Mantis are serving up some quite excellent Japanese Food from their unit at Spark in York. They had everything that I was craving on the menu, Gyoza, Ramen, and Bao Buns so we ordered some of each. Why not we were hungry (well I was anyway) 😎

CHICKEN GYOZA

Our first tasty bit was a tray of the Chicken Gyoza which were filled with soft chicken mince and chopped up mixed veg. The dumplings had been cooked perfectly in potsticker style just as I like. Steamed and Pan fried so that you get a soft silken wrapper with a lightly charred base where the dumpling has ‘stuck’ to the pan.

I liked the simplicity of the serving with a drizzle of spicy mayo and a sprinkling of chopped scallions. I also was delighted to be given an even number of dumplings in the tray so that we could share evenly, it’s always contentious when you get an odd number and have to fight with sword crossed chopsticks for the last one! 😍

There were two types of RAMEN on the menu a SHOYU with a Shitake/konbu broth and a YUZU SHIO with a Chintan chicken broth. It was a cold night and my back was killing me so I opted for the Chicken soup just the sort of thing you need when under the weather

Officially I was having the YUZU SHIO – “Chintan chicken broth, yuzu shio tare, bonito, spring onions, soy egg, roast garlic oil” There was a choice of toppings, chashu pork belly, chicken, and smoked tofu, I went with the pig option 😎

The photos of my Ramen don’t do the food justice as it was dimly lit in the street food hall. I think they would say atmospheric, I would say they needed to turn more lights on so I can see my food properly lol

This was a very good bowl of Ramen, it would have been excellent if there wasn’t a missing egg, I didn’t realise until the end (I hadn’t actually read the menu properly). The broth was light and delicate, clear with loads of chicken flavour and some gentle spice

The slices of meat were decent, thickly cut, and generous in portion. I love the slices of vegetables in the bowl all nice and crunchy and not just there for presentation and I enjoyed the coolness and gentle pungency of the scallions that take the edge off any heat

I was really loving the noodle strands in the bowl, they seemed a lot longer than some I had eaten recently and I found myself inventing a kind of double slurp manoeuvre to fish them out into my gob. Reading though their Instagram account it seems that the noodles get delivered fresh from Komugi Noodles in Manchester

All in all Fabulous stuff and I slurped the entire contents down, nothing was left and I don’t care if any passer by thought I was eating like a pig 🤣🧐😎

KARA-AGE BAO BUN

The first BAO we ate was the KARA-AGE which was stacked with ‘Crispy marinated chicken thigh, shredded cabbage, kewpie and furiake‘ and it was a really good bit of grub

The bun was filled out with a very generous portion of chicken, crispy coating (as promised) with a succulent and juicy bit of thigh meat inside.

I particularly like the creamy kewpie mayonnaise dribbled liberally across the top.

BRAISED PORK BELLY BAO

The second bun we shared was the Braised Pork Belly Bao which comes with shredded cabbage and Gochu mayo, at least that was how it was briefly described on the menu.

The slice of Pork Belly was one of the largest I have seen in a Bao Bun from a Streetfood vendor, there was no skimping on portion sizes here at Mantis!

There was definitely a lot more going on inside that Bao Bun so I perused their Instagram to see if there was a more in depth description, ‘braised pork belly bao, sweet spicy gochujang sauce, daikon pickle, scallions and toasted sesame seeds‘ was what I found. Now that does sound tasty does it not?

Both Bao Buns were excellent and at 2 for £12 good value as well. They were much bigger than expected and full to the brim with all the good stuff. Generous indeed

I had done my research on who and what was going to be available in the Spark Street Food complex before we visited and Mantis were right up at the top of my list and I am glad that we came to check them out on this trip to York

I always try and check out the different vendors at Spark when we visit York and usually find something worthy of commenting on. Today was most certainly a good one!