To kick off the new lunar year, we travel to the hidden path within the mountains of Xizhi, Taipei. Where gravity defying monks tend to visiting tourists in between meditations and wu-gung practice. This is not merely a restaurant review. This is retelling of the legend know as …Shi Yang Culture Restaurant.

(warning, an overly long prologue below. Scroll to middle-ish to skip to food)

Whuppa. No seriously, we had to drive up a mountain to get here, here being Taipei. It was one of the more illuminating meals I’ve had, a kind of a mountain-top cuisine in zen-like surroundings. Take a look at the outside:

Talk about restaurants with a view. Forget about those which oversee some of the worlds greatest city harbours, or the world’s greatest city parks, or even those which will overlook our beloved Ol’ Smoke. A birds eye view on human progress may be breathtaking but it is also a reminder of the way man has levelled and desecrated mother nature with our heretical obsession in forcing our electrical wizardry upon the world.

In Shi Yang, it couldn’t be further away from the modernity of life as we know it. Here you eat under the motherly gaze of nature’s original skyscrapers. Surrounded by these hulking mountains with puffs of clouds brushing by its summits as they whiff past – It is humbling.

The restaurant looks like it was built by hand, with steel beams holding up solid timber planks, all painted black. It’s inspired by real ancient China. Song Dynasty, 10th century China. So wonderfully organic, humanistic, much harmony. As if the 21st century had forgotten to touch this part of the world, or more accurately, as if this place had deliberately stayed away from the march of technology. Ironic considering Taiwan’s economic awakening was built on the silicon boom. The restaurant is essentially made up of conjoining private quarters, there is no communal area, and each table is located in its own private room. As we made our way into our allocated room, I peeked into the others, and saw that they were filled predominantly by large groups of tourists from the Mainland, armed with their cameras hovering over the food.

The cobbled narrow walkway lit by bamboo lamp shades and flickering candles on the ground was cinematic. We took our shoes before entering, and sat down at a low long table, made of cold steel allowed to age to a natural rust, and held up by solid wooden legs. Sturdy, permanent and long lasting – a feeling in total contrast to my hectic, vacuous and fast paced world. For background music, chinese mandolins sent every mitochondria in my cells into a resonant sway.

The Force I feel, is strong with this restaurant. I feel at peace with myself, I feel I could move the mountains I was communing with. I felt hugely replenished. A large pot of extinguished charcoal letting out residual heat kept us warm. Only the sight of a kettle attached to an electrical socket, prevented me from glimpsing into the parallel brane universe.

The Taiwanese think of this restaurant’s cuisine as ‘creative and traditional’. But maybe it’s much more than that, but perhaps also very much less. You could say it’s a minimalist kind of high mountain food, leaner and far removed from the rest of the world below. There is so much clarity, it’s analogous to a spiritual stripping away of the burden of materialistic life, a rebirth to a purer version of self.

Or you could say this cuisine is a direct reflection of Taiwan’s mixed heritage. The island nation of flaming mountains, valleys of terrible beauty and a people who identify with sweet potato. It is a sort of cultural melting pot where the best of the Chinese and Japanese is found. From its original influx of Chinese migrants from the Fujian province to its eventual legacy rule of law left over after centuries of association with its (former) Japanese imperial master. For the foreigner (that’s me) whose had the fortunate pleasure of learning about Taiwanese culture first hand through my better half, it really strikes me as one of the most uniquely distinct cuisines/cultures in the world. It is both Chinese and Japanese, but neither at the very same time.

The man behind Shi Yang is a rather elusive character, which I think translates loosely to ‘Nourishing Eating Culture retreat, on a Mountain’. The restaurant has moved from mountain to mountain in its roughly 16 year history, from its original Xindian City location, to Yang Ming Mountain and eventually to Xizhi. The owner is Lin Pin-Hui, a former architect; The story goes that he packed in his successful city career to move to the mountains to lead a more spiritual life and to indulge in his true life passion of building a space to appreciate Chinese Tea.

Occasionally, he would entertain his buddies by cooking this purified lifestyle food, eventually it became a kind of underground restaurant. On those foundations, it grew to become a sort of transcendent purveyor of modern Taiwanese cooking and a tea house, famous not so much in guide books, but more so by word of mouth. I suppose the story is paralleled by Stephen Harris and The Sportmans in Britain. Move closer to nature, cook what you find around you, live a more enriched lifestyle. Yeah I’d like to do that once I’m done writing for you folks.

There is a more romantic report of his origins, his kitchen ethics (Culinary ‘partners’ as opposed to sous chefs) here.

