Tampopo

We tend to head to either Tampopo or Wagamama when wanting to grab a bite whilst at the Trafford centre, as I think they’re the better options out of the other ‘chain’ restaurants on offer. Tampopo however just steals it for me, since I do prefer the Thai dishes.
We’ve dined here a few times lately, on all occasions the food was flavoursome and well cooked. The service is generally pretty good and what you expect from restaurants alike. The range of dishes on the menu is good, my favourite is the Thai curry noodles — spicy, zingy and filling! I could eat noodles like this every day!
I highly recommend Tampopo for a quick, tasty and reasonably priced dinner.

This place is one of my favourite Asian food restaurants! They have a huge variety from all over south east Asia and having visited a few of the countries on their menu map, some dishes certainly remind me of my travels! The Pad Thai is a firm favourite, as is the Katzu curry, however sometimes it can be quite dry. Today I’m trying to be healthy, so I’ve opted for phở soup! But it didn’t disappoint, it was fresh, full of flavour and topped with warm chicken. I’m even quite full!

Great fast service although ended up feeling a little more like a fast food joint than I’d have liked and the music was a little off putting (loud hip hop?!). They’d run out of most beers so we went for tiger. It was warm. Clearly just brought up from the store room. Warm beer is not cool! Had the Pad Thai minus the egg, which they were more than happy to do. Great sized portion and great flavour with lime and peanuts. I feel there are better Thai options out there which trump this one. This being said perhaps it’s set up this way at the Trafford centre to get people in and out and encourage more shopping!

Three of us dined at lunch (lunch menu) and I wasn’t overly impressed. Its no longer good value for money. It’s been some time since I last visited. The food was tasty enough (I asked for extra fresh basil with my chicken fried rice main, and got it, which helped) and if taste was the only criteria it would be five star. I also ordered a vegetable tempura from the main menu as a starter. Again the food alone would be five star. But the food portions were small, very little chicken in my main, and the plate and the food were both cold. No customer wifi either, yet its name came up as wifi locked on my phone, and inviting a code, indicating it used to have its own wifi. Now the waitress said I might get free wifi logging onto the customer unfriendly O2, I couldn’t so I gave up, not good enough really. Oh, she just said O2, I added the words customer unfriendly. I have a rule: the more I have to pay the greater the food quality, the service and level of comfort I expect. The prices have risen since I last visited too, but customers still sit on benches and depending on where you sit you may be on a seat with no support for your back. The service was alright, efficient. The veg tempura with red pepper, green pepper, green beans and sweet potato, is £1 dearer almost a scandalous 25% hike; a main is now either £7 or £8 without a starter, depending on your choice of main course. If you want a starter add another £2.50 and if you want a diet coke (330ml) add another ridiculous £2.35, or put it another way, over £4 a pint. So a two course lunch for one with a soft drink is either £12 or £13. Yet the fabulous eat all you like Chaobaby with comfy seating — and just two minutes walk away — is £14 for a huge selection of tasty five — star hot food: starters, mains and desserts, on hot plates at about only £3 or £4 more food cost. So sadly it’s bye bye Tampopo.

As a previous reviewer said it was a meh. Went bowling and Christmas shopping in the Trafford Centre and was looking for somewhere to eat. This looked pretty appealing so plonked myself down on their outside chairs.
Had the starter selection which had gyoza, spring rolls and other things and the gentleman who brought it out explained what everything was. Our waitress helped me choose a main and she was quite adamant I had the fried rice, which was really blah and I couldn’t finish. My friend had noodles which looked OK.
We had a fair few different drinks– including green tea, ginger beer, beer etc. At the end of our meal the woman was really pushing for us to have a dessert and came over several times– we simply wanted a coffee. I ordered a Vietnamese coffee but wanted it sweet and they ran out of condensed milk so she brought out a free one. gave it to the gentleman next to us because I just didn’t want it black. So I ordered this green tea latte which was really nice.
The bill was pretty hefty considering we didn’t have dessert and I wouldn’t go back really, it was just average.

