TAIKO by New Wave Ramen - Mackie Mayor — Restaurant in Manchester

I thought I'd try this place as I was craving some decent ramen after being disappointed at several other ramen restaurants in Manchester. Staff are friendly and helpful, but I initially felt the price was quite expensive for a bowl of ramen, however, after tasting it, I have to say it's completely worth it...

I've been twice so far and initially ordered the Lamb Tantanmen on my first visit. When it came, it looked nicely presented in the bowl and smelt delicious. The taste however... was out of this world. It was absolutely stunningly flavoursome. There wasn't much lamb if I'm honest, but what there was, had so much flavour and worked so well with that thick, spicy broth. Every element of that dish left me wanting more. It was waves and waves of neverending flavour. The noodles themselves and egg was cooked to perfection.

It was absolutely heavenly, and quite possibly one of, if not the best bowl of noodles I've ever eaten. This includes award winning ramen restaurants I've eaten at across the UK, Hong Kong, and dare I say it, even Japan. I actually wanted to hate it due to the price being £16.50 for a bowl, but I simply couldn't. It was too good, too delicious. I had to go back after this first visit.

My second visit I thought I'd order the Yuzu Shio Ramen. It's one of my all time favourites but not everywhere does it, let alone do it well. When it came, the broth was much clearer than the Tantanmen previously, as Yuzu Shio usually is. It looked like a simple and light tasting ramen... But once I tucked in, the amount of flavour packed into that bowl was immense!

Right away I was hit with a gingery and super flavoursome chicken broth. The Chashu was succulent and juicy, and that citrus from the Yuzu added that refreshing twist and another dimension to the fragrant chicken and ginger flavour of the broth. The egg again, was also perfect.

Just like the first time, it was mouth-wateringly flavoured with the soy sauce, with a seductive sweetness and perfectly done. The noodles had a perfect bite to them, and picked up much of the broth with each and every slurp. I was, and still am genuinely, and thoroughly impressed with this place.

If it wasn't so pricey, I'd honestly eat here every single day. "Delicious" is an understatement here, "perfection" is hard to describe in words. All I can say is, if you're a devoted ramen lover, you have to get down to this place to experience a bowl of ramen heaven. I honestly don't know how they do it, but I'll say it once again...it's tastier than even award winning Ramen restaurants I've eaten at in the UK, Hong Kong and even Japan (sorry!).

Thanks for the amazing eating experience. I'll be sure to come back to try the rest of the menu items, once I recoup my severely depleted finances of late, from the overbuying of vintage...

We ate at their new place on Tib St… I’ll start with the good bits… the atmosphere was nice, pretty big place compared to the Mackie Mayor set up but that’s about the only positive of the evening. We sat at the counter top where you can watch the chefs cooking… I’m not sure if they’re just not used to people watching them, but they looked confused a lot of the time, weren’t washing their hands when touching raw meat etc, were wiping their sweaty brows and then immediately touching food again, it was pretty bad to watch. Our starter took 45 mins to come and then when it arrived it wasn’t the right one… It seems it was written down incorrectly by our waitress, so when we asked them to switch it, we waited another 25 mins for a poorly cooked, unseasoned piece of grilled chicken that was drenched in soy sauce. We also watched the chef flatten the piece of chicken with the palm of his unwashed, bare hand onto the grill before opting to used the bottom of another baking tray to flatten it once it was too hot to touch. Of course, said baking tray was then just placed on top of other things without being washed and used for another dish later on. When we finally got our noodles, I had the special which was really salty, not well seasoned again, and the meat in it was like a poorly cooked, frozen piece of plain chicken, an undercooked meatball and a fatty slice of pork. It was horrendous… the ramen were stuck together, it wasn’t tasty at all. Other tables were waiting with no food for over an hour, no explanation, no apology or complementary drink or something in the meantime to soften the blow. Eventually I think one of the chefs could see we were hugely underwhelmed with the dishes and made a passing comment about the ticket machine not working properly that night which was the issue with the food taking so long. Our server had abandoned us by now so we had to ask someone else for the bill, which still had the incorrect starter on it alongside the one we ordered… we had to ask them to remove it and then felt immediately guilty for even mentioning it. We couldn’t get out of there soon enough and safe to say, we won’t be visiting again… if you want decent ramen, Tokyo Ramen is still the gaff of...

Came with high expectations and left rather disappointed. We came on the 18th of March in the evening and as usual goers to the New Wave site on Tib Lane we thought we’d check out the Taiko offerings as they have different styles of ramen compared to the main site.

We ordered the miso ramen, karabashi devil ramen and the karaage chicken. The karaage we could tell was sadly over cooked just by the colour of the breading alone. Looking past that, the meat was dry as hell and seasoning wise, we agreed that there simply weren’t any in it. Cannot fault the spicy kewpie mayo though.

The ajitama eggs which we ordered two of per bowl were bland and definitely not marinated long enough even if at all. Genuinely, I make better ajitama at home and I am just some basic arse home cook. So this was a great shame.

But the cherry on the cake was biting into my last egg only to receive a crunch and a half as there was an eggshell the size of a thumbnail on the underside (Picture included). I accept that things can get overlooked during prep but you would think something like leaving eggshells on the egg in a ramen shop is something you would try to ensure ain’t happening . The miso soup base itself was nice and enjoyable but the toppings were pretty minute. The slice of pork you could eat in 2/3 bites unlike the toppings at the other branch.

Overall, a bad experience here at Taiko x New Wave Ramen at Mackie Mayor and in the future I’ll just stick to visiting the site...