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After collecting my eldest from Brownies, we ducked into Citygate Mall to grab a bite to eat. I’d seen Man Mano on the 4th floor upstairs from LuLu Lemon a few times on my wanderings but never been in so in we went.Â
We were offered the a la carte menu, and also a NSW (New South Wales) set men for $700 for two people. A few things to note before I go on as you’re probably thinking exactly what I was thinking, that $700 is quite a lot to spend on lunch. But after the excellent and very knowledgeable manager Spiros started to talk us through the NSW menu, it sounded like something we wanted to try. This menu is available for both lunch and dinner and would make a perfect romantic sharing evening meal.
It turns out Man Mano is a Woolly Pig Group restaurant. Owned by husband and wife team Chris and Bronwyn, Chris was a chef of such high skill that he obtained a Michelin star at the age of 24. That skill and food quality have filtered down into the NSW menu, where it’s showcased through a tour de force of tasty beef.Â
We decided to treat ourselves and ordered it. We were not disappointed. The beef comes from a few top farms in the New South Wales area of Australia - hence the menu name - with the Jack’s Creek steak winning the Best Beef In The World award (I’m sure it has a proper name, but you get the idea) two years in a row. That taste shone through. We started with Rangers Valley Meatballs which were massive and were tender and moist and marinaded a rich tomato sauce with just a hint of a chill zing at the end. Lovely. This was accompanied by Clayton Organic Beef Carpaccio which was so tender it almost dissolved off my fork. Riding the beef fiesta were crunchy hazelnuts, pumpkin and a large shaving of smoked ricotta. It was delicious.Â
Next up came homemade pasta. All the pasta is made on the premises and then fed into a big machine with different nozzles to make the different shapes, in a glass kitchen in the restaurant, which is fun to watch. This pasta contained Bindaree Ox Cheek ragout that hugged the homemade pasta, along with the ‘wow’ beef from Jack’s Creek - the award winners - which was cooked perfectly medium rare and coated in a rocket and parmesan salad with olives the size of golf balls. Suddenly $350 a head for all this world class beef didn’t seem so expensive. Â
By this point my wife and I were filling up but we still had some desserts to come. On ordering for the kids off their own menu, which is of equal quality as the adult one which I loved - the burger bun was home made focaccia for example, we also ordered some extra desserts. These came with a flourish and what a treat they were. We had cannoli which came as a pair. One was filled with salted caramel cream and the other a tangy and sweet lemon mascarpone that was so good and stuck to the roof of your mouth. Next a tiramisu was exactly how I remembered it from family trips to Italy as a kid - rich, creamy with a coffee sponge base. We also had a strawberry panna cotta which was sweet and creamy and devoured by my 6 year old, and a rice pudding garnished with a crunchy cracker and cherry curd. I definitely won’t be needing dinner, probably for about a week.Â
I had always walked past Man Mano thinking it was just another generic mall restaurant, but it absolutely wasn’t. It’s considered and curated and quite delightful. We ended up chatting to Spiros for half an hour, which is how I found out so much about all the food and the restaurant. Spiros has quite the resume himself, having worked in London for 20 years in top restaurants. Man Mano is quality; quality ingredients, quality service and a quality setting. Man Mano deserves to be packed out. It’s a family-owned restaurant run by a small dedicated team with a passion for service and quality and I’m all for that. Â
The NSW menu runs for the month of March and I highly recommend you try it.
Visit https://bit.ly/islanderhk to book the special NSW menu
Visit https://bit.ly/islanderhk-mm to book the standard lunch/ dinner menu.
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