A brand new Japanese restaurant is opening in Manchester city centre this weekend, with stunning interiors and affordable prices.
Hakkapo is ready to welcome its first diners this week to the bright and airy restaurant down on First Street.
They’ve taken on the old The Laundrette site (it was also, briefly, School For Scandal) and turned it into a modern dining space.
The unit on Jack Rosenthal Street is blessed with plenty of natural light thanks to the floor-to-ceiling windows on three sides.
They’ve embraced that by decorating the space with rattan, light wood, wicker, and white marble throughout.
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And Hakkapo will be a haven when summer finally rolls around, with a large weather-proof terrace out the front (it’s covered and heated, because we all know Manchester summers are a smidge temperamental).
As for the menu, Hakkapo is keeping things much more affordable than a lot of other Japanese restaurants that have opened in Manchester lately.
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You’ll find delicious dishes including ramen, donburi, bao and Japanese small plates, all at a similar price point to Wagamama’s.
The outside terrace at Hakkapo in Manchester. Credit: The Manc GroupHakkapo, a new Japanese restaurant opening in Manchester this week. Credit: The Manc Group
Many of the ramens begin with a traditional tonkotsu base, a creamy pork broth, which is then jazzed up with ingredients like black garlic ketchup, chashu pork, smoked pork belly, and slow-cooked bbq pork.
There’s also a tori chintan shoyu, a ramen made with clear chicken broth, braised chicken thigh, and naruto fish cake.
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Hakkapo stuffs fluffy bao with fillings like kaarage chicken, smoked sausage, and ebi katsu (or crispy squid).
Traditional Japanese donburi rice bowls come with toppings like salmon sashimi, chicken katsu, salt-aged sirloin and miso aubergine.
Fried ice cream bao at Hakkapo in ManchesterMatcha affogato
And on the small plates side of things, there are pickles, salads, yakitori skewers, and sweet-and-salty fries.
The desserts include a miso and vanilla fried bao, and a beautiful matcha affogato with red bean paste.
And as well as sake and Japanese soft drinks, there’s a menu packed with wines from central Europe.
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Hakkapo will officially open its doors on Tuesday 5 March.
Electrik Bar in Chorlton is giving away 100 FREE frankfurters to celebrate their latest kitchen collab
Danny Jones
We all love a freebie, so we thought we’d spread the good word of the scran lords by letting you know that Electrik over in Chorlton is giving away 100 free frankfurters to celebrate their newest menu takeover.
The popular neighbourhood bar and kitchen on Wilbraham Road in the South Manchester suburb has had a couple of different foodie collaborations over the past couple of years, with local residents Paramogeddon and Four Side Vegan Pizza being the most recent, but now they’re doing hot dogs.
Welcoming their latest vendors Tisch Und Teller, Electrik will be giving away a total of 100 free frankfurters to the first century of people there this evening.
Bringing a taste of Berlin, Bavaria, Frankfurt and more (with a Manc twist, of course) to the popular pub for the Thursday launch party, all you need to do is order a drink upon arrival to get your hands on a free frankfurter sandwiched between a lovely fluffy roll.
Who doesn’t love a hot dog? Especially when they’re giving them away.
As for Tisch Und Teller (TuT), they’ve been serving up German-inspired favourites from the likes of The Shakespeare in Manchester city centre and Nip and Tipple in Whalley Range since September last year, including some very impressive brunches and Sunday roasts.
But the brand just keeps gaining more traction and now they’re setting up shop in Electrik, we’re sure the word will continue to spread – and fast.
Better still, as advertised on the promo poster, not only will TuT now be serving up their delicious food from Electrik every Thursday-Sunday for the foreseeable but the launch party will also live music by local legend and DJing veteran, Abigail Ward of Ghost Assembly.
Free food, pints and top tunes – what more could you ask for on a random weeknight?
The offer will be available from 6pm tonight and, once again, you have to be among the first 100 people to buy a pint to be eligible for a free frankfurter.
Manchester’s new Instagrammable coffee shop is giving away FREE drinks tomorrow
Emily Sergeant
One of Manchester’s newest Instagrammable coffee shops is giving away free drinks tomorrow ahead of the bank holiday weekend.
With another long weekend right around the corner, and much of Greater Manchester and the UK fortunately looking set to bask in the springtime heat, popular coffee chain, Blank Street – which is one of Manchester city centre’s newest residents, with two sites in Piccadilly Gardens, and on the corner of King Street and Cross Street – has decided it wants to help the country “beat the 3pm slump”.
Ahead of the upcoming bank holiday weekend, the chain is inviting Mancs to “meet for matcha” tomorrow afternoon (Friday 3 May).
The exciting freebie offer is all said to be “inspired by data” that shows that almost half of office workers aren’t taking a break from their desks during the day, even despite research showing that this can boost productivity.
Hundreds of iced matcha lattes will be served up at Blank Street‘s Manchester branch on the corner of King Street and Cross Street between 3pm and 4pm tomorrow.
Manchester’s new Instagrammable coffee shop is giving away free drinks tomorrow / Credit: Blank Street
For anyone “ice cold pick-me-up ahead of the long weekend”, but keen not to tip their employers off, the coffee shop chain has created an online tool to allow workers to discreetly add a matcha moment to their diary.
The brand-new online tool will apparently help to “distract calendar snoopers” by creating a cleverly-named meeting and adding it automatically to Outlook, Google, or Apple calendars – with potential meeting titles that include plenty of corporate jargon to “provide the perfect alibi”.
So, all matcha fans need to do tomorrow afternoon is show the Blank Street team at their chosen branch a meeting in their calendar, and in return, they’ll receive a free small iced matcha latte of their choice from the chain’s delicious spring menu.
Blank Street’s popular matcha offering includes the Classic Matcha, the viral Blueberry Matcha, the silky-smooth White Chocolate Matcha, and the brand-new sumptuous Golden Matcha, so there’s something to “inspire every matcha lover to take a little time out”.
As matcha allows a slow release of caffeine, Blank Street says it’s the “perfect drink” to keep energy levels up throughout the afternoon when you’re stuck at your desk on a Friday.
Daisy Jackson -
4th March 2024 
