{"id":58644,"date":"2025-08-11T07:17:13","date_gmt":"2025-08-11T07:17:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/58644\/"},"modified":"2025-08-11T07:17:13","modified_gmt":"2025-08-11T07:17:13","slug":"i-visited-an-unassuming-pakistani-restaurant-on-the-side-of-a-dual-carriageway","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/58644\/","title":{"rendered":"‘I visited an unassuming Pakistani restaurant on the side of a dual carriageway’"},"content":{"rendered":"

It promises magic, and it delivers on that front\"Adam<\/p>\n

Adam is a senior What’s On and LGBTQ+ reporter for the Manchester Evening News, covering new restaurant and bar openings, food reviews, gig reviews, and issues that matter to the LGBTQ+ community. Adam joined the M.E.N in 2019 as a Facebook Community Reporter and also runs the LGBTQ+ Bulletin newsletter. <\/p>\n

\"II visited Chandni Restaurants, in Kingsway, after it received a nomination at this year’s English Curry Award<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not everyday that one of your childhood memories becomes interweaved with national recognition but that\u2019s exactly what happened for me when I read through the shortlist of this year\u2019s English Curry Awards last week.<\/a><\/p>\n

Now in its 14th year, the prestigious award ceremony celebrates the best restaurants<\/a>, takeaways and cafes across the country doing an excellent job with their curries. And I just so happened to recognise a name on the list when it came to the Pakistani Restaurant of the Year category.<\/p>\n

With three Greater Manchester venues being included in the list of ten, I caught Chandni Restaurants amongst the group of venues. But, located on Kingsway in Burnage<\/a> (opposite the Aldi, as the menu so proudly declares), I had known it as a few of its previous identities.<\/p>\n

Having been born and grown up in Burnage, I was very familiar with its location – and it\u2019s only just recently become the restaurant that it is today. I recognised it as the Nip In 2 Noreens bakery, where I distinctly remember having my first ever Manchester Tart (and loving it).<\/p>\n

Stay connected with our City Life newsletter here<\/a><\/p>\n

\"OnOn first glances, it may not seem like the first spot you’d think would serve a nationally recognised curry<\/p>\n

I also have some hazy memories of it being a convenience store before its time as a bakery, which I swear used to have pictures of the PG Tips monkeys all dressed up as humans doing household chores all over the walls. I swear it existed, but nobody else seems to believe me.<\/p>\n

Having not been a bakery for years now, and having spent its few years as various different greasy spoon cafes<\/a>, it had received a revamp in June last year and reopened as Chandni. Having never been before and, if I\u2019m being honest, having not really considered it to be worth a visit in the year since, I was intrigued by its inclusion in the list – and felt now was the perfect opportunity to give it a go.<\/p>\n

The restaurant hails itself as serving \u2018matka magic in every bite\u2019, and I have no idea what that means. A quick search online tells me that matka is a clay pot that is traditionally used when it comes to Pakistani and Indian cuisine in helping enhance flavours.<\/p>\n

\"TheThe restaurant opened last year in a former bakery and cafe in south Manchester<\/p>\n

Heading in, I\u2019m greeted by a very friendly member of staff who seats me at a booth and gives me a menu to pursue. I\u2019m told to then order at the counter when I\u2019m ready. At this point, I ask him if there\u2019s any particular popular dishes I should consider, and he tells me the matka (available with chicken or lamb) is good, as well as the grilled platters.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m a little overwhelmed with the menu, still not being fully sure what a matka is but with magic promised and being told it\u2019s popular, I felt there was no choice but to give it a go – and opt for a small portion of the chicken dish at just \u00a36.99. To amp things up, I order some masala chips (\u00a33.99) and a plain roti for just 75p. Topped off with a can of Rubicon Mango.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m asked if I can handle spice and after a shrug and a pause, he decides we\u2019ll go for mild with the matka – I have no choice but to take his word for it, but I trust him. Taking in my surroundings, it\u2019s far from the bakery I once remember – with a nice mixture of booth seats and tables dotted around. There\u2019s sophistication and elegance in the design, and I\u2019m impressed.<\/p>\n

