'I found some of Manchester's most exciting food in a backstreet café with a wonky roof'

A word of warning to start with. On a Tuesday lunchtime last week, Papa Don was full, not a single spare table going, always a good sign. So if you’re planning to go, and you really should, maybe see if you can book first because the other options nearby are pretty scarce, unless you like bog standard fried chicken (I do, to be fair) or the type of pizza that tastes like cheese and tomato have been melted onto a car wash sponge (again, I sort of do).

Much like the recently reviewed That’s Thai, this place is rather out on a limb, making the fact that it’s packed even more intriguing. This isn’t passing trade. Nope. People are clearly travelling to come here, another good sign.

There are some other odd parallels too. Both places sit buried down back streets, off the beaten track, That’s Thai in the looming shadow of Strangeways prison and Papa Don’s at the edge of Gorse Hill on the way to Old Trafford.

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Both are also, weirdly, next door to MOT garages. A few more, and it’ll be a trend. And both do blazingly good Thai food, though the owners of Papa Don’s are actually from Hong Kong, and also do Korean food too.

Anyway, that’s the background. On paper, the menu looks like nothing too exciting, stuff you’d see in plenty of other places - a Pad Thai, salt and pepper chicken wings, tom yum soup, various fried rice dishes. It’s a bit underwhelming even.

The execution is something else completely. Everything at this cute little café with a wonky roof is more or less the perfect example, your dream