A Liverpool legend. I have been going to Ma Bo for over 35 years. I have recently started returning on business and can therefore charge any siz e of bill. However, its the best alternative to being at home and i walk past many expensive restaurants to get there. I thus charge my expenses about £15 a time. If you eat once in Liverpool make it Ma Bo. From the wonderful duck prepared at the front to the cracking noodles it is all good. Cheaper than a trip to China!

Warrontonian

this restaurant has been our favourite for over forty years, even before the present owners took over about twenty five years ago. In all that time food has been the most important thing about the restaurant. Duck dishes to die for. PorkChar Sui never tasted as good anywhere else in the world, including Asia. Highly recommended. We still visit as a family.

Js Sierzant

I can confirm everything the other reviewers have said. I first started going there about 30 years ago and the now older lady who was then an exceptionally attractive young lady and who is still in charge, on being asked by me for a list of dim sum very politely but strictly informed me "this no fancy joint". I went on to enjoy the best Chinese food this side of China and Honk Kong. I go there with my family everytime I return to Liverpool and between us there has never even been a hint of dissatisfaction - I think that says it all!

Kris

One of the best Chinese Restaurants outside China, i know this having lived in Liverpool most of my life but now living in Asia. With its red and white chequered Table cloths and the ducks and pork hanging in the window, its like downtown Hong Kong or Shanghai, and yes the food is as good. It doesn't need to be all dressed to the hilt as the Food screams at you that its wonderful and homely and has been cooked by someone who knows what their doing and has passion and is not doing it for the Money as most of the Chinese Restaurants do in the UK... Try this place if you want good food but if its a nice restaurant that you want a romantic dinner then go elsewhere but for food this place is amazing!

Ma Bo Restaurant

It's difficult to rate the "ambience" of this place, because if it was any other restaurant it could only be described as rubbish. But it isn't any other restaurant, it's the Ma Bo, and there's nowhere else like it. Sit towards the back, and look out of the window, past the elderly Chinese lady preparing the ducks, and you'd swear you were in a cafe in Shanghai, not least because a lot of the customers are ethnic Chinese (which speaks for itself). The food is unsurpassed in any Chinese restaurant I have visited - have a go at the roast duck, it's serious "melt in the mouth" stuff.

Ma Bo Restaurant

Sited in a row of perhaps 9 other Chinese restaurants close to the impressive archway marking Liverpool? Chinatown gateway, Ma Bo is immediately recognisable by its uncompromising ordinariness. No shiny jade tiles here, no oriental lanterns, no beckoning exotic bamboo, and certainly no menu outside, Ma Bo gives no quarter to oriental Anglicism. From the outside Ma Bo looks just like the terraced house it once was, and largely still is, except for the half dozen upside down wind dried ducks gawping hopelessly from the front room window at the pavement below. Steam billows from the front door, down some small steps and onto the street. Inside it? a 1950? front room with tables, the room was probably last decorated by Ken Hom? grandfather. Linoleum and prototype Marley tiles cover the floor; the tables are covered with a very practical if not aesthetically pleasing oilcloth. The chairs, all 31 of them, crowd around the 8 tables like runner ducks at a Beijing bus stop. Interior décor reflects pre Chairman Mao minimalism; a wall calendar of indeterminate period or origin is the only belligerent stab at opulence. Ma Bo is family run, at last count by at least 5 living generations of the same family, from age 5 to approximately 105, and well represented in between. Service is a unique but utterly charming blend of near brusque surliness, punctuated by moments of near bewildering wide smiling friendliness. If you only ever visit one Chinese restaurant in Liverpool make it Ma Bo, not necessarily for the décor or the service, as fascinating as that may be, but for the food, its outstanding. Notable dishes are the chilli and salt squid, the fish ball stew, the pork Char Sui and just about anything they do with a duck. The menu is relatively small, and thankfully on the whole free of Cino Anglo staples. For considerably less than £20 two people can eat dishes at Ma Bo that: (a) are not available next door and (b) if they were would be at least double the price. Don? miss it.

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