Chopstix Manchester

Chopstix is a noodle bar based on the approach to Piccadilly Station, with a great range of quick and easy Chinese dishes. It’s certainly not fine dining but the food on offer is good quality with a decent selection of dishes for those last-minute grab-and-go eating options. You can choose between rice and noodles for the base, both packed with vegetables and cooked well – pleasingly light on the oil.

But the toppings are where the real delight starts. There are around ten different choices, from pumpkin katsu curry to teriyaki beef, each fresh and sporting a well-made sauce, perfectly balanced and not too salty or too sweet. I opt for bbq chicken on the noodles and salt ‘n’ pepper chicken on the rice, as recommended by the assistant.

They’re both superb, delivering a hearty meal for the small box, and the website has the calories listed for each and every item, useful in these post-lockdown times when many of us have built up a Covid ‘coat’ out of boredom and comfort-eating.

They also sell a range of sauces as standalone items to use in your cooking at home. They’re all excellent, much easier than making your own from a dozen different ingredients and a damn sight better than the mainstream options on supermarket shelves. My tip? The Chinese BBQ sauce is original, delicious and worth buying a year’s supply.

The crispy chicken balls are another solid choice (although a little pot of sauce would have been handy) and ten mini duck spring rolls, which have a good crunch and a subtle five spice flavour. Chopstix might not set the world on fire for services to experimental cuisine, but they do offer superb quality Chinese fare at reasonable prices.