Ning


Ning is a Malaysian restaurant and cookery school that has been in the Northern Quarter since 2006. They must be doing something right as they've recently opened branches in York and London. and in 2012 they won Best Malaysian Restaurant at the Asian Curry Awards.

Ning is right next door to V Revolution and has the vegan 'V' symbol proudly displayed as part of it's branding. But how does that translate to the food? Well the menu is very clearly marked as vegan. It also makes it clear what is gluten free and what is nut free. It's a brilliantly clear system which offers quite a good choice for vegans.

Nyonya Lime Curry with Thai fragrant jasmine rice

I will say straight off that Ning isn't budget eating. Obviously the vegan dishes are cheaper than the fish and meat offerings but even so it's in the region of £5-6 for a starter and £10-14 for a main course once you add in rice or noodles. However there is a special deal on the menu where you get two courses for £14.95.

It's really good value and I'm pleased to say the offer includes several of the vegan choices. For example the starter choices included Gado Gado Salad and Masalodeh. The mains offered up either Spinach, mushroom and tofu or a vegan Nyonya lime curry. You can have these with either Thai fragrant jasmine rice or plain rice noodles.

I've despatched Matt, my roving reporter, to this one. Here's what he had to say.

Matt Hill writes : It's quite a shock in this economic depression, to walk into a restuarant in a northern city at 7pm on a wet Tuesday evening, and find it packed to the gills. It was a good job I'd been warned and booked a table, but I took it as a good sign of the food to come.


Masalodeh

 I went with the special £14.95 offer and for my starter I had Masalodeh which are crunchy lentil fritters with a sweet chilli dipping sauce. They were delicious and I especially loved the fresh curry leaves within the mixture. For the main I had Nyonya Lime Curry which was delicious - big chunks of tofu in a spicy, citric and nutty sauce. The fragrant rice was really nice and I dumped the lot into the sauce. This is really high quality food - packed with flavours and exceptionally well executed.

Comments

  1. Joey23 September 2013 at 10:46

    It's really heartening to see non-veggie/vegan places actually bother to make an effort to make good vegan food and mark it as such on the menu! Those lentil fritters are calling to me!

    ReplyDelete
  2. morag24 September 2013 at 15:15

    I'm really glad to read a good review of ning, i used to love it but last time i went had a really rubbish meal and feared it had lost its touch x

    ReplyDelete

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