[Heald Green, Greater Manchester] Nafees Sweet Centre & Restaurant

Open for breakfast through to early dinners, Nafees is a fairly recent opening in Heald Green offering a short menu of South Asian dishes, several of which you are not going to find in your Anglicised high street curry house. Which is probably why, on a Tuesday lunchtime, it was busy with almost every other customer being of South Asian heritage. It’s a very bright, modern, spotlessly clean space.

As for lunch, there was a mixed vegetable curry, fragrant from spices with a nice kick from chilli and just a little clingy sauce. For the other plate, it was chicken pilau – flavoured rice and very tasty chunks of chicken thigh. They come with raita and a couple of yoghurt and tamarind chutneys. There’s also a couple of freebie vegetable pakoras which was a nice touch. Bread was excellent – a pretty much perfect roti and a lovely puffed up bhatura – both showing off their Pakistani heritage.

Service was really good – welcoming, friendly and absolutely on the ball. And it’s a bargain. With a couple bottles of water, the bill was just over twenty quid. Definitely a place to return to try some of the more interesting dishes - the likes of haleem, nihari and paya. It describes itself as a “sweet centre and restaurant” and there is a counter selling sweets, the like of which my diabetes nurse would have a thromby over. But it was also doing a roaring trade with their own ready meals, pakoras, samosas and the like – all good for the freezer if needed.

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I just Googled - the founder was a former Pakistani wrestling champion and Olympian!

A decade ago, I was in Pakistan for three weeks on a business trip to visit the Pakistan Tobacco Company (a wholly-owned subsidiary of British American Tobacco). I was supposed to be in Islamabad only, but a huge protest march on the capital led by Imran Khan, who was the opposition leader then, threw our plans into disarray.

We were evacuated to the Murree Hills, a hill resort away from the protests and political violence. The self-contained resort was very nice, and we got to try every type of Pakistani dish as we worked our way down the buffet line of the main restaurant each day.

Pakistani food can be pretty rich!

Haleem

Nihari

Paya

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Despite its strained relationship with the UK, Pakistan still retains some of its colonial vestiges:

  1. Murree Hills

  1. Nathia Gali, near Murree Hills

  1. Lahore

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The Murree Hills church could be any village Anglican parish church in the UK.

Manchester has two main centres for South Asian food. There’s the “Curry Mile” in Rusholme which is the earlier area but South Asian restaurants are fats being replaced by Middle Eastern ones, with the more recent immigration being from that part of the world. The other area is Stockport Road in Longsight which is more recent and still seems to be mainly South Asian in character and where the first Nafees is. Even though, it’s only a few minutes away, it’s not an area I’m really familiar with. Parking is a nightmare so not an encouragement to explore.

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In fact, the civil war in Syria is bringing a new wave of Middle-Easterners to London as well. Back in the early-90s, Edgware Road’s Arabic eateries are exclusively Lebanese (Maroush, Ranoush Bar, etc.). Now, Syrian ones proliferate.

I need to come explore Manchester’s dining scene soon.

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I’ve fond memories of the various Maroush outlets, although it’s some years since I last went . That’s because the quality near home means I don’t need to include Middle Eastern on trips to London. I’m pretty sure that our regular place, which describes itself as Lebanese/Syrian is in fact Syrian owned

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