Wooden hut where people queue for £6 noodles is closest you can get to Thailand without travelling

In Wythenshawe’s Civic Centre - the heart of Manchester’s largest district - jutting out in front of Iceland supermarket and The Works, sits a long grey wooden shack. The owners of this establishment have never been busier.

Owned and run by Rabbie Promnat and her partner Mike, the aptly named Rabbie’s Noodle Hut does exactly what it says on the tin - or in this case, its shack. Walk through the precinct and you’ll quickly pick up on an array of Thai aromas wafting through the air - from the tangy perfume of tamarind and pungent fish sauce to the heady and floral fragrance of star anise.

Rabbie, originally from Thailand, moved to the UK - via Holland - more than twenty years ago, went to University here and became a quantity surveyor. However, when she was made redundant during the pandemic, she quickly found herself reconnecting with her roots.

Try MEN Premium now for FREE... just click here to give it a go.

Having grown up watching her mother cook traditional Thai dishes, many of these staples were passed down to her - it would just be some years later before she would share her own cooking skills with others.

In 2020, armed with those recipes she gained the permission of the Wythenshawe Civic Centre to launch her own dining concept, but rather than take on a unit, she built her own hut in her back garden, creating just enough space for her kitchen and a serving hatch, and opened it in the middle of the shopping centre.

Mike, who would later become her partner, came across the noodle hut as he scoped out the area following a move to Wythenshawe from Scotland. “I met Rabbie six months after she opened the first one, which was down by Specsavers, it was right in the middle, much smaller and designed for her to work