Lotus, Manchester

Lotus is owned by the same people who own Yang Sing, which should be a pretty good indication of the quality. It's a combination of a cocktail bar (they do a range at £5 a cocktail) and a dim sun restaurant. If you don't know, dim sun is like the Chinese version of tapas, you order loads of small dishes to share. They do a range of dumplings and fishcakes and meats with unusual dips as well as soups and a few larger main course type dishes with which you can order rice or noodles.

We had a lovely spread which consisted of, amongst other things beef & ginger steamed dumplings, fried fish & cheese wraps which were lovely, ostrich in lemongrass (not the nicest of meats), chicken kebabs, cuttlefish patties, and lemon and honey chicken.

The service was a bit slow, but very friendly and the house red was lovely and the coffee was ridiculously strong which would have been perfect at lunchtime, but not so good in the evening for me.

On the whole it was a nice meal, reasonably priced (the dim sun is mostly £1 per piece, minium of 2 pieces per dish). The "mains" are a little more, but still very inexpensive. We liked everything we ordered, and enjoyed the fact that on a busy Saturday night we weren't rushed. I think after 10pm they stop serving food and the place turns into a bar full stop.