May’s MiniMoFo is all about favourites, and this place is definitely a favourite of mine!  When I lived in Manchester it was one of my regular haunts, and now Lotus Vegetarian Kitchen is the only place that I always go back to without fail when I’m home for the holidays.  And considering that it’s not well-served by public transport from my Manchester base, that’s really saying something.  (It’s very easy to reach from the city centre, though.)

Lotus is mostly vegan, but still has a few vegetarian options on the menu – everything’s labelled really clearly.  It’s a good place to grab takeaway, but eating in is always a real treat.  Everyone who works there is so friendly, and it’s just a lovely place.  If only they did takeaway too!  Last time I posted about it, I mentioned some of our favourites, but we have finally started branching out a teeny bit now.  Here’s a look at what we ordered when we were there last Christmas.

We always share starters, because they are so good that you really want to try everything.  One day, Dr HH and I are just going to go and order all the starters: this is probably our greatest goal in life.  These dumplings are a staple for us.  They’re perfectly cooked with a healthy amount of filling.

We always get the Vietnamese spring rolls too – there are three per serving, though my brother snaffled one before I could take a photo (he doesn’t really understand how the food blogging game works, unlike Dr HH who now faithfully waits five minutes while I take pictures of everything).  As you can probably imagine by looking at them, these rolls are beautifully crispy.

The water chestnut rolls are as exciting as they sound, and also crispy.  We don’t go to the Chinese for our health!

The prawn toast was a new dish for us, at my mum’s suggestion.  I scoffed at the idea, though to be fair, she described it as “prawns on toast with sesame seeds”, so I was picturing a kind of bruschetta.  If she’d told me it was a deep-fried toastie, I’d have been all over it.  If you like deep-fried food, you’ll love it.  I’m going to order it every time I go in the future.  Thank you to Mama HH!

When it comes to mains, there’s no sharing.  Although I usually stick to the sizzling black pepper chicken, last time I decided to mix it up.  I got the duck with crispy noodles – it’d been years since I’d had crispy noodles, and I had really missed them.  I was hoping for a different style of duck, as it was a bit slimier than I’d hoped.  It was delicious though, and you can’t argue with a crispy noodle.

My mum is perhaps even less adventurous than I am when it comes to ordering:  she loves Singapore noodles so much that she can’t order anything else!  She is very pleased with this dish, even though she usually isn’t keen on mock meats.

My brother shares her opinion on that, so he went for a tofu and broccoli dish instead.  Much to my relief, he loved it so much that he cleaned his plate.  Hurrah!  Even avowed meat eaters love Lotus!

Dr HH has no such fears, of course:  this is the very exciting looking Assam fish. When I asked him for his review, he raved, “It was so flaky, like fish!  I loved the crispy skin, like real fish!  Look at the presentation, all wavy!  The sauce was so spicy!”  I can’t really build on that enthusiastic review (all exclamation marks his own).

With under two months till we’re popping home for a summer holiday, I’m already starting to plan what to order on our visit!  Will we finally realise our all-starters dream?

What’s your all-time favourite restaurant?  Do you get to it more than twice a year?  Tell me everything!