No menus, the food is completely seasonal, and think of it as a vegetarian based (think monks’ food again) with the odd injection of the freshest seafood delivered from Keelung harbour, and some pork and chicken thrown in. Yeah that’s right, local provenance, no imported truffle or foie gras here. Tick, tick, tick.

The menu-less menu costs NTD1100 per person. NT what? That works out to be £26 each. That’s INCLUSIVE of service. And that’s for 9 to 10 courses, irrespective of lunch or dins. Yeah I hear you, £26 is actually cheap(ish) in Taipei terms too, but really it’s amazing how affordable it really is. I went with the family, 6 adults and two 3 year olds. Everybody eats the same thing, that’s to say, every item was times 6 (kids picked off their parents).

Ok, ok no more hot air, food below.

Course 1 : Vegetable soup with flying fish roe

Almost veloute like in texture, a root vegetable with rich umami flavours, perhaps akin to celeriac. I was completely sold on the first sip. The fish roe adding extra textural layers. We also drank this with a herbal tea, you know, I forgot to write it down, but it was medicinal, like a sort of strong ginger tea.. or something. Detoxing, different, cleansing.

Course 2: (L-R) Mochi with flying fish roe ; Pomegranate with wood ear ; Peanut tofu with olive tapenade.

This trio was like a kind of appetizer, uniquely and quite strangely cleansing.

There was a sequence in which I had to eat this in, but I forget the order.

My notes indicate that I started from the middle with the cold pomegranate juice with wood ear. A jolt to the soul. Then I moved on to the crisply fried and gooey mochi with a centre filled with a flying fish roe paste. I remember the crunch of the mochi, and thought how peaceful the cooking was. Did they use some kind of clean vegetable oil as opposed to lard?

Finally, I moved on to the peanut tofu. Great wobbly pannacotta textures, also served cold, it was fabulously dense and silken, as good as the best and freshest tofu I’d ever had in Asia, but with the surprise of peanut as opposed to that of pure water. Paired with perfectly boiled rectagular blocks of squid, an olive tapenade for flavour and some sort of mucus-like seeds – this was immensely brilliant cooking. I could honestly say I’d never had anything like this before. Seriously, this would change your mind about what tofu could taste like.

Course 3: Chawanmushi or “Chawan Steam” with scallop.

Or steamed egg in a tea cup. I was amazed at how the entire table (of my extended Taiwanese family) gestured “Chawanmushi!” as this arrived. To me, this wasn’t Chinese food, this was completely Japanese. But to them, it was completely Taiwanese. It occurred to me how different their culture was to my own ‘Nanyang’ ideology of Chinese culture. This was the Japanese part of their Taiwanese upbringing.

Anyway, look at that savoury egg custard. Look at the texture.

That’s zen cooking right there. Beautiful unbroken blobs of cooked protein. Seeping in the gorgeous flavour of intense dried scallop with some kind of pickled mountain vegetable. I get it now, chawanmushi is suppose to nourish the soul, this nourished my nuts alright. Energising stuff.

Course 4: The seafood and vegetable platter.

Or the sashimi platter, whichever way you want to look at it. My parents are still averse to raw food, it’s just so unthinkable to have raw food (generally speaking obviously) in Chinese cooking. But in Taiwan, again, it’s that Japanese side of their culture – raw fish was part of a healthy diet.

Flamed scallops, dried beadcurd, aubergines, sea urchin (these were gorgeously creamy), sea bass (maybe?) or mackerel, local mushrooms, lotus leaves, baby abalone, smoked salmon maki with fish roe.

Here’s my little selection I picked out for myself. It was the most beautiful sashimi platter I’d ever seen assembled. It was the very crux of Taiwanese culture, a perfect fusion of China and Japan. (Mindful of history, I mean no disrespect with that last statement.)

Course 5: Lavander, Guava juice with Passionfruit.

A mid-meal palate cleanser of guava juice. At this point I thought to myself, that I never realised detoxing could ever be so delicious. And entertaining.

Course 6: Grilled prawn with pumpkin and inari sushi

A sweet beancurd skin wrapped rice ball with anchovy and a giant grilled prawn. Alright, nothing too much to write about, aside from the fact that it was a juicy prawn. Delish.

Course 7: Glutinous rice with Italian salami, wood ear and some kind of local mushroom.

Dressed up like a cooked salami nigiri, but really it’s a classic steamed glutinous rice which could have easily been made with Chinese salami too. But this was nice too. The mushroom and the woodear were of exceptional quality, needless to say the rice was redolent of homey memories.

Course 8: Boiled chicken soup with ‘blossoming’ lotus flower.

