Plenty cosplay at streetfood, when in actual fact, they have a roof over their heads 100% of the time.
The roof over Best Friend ShaoKao is the A57(M), more popularly known as the Mancunian Way, where chums Alven and Wei (the titular ‘best friends’) wheel out their traditional Chinese barbecue – or shaokao.
Slowly, as the smoke rises, their customers emerge.
Found where Cambridge Street crosses beneath the Ring Road, Alven and Wei started their food truck business three years ago, as a nostalgic flavour of home for the legion of ex-pats and students that have landed in Manchester in recent years.
It’s as urban as it’s possible to be, from the dimly-lit underpass tunnels – choose your own adventure from a possible four entrances – to the slabs of graffiti-ed concrete, daubed with myriad tags of varying quality.
For those questioning how legit it all is, their trading licence is there for all to inspect on their Instagram stories, alongside a proudly emblazoned five stars from the ladies and gents at Food Standards.
‘Five stars’ is generally the flavour of the reviews too. As dusk settles, the best chums are barely illuminated by the crackling embers, the smell of caramelising meat thick in the air.
Cubes of beef are alternately laced onto the skewers with cubes of fat, both heavily massaged with a layer of spice that crisps over the flames.
There’s beef tendon or gizzards for the more adventurous, as well as chicken, pork belly, lamb, and once scorched the hot skewers are stuffed into a plastic bag for you to take to wherever you’re headed, or just tear open and eat as you stand, with a piece of warm flatbread to wrap around them.
Like all the best things, you have to work a little for this experience – generally opening from 5.30pm to 10.30pm on Saturdays (and not every Saturday either, so check up on their Instagram to avoid bitter disappointment, though so they sometimes open the odd other day too).
Few places in Manchester do stuff as authentic as this without feeling the need to shout about how authentic it is.
Best Friend ShaoKao is just there doing it.
Sometimes.
