In the middle of a row of terraced houses on the road between Bury and Tottington sits an unassuming cafe.
As the sun beats down on the sole window its name is almost indecipherable - and there’s no other signposting. But take a closer look and in bright orange cursive writing you’ll make out the words ‘Lo Jo Mate.
Set up around six months ago, it's an off-shoot of a rather decorated takeaway called Sai Kwan Lo Jo which was established over 6,000 miles away in Hong Kong.
Operating for several years, the original spot specialised in bites from China’s Guangdong’s Xiguan region, such as hand-made lai fun noodles and sticky rice dumplings. For three years it consistently made it onto the Michelin Guide’s Bib Gourmand list.
But then it suddenly closed. A day after making the list again in March 2025, its owners called it quits on its takeaway citing the pandemic, closures happening around them and a period of low earnings.
But on the road out of Bury town centre, one of the team has been quietly serving up some of the best black char siu, otherwise known as Sorrowful Rice of Ecstasy, in Greater Manchester.
The North Manchester counterpart is a one-man show, where reservations are made via WhatsApp, and patience is their favoured currency. How’s that for setting your stall out?
And if you really can’t wait a little longer for your dinner then, Alex, the man behind it, recommends popping down to McDonald’s. As the sign on one of the walls in relation to the fast-food chain reads: “Be my guest”
This classic Hong Kong Cafe doesn’t pull any punches, and as I found out, it’s all the better for it.
Many dishes are made to order, and its menu spans classics from its original Sai Kwan including noodles, rice dumplings and cheesy rice pops, to Lo Jo special rice bowls featuring an array of ingredients such as SPAM sticks, pork chop and scrambled egg.
Illustrating the British crossover, they also serve up traditional Hong Kong Breakfast with soup-based pasta and ham, a all-day meal with noodles, eggs, butter and toast as well an English fry up.
Now let's get down to it.
I’d booked a table for one over WhatsApp a few days earlier, my reservation time confirmed by a simple ‘yes’, and a follow-up text confirming my name met with an ‘ok’.
I didn’t know whether to feel cautious or relieved in this fuss-free interaction. Surely we’re all weary with long booking forms asking everything from our Mother’s Maiden name to our Star Sign, and manically reaching around in our bags for our debit card before the deposit screen expires and we have to start the process all over again.
Anyway, I was late. I drove past it twice, the sun nearly blinding me as I desperately searched for a parking bay.
Launching into the cafe which is only the size of someone’s front room, it dawned on me how tiny and unique the place really is.
Two women to my left were busy tucking into bowls of rice, while the other pair seemed to have just arrived too. Conversing with Alex in Cantonese they took their seats and started looking over the menu underneath the glass casing of the stainless steel table.
I meanwhile was signalled to take the stool near the door. Doing as instructed, I sat down, he shouted Char Siu and disappeared behind a curtain.
For around ten minutes I sat there wondering how it would play out. Was I allowed to order anything else, could I possibly get a glass of water?
Was the section of the menu serving as a mash-up between British and Hong Kong cuisine off the table? And what about the Lo Jo snacks? ‘I think I’d like to try those’, I thought to myself.
He was gone a while, but when he emerged from behind the curtain draped above the doorway he had a couple of terracotta bowls carefully balanced in the nooks of his elbows - and one was mine.
It wasn’t clear if I could order a drink but I quickly put my thirst aside and tucked into a rather enticing bowl of Black Char Sui with fried egg and rice.
Listed as ‘Sorrowful Rice of Ecstasy’ on the menu, a reference to a classic Hong Kong film, ‘The God of Cookery’ by Stephen Chow, it was easily one of the best dishes I tried in a long time.
Char siu is a type of Cantonese roast meat which sees pork marinated in a sweet BBQ sauce and then roasted. The pieces stuffed into my mouth at breakneck speed were beautifully caramelised, picking up a crisp char from the wok on casing, while retaining a soft, delicate meat in the middle.
Also plunged into the runny fried eggs with crispy edges, and pile of fluffy rice underneath, it was sad to scrape the last morsel from the bowl, but no sooner had I finished that Alex began to recommend some more dishes.
The deep-fried Siu Mai with homemade XO sauce was a winning combination. This classic Hong Kong snack, a plate of golden dumplings stuffed with shrimp, boasted a complex but delicate flavour profile, the moreish filling balanced by the thin, delicate wrapper of pastry and powerful sauce of dried scallops, shrimp and pork.
Snacks here also include egg sandwiches, French fries, deep-fried chicken leg - the latter of which I enviously spied being served to one other the customers - and Hong Kong French toast (£4.39).
The French toast is not a snack, but rather a breeze block of peanut butter filled bread, dipped in eggs and fried. It was far too much, but the slab of butter glistening atop it drew me in. I may have been stuffed but it was the sweet end to a rather magical lunch experience.
Once the other tables had departed, I managed to speak to Alex for a few minutes about coming over to the UK and establishing the business in Bury.
Latest estimates suggest that at least 180,000 Hongkongers have come to Britain in the last few years, many moving to communities in London, Reading, Birmingham and Manchester.
Like many, he moved here following the Chinese government’s stringent 2020 security law, and made use of the change in policy by the British government for those with British National Overseas Status (BNO), which extended opportunities to live and work in the UK.
He’s left his family behind and focuses mainly on the restaurant, having encountered difficult trading conditions in Hong Kong. Here too though, he’s found establishing his cafe in Bury a little challenging but word-of-mouth and reviews from food bloggers online have started to make a dent.
His tiny cafe on a terraced row of houses in the middle of Bury may seem very far away from Hong Kong and his home, but serving up traditional, homemade dishes that are close to his heart, Alex has really created something quite homely and unique.