The pièce de résistance. The kids were mesmerised by the blossoming flower.

Hah. And so was I.

I forget what the boiled broth was cooked with, but it’s a mystical blend of Chinese herbs, lotus root and probably ginger. (There’s almost always ginger in Chinese boiled broths).

Like most of these Chinese boiled broths, I hazard a guess that it’s been slow cooking for at least half a day. Yup, soothing chicken soup for the soul indeed. For me, double boiled Chinese soup is a family thing, it’s the love of a wife, mother and grandmother re-condensing in the pot, and ready to energise her family after hours on the hob. For me, I could only ever love my mum’s double boiled black chicken soup (I always used to choke on shark’s fin and fish maw anyway) , but this was cooked with spiritual zen (and a blossoming lotus flower!), I applauded its heartiness. This was the very essence of Chinese cooking.

Course 9: Yuni, oatmeal (or barley), longan, red date syrup.

Yuni, or mashed yam (taro) served piping hot with a thick caramel-like syrup was incredulously decadent stuff, a bona-fide pudding, but perhaps a rare one that could actually be good for your health.

We also ate sliced kiwifruit and bellfruit, the latter being quite symbolic of Taiwan.

I still can’t believe how ridiculously cheap the meal was. It was my turn to buy everybody lunch, so I paid NTD7260 or £159.59, for six adults and two kids.

Amazing. Just amazing. Beard stroking zen masters would eat here and grow to an old age, gain amazing human wisdom, and glide from tree to tree until David Carradine sends Uma Thurman to become an apprentice.

Shi Yang is an exceptionally unique culinary experience. But it can’t win a star (yet) because there is no Taipei version of the red guide. (There is a green one).

It’s absolutely one of a kind, culturally aware, modern yet traditional, it’s on the side of a mountain. It’s a destination restaurant. The waiters meditate in between service.

What’s that I hear? Noma? How much do they charge for making you cook an egg on your table? Surely more than £26.

If the bib has a ‘social responsibility’ in its power to enhance the reputations of whole national cuisines, then they should cast wider nets. Let’s not even take the Top 50 guys into consideration – that is no more than a back patting exercise amongst the power brokers of the food industry.

But you, Mr Punter, if you are searching for a holistic culinary journey that isn’t inflated with ridiculously materialistic awards – This is the ticket.

Let’s revisit the Lung King Heen (world’s first 3 starred chinese restaurant) dilemma. The Michelinism of the repackaged cha chan teng. But really, be honest now, LKH is exactly that. Aside from that view on HK harbour, tell me, what exactly is so ground breaking about LKH’s food? The innovative use of truffle? How about the burning of my wallet with the double charged bottled water. It is no surprise that I came out of LKH feeling so drained.

Did I mention Shi Yang rolled in all the cost of tea/water for free?

Luxe chinese cooking CAN be special. I am not saying that the traditional hotel banquet Canton restaurant shouldn’t be celebrated, it should and rightly so it is already. But I also think that the culinary world needs to look closer at ‘outcasts’ of Chinese cooking like Shi Yang which is creating something truly different. It changed my ideas of what Chinese cooking could be.

Call me a hopeless romantic but I just love the idea of this place: A remote getaway location wrapped within nature, cooking that is not only nourishing, but healthy, seasonal and entirely local. You have to travel to experience it, Shi Yang cannot come to you on a plane to Harrods.

So if you ask me about luxury Chinese food, and who to pat on the back, then I would very much like to put my paws on Mr Lin. This is a clean slate, purer beginnings, and it is not the tired old design of those dripping in the indulgence of excesses where haute cuisine is a place to broker the next depression. Of course, high cooking is inexorably linked to money, after all no matter how puritanical we all aspire to be, in the end, money makes the world go around. Especially in the restaurant business which depends on it. It’s business after all. Not to say money moves all intentions, but really we need to be realistic, and where lots of money is generated, great restaurants follow closely behind. Having said that, there are the outliers, and those are ones which really intrigue. (Also discounting the obvious exceptions to every stereotype)

All things considered, Shi Yang is a gem, it’s just fantastic. This is a gastronomic experience like none other, it is nearly spiritual, and – to borrow an oft abused word to describe destination restaurants – a genuine pilgrimage. Most importantly I would go back, partly because I can afford to. This is the reason why people like us collect restaurant experiences. This is what I aspire to write about. This is why restaurant blogs really exist. Now book a flight to Taiwan.

