Discreetly placed down a side street, not that Tib Lane is exactly off the radar, you find New Wave Ramen.  A quietly classy looking unit, given away by a striking blue A-board on the pavement outside. 

On entry, there’s a sweeping bar with appropriate stools along the edge, backed up by a huge welcoming smile from the guys on shift.  A lovely first impression.  The seating area to the rear feels proper and authentically ramen bar.  All in all, we approve.

Some décor touch up wouldn’t go amiss.  The booth which we sat in was adjacent to a wall which needed some filler and paint.  But no biggie. This isn’t The Ritz.

The bill for 2 bowls of ramen, a plate of pickles, 2 boozy drinks and service, was £51.  Pretty decent in truth, and the days of being able to pick up a quality lunch with an alcoholic drink for sub £20 are now pretty much in the rear-view mirror anyway and rightly so. We all had it too cheap for way too long, and I’ve said that for years.

The base ramen is an admirable £10, rising to £16 for the options which a bit more protein.  Excessive bump up?

And added service charge, in a casual ramen bar, in Manchester?  It seems that it’s now to be expected anywhere more spenny than Greggs.  Id have paid it anyway, but still.

The heart of any great ramen is the broth.   Too many places cut corners but New Wave showcase several variants from clear chicken broth, creamy white broth and chicken/dashi.  In short, you can tell that these guys take no prisoners when it comes to the prep of their broths.

Our baseline Tokyo Shoyu Ramen (£10) is always a barometer of the above, so we went with one of those.  This was rich, thick, slightly gelatinous, clearly showing it’s roots as being from bones.  It’s the only way, and is being done very well here.  Some rolled pork belly topped the bowl, along with half a perfectly cooked egg, some bembo shoots, spring onion and a decorative square of nori.  The classics are as such for a reason, and this was a solid bowl of goodness, done right.

To measure the non-broth based wares, our option was the Tantan Mazesoba (£16); a dry noodle dish with a spicy sauce, shredded lamb shoulder, an onsen egg, togarashi, chilli oil, coriander, crispy chilly, just in case you needed more heat, finished with some pickles to round it all off.  Perfectly cooked noods, with layers of flavour via that extensive garnish, and super tasty lamb.  Definitely one for the chilli fans.

Some pleasant and perfectly pickled veg (£4) acted as a bit of a balancing act to that lovely rich broth.  Sadly, only ramen and not sides/small plates were available at lunch, so we can only report on the ramen itself on this occasion sorry peeps.

The mazesoba noodles were uber clumped together and took a bit of chopstick work to de-clump.  MS Word isn’t happy with the word de-clump and is telling me that it’s bad via a big red underline.  I agree. We don’t like clumpage.  That’s also been red underlined, so it’s clearly even Bill Gates agrees.

Everyone who we spoke to, passed by, and even just looked at was an absolute charm.  Warm, friendly, genuine, and made us feel like a guest.  Service at the tableside was on point too, with little service points such as a check back, reasonable timings between asking for drinks, giving us the option of which table we sat at, all being handled like pros.

Nothing really comes to mind on this occasion to be honest.  Absolutely all in order based on where you are and what their target audience is.

I’ll go right in with a bit of a well-intentioned moan; we have too much ramen in Manchester. Every major UK city is the same, but we are particular culprits for the OTT presence. First it was burgers in 2010, then pizza around 2020, and now ramen appears to be the single foodstuff which every new operator wants to bang out. Be honest with ourselves as a city. Do we need all this ramen? Is most of it outstanding? The answer is no. And could we create a better food offering for the city by opening something new, which we don’t already have? Absolutely we could.

However, we do have a few very good ramen outlets, and what history has taught us is that when a bubble of oversaturation pops, as it invariably does, the people who remain are the ones who were doing it properly all along. You sense that New Wave will be one of that compact group.

The ramen is authentic, on point, well made and feels proper. I suspect that it will stand the test of time in Manchester, and is 100% in our top 2 or 3 ramen purveyors. And that’s all we need in truth, not 20.

Offer the Izakaya and skewers during lunch service please!  Not everyone needs/wants to be in and out in 45 mins.