\"TheThe massala fries, although definitely not needed, added more herbs and spices to proceedings<\/p>\n

After not long, my chips arrive in their own bowl. I\u2019m also given a separate empty plate and left to my devices. Presuming the rest was just around the corner, I hesitate tucking in right away before realising there might actually be a little bit of a wait. And I\u2019ve still not had my drink yet.<\/p>\n

The set-up is a little all over the place. Whilst you are first greeted towards a table, you\u2019re then told to order via the counter. Because of this, there were a couple of occasions when people would just be standing right next to your table and it kind of took away from the atmosphere.<\/p>\n

And when I went up to the counter to ask for my drink and some napkins, there was a fair bit of hesitation in just letting me take it all back to my table myself. I get it, the focus is on delivering a good experience to the customer, but the lines between counter-service and table-service could do with being a little less blurred here.<\/p>\n

\"NotNot bad for a 75p roti<\/p>\n

After a couple of minutes, my roti arrives – and it\u2019s huge – alongside my closed pot of curry which lands on my table with a comforting aroma that almost makes me salivate. Taking the lid off, I receive a waft of steam followed by further smells of fresh spices and herbs. On smell alone, it\u2019s delicious. I\u2019m sold.<\/p>\n

Beautifully presented, it is almost like a tikka – the chicken is in big juicy chunks, is flavoursome and falls apart easily. And it\u2019s got a bit of heat to it too, which takes me by surprise considering we\u2019d opted for mild. But it\u2019s not too overwhelmingly hot, it\u2019s a nice mix of flavours, vegetables, and spices. But it\u2019s certainly a punch to the palette.<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t know if I\u2019ve just subliminally accepted what my online search told me, but there is a definite added richness and complexity to the dish. Whether that\u2019s from the claypot cooking or not, I\u2019m not sure, but I\u2019d like to think so.<\/p>\n

\"Inside,Inside, the matka curry featured an abundance of aromatic herbs and spices<\/p>\n

With the spice level taken up a bit, the roti is used as a bit of a palette cleanser and to mop up the last bits of the sauce. The massala fries, whilst definitely not needed, were lovely and added more spice to proceedings – although they could have perhaps done with being served a bit warmer than they were and were a little soggy at times.<\/p>\n

Join our Manc Life WhatsApp group HERE<\/a><\/p>\n

It\u2019s a small restaurant, so it\u2019s hard not to take in other conversations from the rest of the customers inside but there were a steady stream of people heading in as I tucked into my meal, which also showed to me that it\u2019s garnering quite a bit of a fanbase in just a little over a year, which is certainly good to see.<\/p>\n

\"MyMy meal packed a punch in terms of flavour but I was impressed<\/p>\n

Considering I paid just a little over \u00a313 for my meal in total, I was incredibly impressed with my visit. It filled me up and I left feeling satisfied. And I love that it\u2019s in Burnage. We do actually have some amazing Indian restaurants in this part of Manchester, but it\u2019s always good to have more – especially when they\u2019re in places you might never have considered them to be.<\/p>\n

In my eyes, Chandni Restaurant has rightfully earned its spot in the shortlist at the English Curry Awards shortlist this year and I\u2019m excited to see what else they have in store as they continue to establish themselves. You can guarantee that I will most definitely be back for some of that matka magic, which I already have another craving for.<\/p>\n

Chandni Restaurants is on 4 Kingsway, Manchester, M19 1PH.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It promises magic, and it delivers on that front Adam is a senior What’s On and LGBTQ+ reporter…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":58645,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[31840,3528,84,59,13757,31839,3783,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-58644","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business","8":"tag-asian-communities","9":"tag-burnage","10":"tag-business","11":"tag-gb","12":"tag-manchester-restaurants","13":"tag-restaurant-reviews","14":"tag-restaurants","15":"tag-uk","16":"tag-united-kingdom","17":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58644","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=58644"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58644\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/58645"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=58644"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=58644"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=58644"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}