The Gist of It

Shi Yang Culture Restaurant
Taiwanese, £30pp
No. 7, Ln.350, Sec.3, XiWan Rd
XiZhi City, Taipei County, Taiwan
Tel : +886-2-2646-2266

There are others : Andre in Taiwan ; My Several Worlds ; Taipei Times ; Pace J Miller ;

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Ah, Chinatown. One can only love it and loathe it, at the very same time. I despise Chinatown like the way I despise the way Justin Bieber’s bobcut falls over his forehead. I may well be the last person in London who will write nice things about the state of Chinese food in London but at the same time, I love it for the very same reasons. Firstly, for the rude service, what was once a spectacle at Wong Kei, has now become a culture spreading rapidly across restaurants in Soho, perhaps even an act worthy of its own Westend matinee; Secondly and more pressingly for the transient standard of cooking – It could be great on Monday nights, but total piss by Friday noon.

On the otherhand, whenever I exit Leicester Square station, the smell of roast duck, bbq pork (and piss) takes away any and all anxieties, hope is immediately restored in this culinary wasteland.

The Sichuan fad was something I never fully understood, and am still scratching my head over. To me, it’s oil, sichuan pepper, luncheon meat, more oil, more bud numbing pepper and yet more oil. But you lot love this stuff, no doubt with a helping article or two from the revered queen of Sichuanese writing – Fuchsia Dunlop. Which leads me to the Empress of Lisle Street, the Queen of Sichuan food in London, as far as the blogs will have you believe. I don’t think I’ve seen so many positive reviews about a Chinese restaurant before. Opened last year, the kitchen is helmed by Kang Dong, his track record includes stints at a presumably upmarket Hotel in the Sichuan Province in China. His profile graces the opening page of the menu describing how his style had conquered many palates in the Far East before he was whisked away to London.

Curiosity had the better of me, and for the smell of siu lap, as well as the positive scribblings of Mr Coren and Ms Maschler plastered outside, it was inevitable that I give this crowd favourite a sample.

Marinated Chicken in Spicy Sauce, £7.

Or Saliva Chicken as it is, in Mandarin.

I took Mark, Carin and the better half, who is much better versed in Chinese cooking than I am. The chicken was cold, wet, oily and spicy – as saliva chicken should be. A regular feature of Sichuan restaurants.

Hot and sour Rice Noodle, £6.

The glass noodles, made from potato starch, were bouncy and chewy and generally tasty. The hot and sour soup was merely adequate. I’m not quite the fan of this contrast, but it is adored by the Taiwanese. The perfect balance of being on the verge of just spicy enough and tethering on the edge of being just sour enough is a highly sought after equilibrium. It is, I am told by the fiercest lovers of this soup, a condition that is hardly satisfied. This version was much too toned down.

Hot and Fiery beef slices and tripe , £7.50.

Ah but it is so much more exciting in Mandarin, called ‘Husband and Wife Lung Slices’. The name is either meant to symbolise a kind of duality, in this case the combination of tripe and beef, or it’s suppose to indicate the mythology behind the genesis of this dish – that it was first served by husband & wife who operated a food cart in Chengdu in the 1930s, or point to the traditional myth that the recipe could use either lung, heart or tripe to accompany the beef slices. It was pretty salty.

Five spice dry beancurd, £5.

Seasoned with Five spice powder or ‘Wu Xiang Fen’. It comes as a premix which you can get in a jar at your local Sainsbury.

Steamed ‘Dong Po’ Pig’s joint, £13.80.

Su Dongpo was a famous 11th century Chinese poet, he wrote stuff like this:

Morning came, rain past.
What trace is left?
A pond full of broken duckweed.

Deep no?

Aside from playing his part in shaping Chinese literature, Mr Su is also credited for accidentally a pork dish, which by our best guesstimation, is what this dish is named after. As it is claimed (on Wiki) :

It is said that once during his free time, Su Dongpo decided to make stewed pork out of boredom. Then an old friend visited him in the middle of the cooking and challenged him to a game of Chinese chess. Su had totally forgotten of the stew during the game until a very fragrant smell came out from his kitchen and he was reminded of it. Thus Dongpo’s Pork (東坡肉), a famous dish in Chinese cuisine, was created by accident.

So goes the story.

I’ve never had steamed trotters before, or at least not trotters in a sort of braised stew fashion. I thought this was a great trotters recipe. The meat was so tender, it fell off the bone easily, very juicy and full of flavour. I enjoyed it immensely. Most of all, the sauce was very good. Rich, salty and also a little sweet. I liked it because it carried no hint of numbness, no spiciness, no pepper, who knew if it was or was not Sichuan, all we knew was that we loved it. Oh weeping duckweeds.

