Mamasan is a south East Asian restaurant in Liverpool that covers three floors, has a lovely modern interior and offers a variety of menus including vegan and gluten free options. We visited here with a group of people for an early Christmas do, and all had preordered from a Christmas set menu of three courses for £40.

We were seated quickly in a comfortable space on the ground floor. Drinks were ordered but did take a good while to arrive. Now onto the food…

For starters I had ordered Lobster tail and King prawn toast with a burnt chilli jam. These hunks were delicious and the spicy sauce was a great accompaniment. They were pretty filling for a starter too.

Steve chose the beef carpaccio with teriyaki onions, shimeji mushrooms and a wasabi emulsion. This dish was already gluten free but they were more than happy to make it dairy free too.

For my main I went for 24 hour slow roasted Iberico pork char Sui with a black garlic glaze, crackling and mustard dressing. Steve chose a green curry of monkfish tail and tiger prawn with charred courgette and roasted aubergine. Again they made this gluten and dairy free no problem. We both thoroughly enjoyed our mains. My pork was sweet and cut easily, and the pickle that came along side was very tasty, though I don’t recall there being much crackling. Which is a shame as that’s often the best bit! the sticky glaze was incredibly moreish though and I ate it all really quickly. I don’t eat pork often so this was a lovely treat.

For dessert, absolutely everyone except me chose the coconut and peanut chocolate delice, served with poached peaches, orange and chilli and a chestnut cream. Some people, like Steve, loved it. Others found it way too rich.

I always find chocolate desserts like these much too rich, so I had chosen the lime leaf and coconut crème brûlée. This came with candied ginger, a charred pineapple crumble and a huge scoop of sorbet. On first bite, the flavour was a bit of a shock, but with the beautifully crisp sugared topping and the creamy custard I devoured this happily. So yummy! and a massive portion to boot.

Whilst the food was lovely, some of our party felt the service was too slow. It was a packed restaurant on a Saturday night at Christmas so I can forgive that, and a free bottle of wine definitely helped. Would I visit again? Probably. But I’d definitely be trying food from the regular menu and laying off the wine! I’d probably go midweek too.

Big thumbs up to the chefs though, you managed to feed the husband with his food intolerances and me very well indeed 🥰