Inside the Golden Mandarin in 1968
The Golden Mandarin Restaurant was where Stan and Hilda Ogden dined in July 1968 to celebrate Stan becoming a "managing director" i.e. running his own window cleaning round.
Hilda had voiced her fears to Emily Nugent that Stan would end up taking her to the buffet in Manchester's Central Station as it was the only cafe that he knew. Emily suggested the Golden Mandarin as she had dined there only the night before and gave her the address of Market Street in Manchester.
Hilda had her doubts at first but changed her mind, reasoning that their money was as good as anybody else's and looked forward to sampling some exotic foreign food. As they entered, she was fascinated to watch a Chinese Man eat with chopsticks from a bowl and looked forward to emulating him but was brought crashing down to earth when Stan ordered the only items from the menu that he recognised - egg, chips and peas.