This blink-and-you’ll-miss-it basement restaurant in Manchester’s Chinatown serves the ultimate yum cha feast
Mei Dim serves up everything from Shanghai soup dumplings and custard buns, to three roast meats and chicken feet as part of its daily yum cha offering.
Mei Dim might not look like much from the outside. Nor, indeed, from the inside. No matter, though – good restaurants shouldn’t be judged by their proliferation (or lack of) neon lights and selfie traps.
This is a restaurant where the food is so excellent, the owners don’t need to bother with expensive refurbs and Instagram-friendly colour schemes.
Tucked beneath Manchester’s Chinatown, its interior likely hasn’t changed in decades – and it’s still busy at 3pm on a weekday.
Round formica tables are topped with paper tablecloths, whilst a fish tank full of exotic creatures languishes in the corner. Taped to its front is a stern handwritten note, written in all caps, warning you not to bang on the glass – or else.
Tripadvisor warriors should be warned now, the overall first impression here isn’t exactly welcoming. If you can get beyond that, though, you’re in for a ruddy good meal.
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Just don’t expect any sort of fawning service, keep your focus on the food, and remember to pay directly at the cash desk as you leave to get the most out of this Cantonese small plates offering.
Salt and pepper pork ribs at Mei Dim. / Image: The Manc Eats
Dumplings at Mei Dim. / Image: The Manc Eats
Cheung Fung and vermicelli noodles filled with prawn meat, salt and pepper pork ribs at Mei Dim. / Image: The Manc Eats
Long hailed by Mancs in the know as one of the best places for dim sum in Manchester, the sui mai here are always bulging and the house-roasted meats more than give rival restaurant Happy Seasons a run for its money.
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Our advice is to skip the regular fare and ask to see the dim sum one. Cheap and cheerful, an extensive list – so extensive that even our resident Hong Konger Giggs didn’t know them all – spans pages and pages of different steam, fried and deep-fried small plate dishes.
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We dug in as towering stacks of bamboo steamers brimming with dumplings filled up the table alongside plates of giant salt and pepper ribs, beef ho fun noodles, and birds nest-looking bundles of vermicelli stuffed with fried prawn meat (a messy highlight).
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Beef ho fun noodles at Mei Dim. / Image: The Manc Eats
Three roast meats at Mei Dim. / Image: The Manc Eats
Plump sui mai, ha kau, soup and vegetable shoots dumplings disappeared first, and were quickly replaced with huge plates of crispy salt and pepper squid, beef ho fun noodles and satay chicken skewers.
Washed down with lashings of hot tea, the plates just kept on coming. A plate of triple roast meats, perfectly lacquered and crispy, had us salivating whilst Mei Dim’s pan-fried peppers stuffed with seafood managed to be spicy, salty and fresh all at once.
The crispy duck pancakes here also deserve an honourable mention. We might’ve had to wait ten minutes to get some hoi sin sauce to go with them, but it was completely worth braving the restaurant floor to flag down a server.
Image: The Manc Eats
Image: The Manc Eats
A no-frills canteen-style diner, Mei Dim is very much part of the old school of Chinatown restaurants.
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Whilst at the other end of Faulkner Street you’ll find newer, younger eateries like Pho Cue installing flower walls and giving diners a smiling service, the focus here is on the food – and the food alone.
If you’re planning on visiting, get ready for steaming pots of tea and a vast range of dim sum that puts other spots in the city to shame. Just don’t expect to be gushed over, and you’re sure to come away feeling full and happy.
Featured image – The Manc Eats
Manchester
One of Manchester’s grandest restaurants has finally reopened TWO YEARS after fire
Daisy Jackson
One of the most historic restaurants in Manchester has reopened at last, two years after a fire forced its closure.
Mount Street Dining Room & Bar – which many of us may remember as Mr Cooper’s – stands within the Grade II-listed Midland Hotel.
The grand dining room dates all the way back to 1903, when it opened with the hotel as the Grill Room.
The restaurant was at the epicentre of the Industrial Revolution and was frequented by railway travellers, perhaps best-known for hosting a lunch between Charles Rolls and Henry Royce in 1904, who went on to form the world-famous Rolls-Royce brand.
The Midland’s restaurants has gone through several changes in the decades since, undergoing a major £14 million refurb in 2020 to relaunch as Mount Street Dining Room & Bar.
Its interiors are inspired by the hotel’s early 1900s art deco and railway heritage, with a menu that focuses on locally-sourced British produce.
But the restaurant has been shut since early 2024, when a fire damaged the entrance and trellising around its main entrance on Mount Street.
The beautiful bar areaA glimpse of the menu at Mount StreetCocktails and British food
The Midland has finally managed to get the restaurant back open again this month, with a new food and cocktail menus, which aims to offer refined but simple British dining.
Expect dishes like pork and black pudding bonbons, white onion soup with crispy potatoes, smoked British salmon with lemon gel and dill mascarpone, and slow cooked beef daube with confit garlic mash.
Plus desserts such as rice pudding with Anise glazed pearsand Bakewell pudding with cherry syrup.
It’s been a long time since we’ve seen inside this beautiful, storied dining room – and it looks just as beautiful as we remember.
Review | Leon Thomas at Manchester Academy – ‘Mutts Don’t Heel’ but this gig healed me
Thomas Melia
American singer-songwriter Leon Thomas visited Manchester Academy last night, performing hits from his deluxe album to a sold-out crowd of more than 2,600.
One year after an exclusive London MUTT Live date, Mr Thomas returns to the UK with the ‘MUTTS DON’T HEEL’ Tour, venturing to five cities, including the music capital of the North: Manchester.
The night started off just how it should’ve done with ‘HEEL’, as the audience were welcomed by the drum-loop and a chill atmosphere from the start.
Now, it wouldn’t be a Leon Thomas gig without at least one Ty Dolla $ign collaboration making the setlist, and there’s plenty to choose from with a new one dropping just over a month ago, ‘miss u 2’.
Leon Thomas performing hits at Manchester Academy (Credit: Audio North)
The funk-influenced musician opted for ‘FAR FETCHED’, and the audience was in the palm of his hand. No matter which of the four link-ups he chose, it was always going to go down well – Manchester never disappoints.
Leon didn’t even have to ask the crowd to bring more energy; they already matched him. When he sings, “For someone who don’t ask for favours, I’ve done way too many favours”, on ‘PARTY FAVORS’, he really meant it.
Last year, Leon Thomas dropped PHOLKS, a project which saw him exploring old-school funk and soul sounds even further and ‘Just How You Are’ had even the shyest dancer pulling out a little two step.
This isn’t the only hit that sent the crowd into a frenzy; ‘Baccarat’ and its impressive psychedelic guitar solo had jaws literally falling to the floor at Manchester Academy.
His songs might not be dramatic or extravagant, but they don’t need to be. Leon’s artistry prevails when he’s softly singing, and you’re still able to detect each instrument.
Leon Thomas brought the MUTTS DON’T HEEL Tour to Manchester Academy (Credit: The Manc)
‘Breaking Point’ is an easy-listening soul track that had all 2,600 Leon Thomas fans in our feelings as we realised we were coming to the end of a phenomenal concert.
And of course, ‘Mutt’ – his biggest single to date: a bouncy and swag-filled number that sticks in your head for weeks on end – sounded even better when backed by a live band as I discovered last night.
There was some insane musicality, distinct bangers and impeccable live arrangements that elevated the original studio recordings. Maybe ‘Mutts Don’t Heel’, but Leon Thomas definitely healed me.
He wasn’t the only cool cat playing last night either:
Georgina Pellant -
20th July 2023 
