This will be the penultimate entry in my unofficial 2010 Chinese cuisine fortnightly special which is (unofficially) intended to celebrate the coming Lunar New Year (Tiger) which will fall on the 14th of Feb this year. I had always been fasnicated with the idea of Haozhan, being it is one of two restaurants (the other being Plum Valley) in Gerard Street to break from the mould of old world Chinese cuisine. It was obvious that these guys wanted to set Chinatown alight with a touch of elegance, both of which carry shades of Hakkasan. While Plum Valley is more disciplined in it’s approach toward Chinese fine dining; Haozhan dares to venture to the realm of pan asia with a menu that marries the best of East and West, and isn’t shy to get a little creative with their recipes. On paper at least, Haozhan seems an exciting prospect : Owned by Joe Kong who’s family owns New Fook Lam (also in Gerard Street) and having secured a kitchen of ex Hakkasan and ex Kai talent: New blood poised to grab the torch away from their founding fathers.
The contemporary idea extends to the efficient décor – a long rectangular space free from clutter, black wooden walls lit by a rainbow of coloured lights, as if to punctuate the start of a new breed of Chinese restaurants : Sleeker, sexier, robust and ever more serious. They waste little time in shoving their bold concept in your face with their mission statement scrawled across the very first page of the menu. All the keywords are used “innovate”, “creativity” , “our style” , “no crispy duck” to drill into you that the stereotype do not apply here, though chopsticks still do. I nod in appreciation when reading the menu, many dishes seem exciting such as the chilli quail, scallop kaitaifi, XO black cod and even marmite prawns. This clearly wasn’t the average Chinese restaurant, in fact even the background music was avant garde, overlaying the Alan Yau style percussion heavy lift music, a sort of electronica sound-scape guided by a wailing female voice, haunting… and slightly annoying.
Now that I had completely bought into their marketing hurrah, I was really looking forward to fireworks. We started with their signature dish : Haozhan Tofu £10.50. It definitely looked the part, each egg tofu made into individual parcel which includes chopped spinach, a single scallop, coated with a thick gravy, and then garnished with fish roe. The gravy gave the custardy egg tofu a silky mouthfeel, but that’s about the end of anything good. The tofu was mostly cold when I was expecting a sort of piping hotness; The crispy exterior was quickly eroding and gave way to the damp and soggy. Most disappointingly, the scallop was chewy. This recipe has great potential, but I felt it was woefully cooked. It felt tired, everything about it was off balance, as if the chef did not want to cook. It’s heartbreaking tasting food which could be but isn’t.
Also £10.50 are the wasabi prawns.
Any sort of battered shrimp coated with salad dressing, mayonnaise or tangy cream sauce is a favourite of mine. Wasabi prawns was no exception, and I view this as a relatively easy recipe to get right with sprinkles of wasabi to give the mayonnaise abit of kick and colour. Thankfully, this was well executed – standard fare but good. With the batter delivering a robust crunch and with a mayonnaise that went well with steamed rice, just the way I like it.
Champagne cod £19.50
The champagne black cod was a dish that jumped out at me – baked black cod, champagne, butter and honey – heavyweight ingredients. And then, disaster struck. I dipped my chopsticks into the sauce, and my heart sank. That sauce was horrendously wrong. Just like the wailing background noise, this was an off key symphony, so abstract, it was downright strange. I could clearly taste a kind of fruity fizz probably from the champagne, but the palette was ruined with a rich butter taste and then made worse when the fruitiness clashed with the pure sugary sweetness from the honey. At least the fish was cooked well enough, just under and exhibited the signature slithery qualities associated with black cod, though it was no where near Nobu standards. With the viscous sauce penetrating deep into the fish, the squishy oily texture was unappealing. I respect the chef for daring to be creative, but as far as I am concerned – butter and honey do not go well with fish. It was like mixing milk that had gone off with parsley regurgitated by a cat and the result was not very far off from ingesting play-doh. Shudder…
Deep fried ice cream £4.80….
Just when I thought the woes ended with the fish, I was shocked with the quality of the pudding. The red sauce that was served with the deep fried ice cream was disgusting. It tasted like ketchup. As for the deep-fried ball of ice cream itslef, that was equally wrong. The crust wasn’t even piping hot, nor did it taste fried, in fact it tasted as if crumbly outside was barely cooked. I’ve had deep-fried ice cream before, and the key attraction of this recipe is the utter paradoxical nature of it – being that the outside should be piping hot and the inside icy cold. This was neither. This was no different from sugared and uncooked frozen fish fingers garnished with bits of fruit. Monumental failure – one of the worst desserts I’ve ever had the displeasure of eating.
