Manchester Evening News

FOOD & DRINK

- By DAISY JACKSON

THERE aren’t many restaurant­s in Manchester that give me that deer-in-headlights, first-day-of-school flurry of nerves. It’s rare that I find myself shuffling side-to-side and apologisin­g for dithering in people’s way.

But walking into One Plus’s hotpot restaurant on Charles Street is a little daunting for a first-timer, not helped by the slightly ominous, graffitico­vered entrance next to some bins.

Other diners are confidentl­y walking around carrying tiny bowls and ladling ingredient­s into them, or plunging twists of noodles into bubbling pots of broth, chatting to one another through a layer of steam that cloaks the restaurant even more effectivel­y than the mist outside.

But then salvation appears through the fog, a waiter cheerily waving a set of menus and wafting us towards a table.

A narrow conveyor belt snakes through the restaurant, carrying coloured plates of vegetables, noodles, meat and seafood under one of plastic cloches.

Dinners here start with a Chinese broth base (£5.50), and there are five to choose from, which are kept bubbling by individual induction hobs placed in front of every seat.

One is a very subtle tom yum soup, a few cursory tomato slices bobbing on the surface being boiled to oblivion, while our other choice, the ‘spicy,’ proves to be exactly that.

It will ‘give you a little numbing sensation,’ the menu warns. If that means cauterisin­g all the nerve endings in your mouth, then yep, mission accomplish­ed.

It only gets hotter as it reduces down. By the end of the meal my friend’s lips have plumped to Real Housewives of Cheshire proportion­s.

The base price includes a dipping sauce, which you assemble yourself from an assortment of condiments

- a sesame butter base, then whatever additional flourishes take your fancy.

It takes a few goes for me to get the balance right of oyster sauce, spring onion, garlic and chilli, while my friend hits the dip on the head first time with her sichuan chilli oil-laced sauce.

Back at the table, it’s time to start grabbing ingredient­s from the conveyor belt, which you then cook for an advised length of time in your broth. The hotpot concept is simple, once you stop flapping around and being afraid of a vat of sesame butter - guilty as charged.

As with sushi restaurant­s with similar mechanisms, different plate colours equal different prices, ranging from £1.20 to £4.

There are all sorts of items sailing past our station - pak choi, prawns, sweet potato, tofu, noodles, mushrooms, clams, mussels, meatballs, scallops, and something that looks like a jellied pipe fitting (it turns out to be chikuwa, a Japanese fish cake). You can also wave to the staff, who’ll bring out some extra dishes like pork and prawn wontons, or beef brisket.

It’s like the Generation Game, but with tripe.

The offal is the least of my concerns - I’m fascinated to know what sort of person would reach for a frankfurte­r, or a blotchy oblong of luncheon meat, with so much fresh veg and seafood on offer.

We snaffle only one of the pricier black plates (£4), lured in by some glistening scallops. Cooked exactly per the restaurant’s recommenda­tion, they’re buttery and sweet, picking up just a hint of seasoning from the broth.

The king prawns (£3.20) are also excellent, transformi­ng from grey to pink when they hit the water quicker than a sulky teenager’s mood ring.

Pork and prawn wontons (£3.20) summoned from the kitchen are clearly freshly made, still dusted in flour and pock-marked with fingerprin­ts. They’re more porky than prawny, but that wonton wrapper does a grand job of mopping up my now-perfect-mightactua­lly-patent-it dipping sauce.

White clams (£2.40) are forgettabl­e, shrivellin­g up to tiny chewy pebbles despite cooking them less than advised.

Fried tofu and pak choi (both £1.80) are efficient sponges for sucking up the broth, but the sweet potato (£1.20) brings little to the party.

Our guardian angel - sorry, waiter - reappears often, sometimes to top up our soup, sometimes to wordlessly slide forks down next to our chopsticks, to whisper ‘put some bean curd paste in too’ at the dipping sauce counter and, eventually, thankfully, to show us how to turn the temperatur­e down on the hobs.

By this point, my friend’s hair seems to be trying to start its own party. The steam belching out from our hotpots has caused her tresses to double in volume, and we’re both sporting a glow as though we’ve gone for a particular­ly spicy facial.

We’re full, couldn’t possibly eat another thing, but the constant appearance of new plates sidling into your peripheral vision is hard to resist.

A few items have the opposite effect. Nothing makes slices of raw chicken less appealing than seeing them parade around a warm room for an hour like someone’s sad forgotten luggage.

Inviting diners to cook their own dinner is smart business - you can’t send back food for being poorly cooked or improperly seasoned when you’ve been in charge of your own dinner.

But from a customer perspectiv­e, it’s tasty, varied, and bloody good fun.

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