Sunday 9 March 2008

Chinese Buffet Restaurant in Manchester

Tsai Wu Oriental Buffet is located on Oxford Street, in Manchester, not far up the road from the universities. In my opinion, it is one of the best Chinese buffet restaurants in Manchester and does not resort to cheap tricks likes many London ones where you have to dig through hundreds of pieces of onions to find the meat. A daytime buffet meal costs only £5 whereas the eveneing weekend meal costs atround £10. The quality of the food is the same, except that they have a few more dishes in the evening, such as crispy duck pancakes, stir fried tiger prawns, stir fry squid and a gateau dessert. To be honest, I am usually too full to bother with the dessert anyway, so that does not bother me. At half the price, the daytime bufffet is by far the better value and although the quality cannot compare to an ala carte meal, it is nevertheless delicious.


Here is a picture of the shop front on a busy overcast winter Saturday afternoon on Oxford Street.
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A small section of the food on display. They have mirrors on the display, so you are seeing only two rows of trays, not four.
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Another section of the food on display.
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Close up of the pork section... clockwise...bbq spare ribs, salt & pepper battered spare ribs, pork slices in Cantonese sauce and stir fry pork slices.
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Close up... clockwise... chicken in chinese curry sauce, salt & pepper battered wings, green lip mussels in black bean sauce, sweet & sour chicken.Free Image Hosting at allyoucanupload.com

The noodle section.... clockwise.... Singapore fried meehoon, a stack of plates, fries fusili pasta and fried fresh egg noodles.
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The frys section... onion rings, aubergine fritters, crabsticks fritters, chips, mushroom fritters and mini pring rolls.
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Some of the mixed dishes I selected. Notice the lack of rice and noodles. Why choose the cheap ingredients when it all costs the same??!!
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A rather strong bowl of hot and sour soup. Rich and meaty.
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My favourite dish! A bowl of clear seafood soup consisting of fishballs, fish maw, mussels, shrimps, tofu and chinese cabbage.
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Just a light dessert afterwards.. some ice cream. They even have a whippy ice cream machine free for you to use.
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After all that, we dragged our heavy stomachs off the seat and walk wearily to the car park. Do not expect to continue city centre shopping after a meal here. You will not be in the mood for walking!

15 comments:

JOjo said...

Looking at your picture alone, i felt as if you are in Malaysia.Haha!
Feel good to get some chinese food at a far away country~

"Joe" who is constantly craving said...

sometimes i dun mind a cheap good old oily meaty buffet! just to pig out..

Terri @ A Daily Obsession said...

u chose ur food well...made it look more like a la carte than buffet. n tt's quite a good deal at 5 pounds.

HairyBerry said...

haha, i like your buffet philosophy...

kinda reminds me of the spread you get when you buy your mixed rice here in malaysia. and fried fusili? interesting.

fatboybakes said...

you're not malay meh? chuckled at your pencuci mulut comment in nic's karangan post.

LianneK said...

Manchester, you rock leh! howwww you go and cari this lubang ah?

Hazza said...

jojo,
Feels "almost" like in Malaysia, except missing the spicy dishes :)

joe,
good value buffet is good when really hungry!

terri,
some of the dishes here are actually better than those from a bad restaurant's ala carte menu.

nic,
yes, always get maximum value when possible, hehe! Fried fusili is cooked similar to fried ho fun (ckt), but will appeal more to westerners as ho fun is still a noodle eaten almost exclusively by orientals only.

fatboy,
Thanks for visiting my blog. I'm chinese. I'd be missing so much if I ate only halal food.

imby
I found finally this "hole" :) after having fallen into a lot of bad ones! A note for everyone going to or living in London - NEVER NEVER go to a £5 buffet in soho! Worst meal you will ever have eaten!

ling239 said...

so many choices..... this is really worth it !! ^_^

wmw said...

Eh, looks like you're perfectly capable of dishing up an even better meal than this buffet line up though! :o)

daphne said...

Oh man, that's alot of food in the buffet. Worth it!

teckiee said...

ahhh like chap fan only leh. i wonder if it will work if i open chap fan stall and call it buffet? hahaha

Hazza said...

ling,
this place has some of the biggest selection in Manchester.


wmw,
for some dishes maybe, but impossible to make such a wide selection at home though..

daphne,
yes, the choice is the main attraction here. And I actually managed to only photo just over half of what they have.


teckiee,
You're absolutely right! It is very much like chap fan. In fact they even sell bungkus... you pay £3 or £5 for an empty carton and you fill it up with whatever you want. I'd take this over the economy chap fan in Malaysia though because the meats are of better quality.

fatboybakes said...

i was just thinking, if i migrated to some white country, can probably open a chap fan place ....doesnt look very hard hor.

Anonymous said...

You should try Ning in the Northern Quarter for 'fab'est Halal Malaysian food...

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