Sunday 4 March 2012

Mcr Histories festival: Sweet Mandarin


Helen Tse's grandmother came to England from Hong Kong and opened one of the first Chinese restaurants in Manchester, in Middleton in the 1950s. Helen and her sisters grew up in a chip shop run by their parents. They later went into professions they would not have expected to land in, namely finance, engineering and law. 

Inspired by their maternal heritage they then opened the Sweet Mandarin restaurant in the Northern Quarter in 2004. It has gone on to win national awards, as well as lending its name to a best selling book by Helen. Sweet Mandarin the book tells the ups and downs of the family history from China to Hong Kong to England, with more than their share of racism, gambling, triads and servitude along the way.   I gleaned all of this from a talk Helen gave as part of the Manchester Histories Festival this week. Inspirational.

8 comments:

  1. Looks like an interesting place to eat and I enjoyed the story you told so well about how it came to be.

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  2. It would be fun to slide inside for some Chinese dinner!

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  3. it looks like a great place to eat...my daughter's favorite food is chinese!

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  4. That seems like a really touching story of people revisiting their roots.
    God bless you!
    Cezar

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  5. Looks inviting...

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  6. It sounds like this family has the ability to survive without government help.

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  7. Miss such food and joy for the senses much.

    Please have a good new week ahead.

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