‘No website, no menu and not on Google maps – but there’s barely a spare seat’
Soup Co is so new that, at the time of visiting, it didn’t exist on Google Maps. There’s no website – just an Instagram and TikTok account, together totalling 13 posts that date no further back than the beginning of July.
There’s not really a menu to speak of either, adding to a level of intrigue and mystery. And yet, when I visited just after 6pm on a Wednesday evening, there was hardly a spare seat in the house.
Most of the promotion has been done by local bloggers and content creators who have vlogged their visit online, but it seems to have done the trick. New, buzzy outlets are popping up all the time in the city centre – when there’s a good one, word of mouth travels fast.
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Located on the end of Mosley Street just off Piccadilly Gardens, Soup Co’s main offering is malatang, a spicy Chinese soup akin to hotpot or ramen – featuring a mixture of proteins, vegetables and noodles which are cooked and then served in a flavoursome broth. The concept of a malatang shop, which began popping up in China in the early 2010s, is simple, yet ingenious.
Armed with a bowl and a pair of metal tongs, facing down a cornucopia of ingredients and a choice of ten different broths (five of which are vegan) you are completely at liberty to pick and choose the contents of your dish. It’s a tempting yet slightly overwhelming offer.
You can choose from chicken, lamb, beef, pork, duck, sausage, a variety of meatballs, crabsticks, shrimp, mussels, squid and even frogs’ legs (all refrigerated). There’s also a big range of fresh crunchy vegetables, including pak choi, Chinese cabbage, beansprouts, sweet potato, and five different types of mushroom to choose from too.
Rounding out the offering are quails eggs, three different types of tofu and five varieties of noodles.
Whilst I don’t eat meat, there is clearly still more than enough to keep me happy. I opt for udon noodles, pak choi, a healthy pile of deep fried tofu puffs and a choice of enoki, king trumpet and oyster mushrooms, taking advantage of the chance to try the varieties that are harder to find at the supermarket.
Inside, the restaurant is bright and airy, painted pink, red and cream, with a mixture of table and counter seating. There are colourful cartoon-style murals on the left-hand walls, opposite an equally colourful display of guava, pear and aloe drinks alongside the typical cans of Sprite and Coke.
Having made my choices, I head to the counter, where it’s time to weigh my bowl; you are charged according to weight. Afterwards you get to pick the soup that you want your bowlful of ingredients to swim in.
Among the choice of broths there is beef bone, chicken bone, tomato, signature spicy, mushroom and vegetable and tom yum, under which reads “dare we say, the best tom yum in Manchester”. A bold claim that needs to be tested on a future visit, for sure.
I choose laksa – a rich and spicy coconut curry soup. My bowl is then pushed through a hatch, through which you catch a glimpse of the kitchen in the back where the raw ingredients are immersed in generous ladleful’s of broth to ensure it all gets cooked properly.
In the meantime, your attention is turned to the row of toppings with which you can make your own garnish for the top of the soup. Carried away by the novelty of an all-you-can-eat condiment stand, I go a bit mad and load up my little brass dish with black vinegar, sesame oil, dark soy sauce, crispy chilli oil and mounds of fresh coriander, minced garlic and crunchy peanuts. Whether it’s an obvious overload of flavour or a new taste sensation is yet to be decided.
There is also fish, oyster and peanut sauce, as well as spring onions and sesame seeds to choose from. It’s another fun, interactive step to the dining experience, and the concoction I’ve created is spicy, sour, crunchy and addictive. It turns out to be wholly unnecessary, however, as the soup, when it is brought to my table – a fragrant, steaming brass bowl the size of a dinner plate – is absolutely delicious in its own right.
I already knew I liked laksa, but this one is special: rich, spicy, aromatic, citrusy, creamy from the coconut and overall, deeply flavoursome and comforting. The spongy tofu puffs and meaty mushrooms have absorbed all its flavours and are all the more delicious for it.
The whole thing is grounded by satisfyingly chewy, hearty noodles and the tender green leaves of pak choi are still crunchy but softened slightly by the broth – a perfect consistency.
A word on that broth. On the menu, the laksa is, confusingly, described as “creamy, coconutty, mild spicy curry soup”. All those adjectives were true, except mild. My comfort level when it comes to spice lands around a medium on the Nando’s scale, yet my eyes were streaming by the time I finished my bowl. So, if you’re a lemon-and-herb person or even (God forbid) a Plain-ish, I would tread carefully.
Overall, the noodle soup was fantastic – delicious, hearty and filling – and the small role I played in putting it together made it a highly enjoyable dining experience from start to finish. Soup Co charges £2.99 per 100g; my collection of dry ingredients, which I thought was medium-sized, weighed in at 440g, costing £13.20.
They don’t make it entirely clear at the outset that there’ll be an additional charge for the broth too, although it is signposted on little notecards among the selection of dry ingredients – I had overlooked these, but in hindsight it makes sense. It is a generous portion, though, costing £2.60 and bringing my total up to £15.80.
That, to my mind, is on the pricier side. It’s more than what I am used to paying for a bowl of the equivalent tofu ramen at Wagamama, £14, and the tofu pho at Pho Cue, a steal at £9.80. It’s also more expensive than the ramen options, meat or no meat, at Shoryu and Maki & Ramen. But on balance, I would say the joy of getting to pick exactly what I like in my bowlful is worth the occasional splurge.
SoupCo is located at Unit B5, City Tower, Mosley Street, Manchester. It is open Monday to Sunday from 11am to 10:30pm. Prices start at £2.99 per 100g dry ingredients, plus broth. Halal, vegetarian and vegan options available.