten-free pancakes.
Serving healthy food is not a fashion trend but a health “necessity”, says health-conscious Helen whose fascinating family history goes all the way back to mainland China, via Hong Kong and, now, to inner city Manchester.
The Oriental connection accounts for the “Mandarin” in the name. The “sweet” part, Helen says, is a strictly Mancunian term.
Helen’s success is not down to put chance but hard work.
She recalls, “My first job in hospitality was working in the family food business. I would go with my parents to buy the ingredients from the large cash and carries such as chicken, beef, pork, 20kg sacks of onions, 20kg sacks of rice, and other dried goods. I would help my parents prepare the curry by chopping these massive bigger than your hand onions and they would just make me cry.
“I remember helping my parents add in all the ingredients for the curry paste and would help him stir them all in using a long wooden paddle. This curry would take hours to make.”
She even appeared on a Gordon Ramsay show years ago, with a photo of the meeting proudly displayed on the resto wall.
So, if you are searching for inspiration for a great short break any time soon, give this great northern city a thought – with friendly folk like Helen on hand you are sure of a “sweet” reception.