Awful meal in this previously good restaurant. Long queues to be seated despite a lot of free tables. Poor service and sorry to use this word but its the most fitting one — crap food.
I go to Tampopo at the Trafford centre regularly with a friend. She loves pad Thai and I love most of what they offer. Over the past about two years its been steadily going down hill. This was rock bottom. They have cut down then menu and it feels like they have cheapened the ingredients. The service was truly dreadful. You know those times you want to say to staff ‘I’m sorry am I keeping you from something you’d rather be doing?’ Our waiter was texting someone on his phone while trying to take our order. We thought at first maybe they had a fancy new iPhone ordering system but as no other staff seemed to be using it we have to assume he was just not bothered about giving us decent service.
He really annoyed me by constantly, aggressively up selling things to us on a very robotic way. No we didn’t want Thai crackers, no we didn’t want pak choi or greens. He then offers us the crackers again. We still don’t want them. It was awful.
We waited a stupidly long time for the food to arrive and mine was barely luke warm when it came, the rice was actually cold. The waiter did check back on our food but not until we had almost finished. A complete waste of time at that point. We then struggled to get the bill, staff were chatting to each other and just hanging about rather than proactively working.
Blergh is my overall review. Sad times when a great concept that used to be well delivered has turned into an Asian style McDonald’s. Disinterested staff who barely speak English (sorry but this matters to me) and (here it comes again) crap food. Sort it out David Fox, you should be embarrassed of how your beautiful baby has grown up.

A well deserved «Meh. I’ve experienced better»…I should add «at the same place».
The trafford centre can really be hit and miss when it comes to food, in fact more miss than hit. But then again I’m fussy and I try to have some ethics about the food that is put on my plate as much as a life in an urban western-​world city allows.
Tampopo usually is the place that floats our boat. You can eat reasonably quickly, well and healthy without breaking the bank. I haven’t been able to assign all these criterias to any other place at the TC. So we’ve visited many times and happily came back everytime. But on Monday that got shattered.
We were told only oone chef was there and it would be 20 minutes waiting for the food. We still went in and between the prwan crackers and our order, it didn’t feel that long before we got our mains served. But the quality of the food on the plate was way below the usual standard.
It’s a chain, I know that and I don’t expect the moon there. The simplicity of some asian cooking is what makes these places great for cheap quick food: noodles, chicken, spices, soy sauce — done. But in this instance, the prawns were nuked to a state of rubber, my duck slices were boiled to death, the curry sauce was barely better than the dodgy stuff you get on your chips…
It must have been a bad day in the kitchen, sorry it has to be my first review of it on the site. We will check it again for sure and update if appropriate.

Oh oh oh Tampopo, you stole my heart and now I can’t say no no. Despite being a stones throw away from my other favourite eatery that is Rice. My recent visit left me with a burning desire to return.
Tampopo’s Nasi Goreng is fast becoming the run away success of 2012. After passively stealing a bite or two of it from an unsuspecting eating partner, I have never looked back. This dish is to this year what Pad Thai was to 2011.
There aren’t many days left in 2012, but rest assured I will spend them wisely diving widemouthly into my next plate.
Tampopo has risen to the top of my restaurants to eat at in the Trafford centre not just for its food but for its décor (Had my last meal in a tuk tuk, nearly!) fantastic service, and meal turnaround time. Not to mention the reasonable menu prices. What’s more if you can’t finish your Red Curry, have them doggie bag it in the old school little boxes from Frasier. They’ll taste even better for lunch the next day, I promise.
Any real foodie be hard pressed to find a better eatery at the trafford centre my sweet Unilocaleeps. So hit me up before you go go. and I’ll most likely tag along.