Our bill came to £59.50 for two, not cheap considering the location. Reflecting on the meal, I get the feeling that Haozhan must have once lived up to its vision, especially considering the rave reviews they received in the first few months, but that time seems well and truly behind them. I can’t fault their boldness, but the kitchen now seems rudderless and it churned out food which felt lethargic; uninspired cooking, if this was an off-night, then this restaurant has dire consistency issues. I’ve seen this sort of downfall in Chinatown before and I’m referring to Royal Dragon just opposite Haozhan. The food was excellent with a chef who placed particular attention to balanced flavours, and it was one of the few restaurants in town where food was infused with the magical ‘wok hei’ – a sort of chargrilled smokiness – that separates merely good from the truly excellent. After it’s refurbishment in 2005/06, it was never the same again. The front of house assured me it was the same chef in charge, but the differences in quality was too obvious, it was difficult to believe her. Nothing new then.
More photographs on my flickr account here.
The Gist of It
Haozhan official site £30pp
8 Gerrard Street
W1D 5PJ
Tel : +44 (0)20 7434 3838
Tube : Leicester Square
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Tags: chinese, haozhan, leicester square
Interesting review Kang – thanks.
As I believe I told you before, I had a very good first meal at Haozhan for dinner with a bunch of people, but then a fairly lacklustre lunch with business colleagues a few months later. I think their dishes are hit-or-miss from what I’ve had (and reading from what you had). Saying that, I haven’t tried any of the dishes you did. I thought that the Chilli Squid, Crispy Duck, Prawn Baguette and Tangy (i.e. sweet & sour) Chicken were all pretty good, though of course these are fairly simple dishes and are hard to totally screw up. I guess on our first visit we shied away from the many, more ambitious-sounding dishes on the menu (and, it seems, maybe with good reason). The Coffee Ribs (maybe slightly ambitious?) were also pretty good, though a tad too much for me, but quite a deep flavor that really did have an undertone of rich coffee.
My set lunch there was just okay, and some of my colleagues said they weren’t impressed with theirs. I think it’s pretty good food overall compared to much of the schlock on offer in China Town, although Leong’s Legends (both branches) seems better overall to me, though they are cooking a different genre of food (Taiwanese) I suppose.
Best,
LF
I “treated” my parents to a meal here a few years ago and it felt like one of the biggest kick in the balls I had ever received from a restaurant. Ill conceived, poorly executed and extortionately priced. One of only two tables, our entire meal took over two hours to deliver all our dishes. A terrible dining experience and I have never been back.
it’s too expensive, i visited with my parents a year or two ago [we got discount, cuz my dad knows the chef!] The dishes may look spectacular but taste wise, it kind of…fails. You should’ve tried the black sesame ice cream though, that is one of the nicest of the dishes there.
Service is a bit wet too.
I like Haozhan but I only ever have two dishes there: braised aubergine in claypot and stir-fried lotus root, asparagus (and something else). Both are rather classic Chinese dishes I suppose. If I’m particularly adventurous, the beef hor fun. It’s funny how coffee ribs, wasabi prawns and all the other fusion flavours at Haozhan are seen as modern because they are street food dishes in SE Asia.
Everything looks quite beautifully presented but sounds like the problem is the taste.
I was one of the many who loved Haozhan when it first opened, but when I last visited a year ago, the food – while not awful – was less appealing. And I was startled by the fact that the entire dining room was comprised of older, white couples. Usually you expect to see a bigger mix of ages and ethnicities in C-town. I was spooked. Perhaps the kitchen has adapted to the tastes of a new demographic? Haozhan may be one of those places that’s been defeated by its location.
For Chinatown, I’m with Laissez-Faire on sticking to dim sum at Leong’s nearby (though not sure why it insists on labeling itself Taiwanese), and the Empress of Sichaun shows promise (I ate there last week as a result of Mr. Noodles’ recent post).
Sad you don’t rate this place particularly as the photos look so inviting…I’ve never found anywhere in Chinatown that’s any good…and was contemplating going there. Now I think I won’t bother. Am tempted however to visit 10 in Hogarth Place after reading your review…
I’ve been following this series and if this is the penultimate post, I’ve been on tenterhooks for the final post in this series. Pray tell, when is the final post due ?
hi Kang
where in London should I go to have Deep Fried Ice Cream, as the one in Haozhan was no good?
Please advise soon, thanks