this place came as a complete shock to me!
I was out shopping in thetrafford centre with some family and we decided to grab dinner, and this place was suggested i ruled it out instantly because im not really into this kinda food, but i was outvoted so it was safe to safe we went in and i had a face like thunder and expected to be starving.
we sat down at we tble with bench seats that were actually really comfy, the girl got our drinks order and left us to decide. i had never heard of half the stuff on this menu so i was a bit dumbfounded, but the girl seen my confused face and came over and asked if she could help… which was lovely so iasked her about a few things and she really did help me out which was lovely!
i opted for chicken ramen, she said was basically like a soup with noodles i was like thats cool i can cope with that.
so the wait was on for the food. wasn’t even 10minutes and the girl was wlaking towards us with these huge bowls, that were honestly as big as thr sink i my bathroom i was like surely she isn’t coming to us?!
she did and put this utterly huge bowl of chicken ramen in front of me…
honestly never seen it coming
so i just starred at it. then i got my chopsticks and tarted to eat
aww my god it was so delicious … i actually ate it all. couldn’t believe it.
i never finish a lasagne so this was not like me at all, but although it looked huge once the liquid was gone it didnt seem so bad, and it was so bloody tasty i just kept munching haha.
yummm
i even used my chopsticks relatively well!
this wee place is lovely.
i though on reading the menu it was pricey but like i say i didnt realise the portion size and i dont eat this quisine that often, but on seeing the portion izes its more than worth the money!
£50 all in for 4 of us all having chicken ramen and 4 drinks.
perfect.
i’ll be back next time im in manchester!
:)

I’m typically a fan of this reasonably priced chain. the food is predictable, if not factory line, and generally good. I usually have the red thai curry (my favorite thai food staple) but branched out and tried their lunch special pad thai. It was okay, but the expediency (and efficiency) of the service underscored the rather mass-​produced quality of their food (it sort of tasted like it came out of a tin). The service is fine, but definitely no frills. they are aiming to get you in and out, presumably because it is a mall and they think you have better things to be doing (which in this case, we did– a movie, so it was a-​ok by us). As long as you go in expecting functional and fast dining, it will be a pleasant experience for all.

Oh my god I’m so full.
After avoiding Tampopo for the longest time because YEARS ago I ordered some weird thing that was like vegetable crudités and peanut dip and a cold boiled egg that was really gross, I decided to go back tonight.
And it was really cool.
Like the previous reviewer said it is pretty echoy, the music was soo bassy it was like someones phone was constantly vibrating on your table. A really old phone aswell like some old Ericsson phone not like the nice clipt, crisp, clinical vibrate of an htc desire.
The restaurant is adorned with asian cooking paraphenalia like chillis, tins of coconut milk and bags of flour (?) The menu has a great selection of different dishes from japan, thailand, vietnam etc.
It has soups, salads curries and little tapasy street food dishes that are so freaking good. We had these fried corn fritters, it was like pancake batter and sweet corn cakes with a satay dip. omg they were rly nice.
I had ramen which was huuuge, with beansprouts, noodles and greens. The broth was so delicious I could have just eaten that. My boyfriend had Penang curry which was as delicious as it always is anywhere you go.
It was just really nice and the prawn crackers they give you are soo crunchy and the waitress was a total gem. It must have been pretty salty though because im so damn thirsty now.

Great variety of far eastern dishes — Indonesian, Vietnamese, Thai, Japanese, Phillipine, Malaysian etc.
Delicious & highly recommended. Give it a try!

We all know I heart Tampopo.
I rarely go to this branch in the Trafford Centre however because of the acoustics. Sounds bizarre I know, but as anyone whose eaten here will know — the main food hall here is like an echo chamber. Tampopo is at the entrance of The Orient section so it manages to escape the vast majority of the noise. On incredibly busy weekends however, it’s still possible to hear children screaming, crying and demanding certain fast food outlets!
If you can cope with the hum of noise, Tampopo is the best place to eat by a mile. The menu is extensive and with dishes from Thailand, Indonesia, Vietnam, Malaysia, Singapore and Korea, there should be something for everyone. As well as delicious small and main dishes, there is a truly scrumptious desert menu including mango sorbet, toasted coconut and rum ice-​cream and Vietnamese fried bananas with caramel sauce.
Just writing about it is making me want to taste the latter two again. Anyone got a spoon?