Zhong’s (secret) dumplings, £4.40.

We overheard on twitter about these secret house dumplings. They were ok. Homely, nothing special to shout about.

Crab with salted egg yolk, £17.50.

Salted duck eggs to be exact. Salted egg yolk sauce is Cantonese, as far as I know, but if you get a chance, either here or Pearl Liang, you must order something with salted egg yolks.

Anything with salted egg yolk is a winner. Deep fried prawns with salted egg yolk is win, fish fillet with salted egg yolk is a win and so is an entire fried crab crusted in a salted egg yolk armour.

I thought this was sensational, mostly because they used alot of egg yolk in this recipe. The more the merrier really. The eggs are cured either in brine or salted charcoal. The yolk usually comes out florescent orange. My mum used to make congee with salted eggs and dried scallops for Sunday breakfast, but personally I used to love mixing boiled salted eggs with steam rice, or even with fried rice. I could eat this stuff everyday.

Anyway I do digress, so the only problem with the chunky crab was that it became a little messy to take the monster apart. Otherwise, what an awesome dish.

We drank alot of Sunlik beer, and we paid £103.50 in total for four.

This was a reasonably good meal. I can understand the fanfare and I feel that it is largely justified. Good Chinese restaurants are getting harder to come by, so considering the slim pickings, Empress scores well above the average, in my opinion. In any case, a meal out at any Chinese restaurant won’t break the bank, so even if it didn’t live up to the hype, you won’t have to deal with any alarming financial ramifications.

So let’s see, that’s Pearl Liang, Wing Yip Cricklewood and Empress for the slightly posher (very slight) but still good valued Chinese dinner.

The Gist of It

Empress of Sichuan
Chinese, £35pp
6 Lisle Street WC2H 7BG
Tel : 0207 734 8128
Tube : Leicester Square

In other news… Giles Coren ; Guy Dimond ; London Chow ; Asian Food Adventures ; Catty ; ILTEAETL ; Pig Pig’s Corner ; Mr Noodles ; Chopstix to Steaknives

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The fish counter at Wing Yip always gets my undivided attention, whenever we visit to stock up the larder. It’s those massive tanks with the filtered running water, the sound of an artificial waterfall, filled with still live and flopping crabs and lobsters, mussel stacked upon mussel and probably some of the cheapest rock oysters in town. Wing Yip are like the Ikeas’ of the Asian perishables industry, self proclaimed ‘Superstores’, the premises are giant warehouses which stock everything a Chinese restaurant could ever want, from giant bamboo steamers, to 19″ cast iron woks to the latest hoi sin sauce to hit the market. Majorly wide shopping aisles too. You can even get Roast duck in a box, dressed like a box of Gran Prix roses with a plastic window. No kidding.

There are two eateries at this particular Wing Yip superstore. The smaller one is a ‘dai pai dong‘-style, bistro/cafe which I frequent on week nights – Cricklewood is closer to me than Bayswater – for one platers. I much prefer their soya chicken and good manners to the step-on-you-and-die attitude accompanied by benchmark roast duck at Four Seasons. Oh and the orange-skinned bbq squid too. As with many Oriental superstores of its ilk in the UK, there’s inevitably a full sized Chinese restaurant on location, big enough and decorated with enough traditional trinkets (red lanterns, small red platform/stage) to host banquet dinners. The name of the restaurant is Wing Tai… but not that I really noticed, I have always thought of it simply as The Restaurant at Wing Yip.

Rather than wait for an invitation to a Chinese wedding, I urge you to head down to Wing Yip, with four or five warm bodies, at 12pm on any given Sunday for proper dim sum, at risk of preempting the report… but ahh, it’s the holiday season, and my brain is decaying to mush with the daily countdown to Christmas.

I love going to Wing Yip on Sundays not because the dim sum is world beating (which it is not), as you will have experienced much more clinical work at Central London’s starriest counterparts, Yauatcha to drop one name, but the thing with dim sum is that it is equally about atmosphere as it is about dumplings. It is a family affair, a gathering of close buddies, a time to reflect with the relatives, hive mind catching up, all contributing to the bustling, overcrowded, chaotic liveliness, that truly conveys the feeling that the weekend has reached its peak. That the spirit of dim sum is not one of glamour or trend, but rather to indulge in the company of those close by, over steaming dumplings and tea, on the day of rest, to let your hair down, almost completely.

In the last couple of years, I’ve been going back to Wing Yip about once a month, and I do think they are improving their output. Most dishes are actually pretty good, as I will illustrate.

Three selection Cheung Fun, £3.80.

Firstly, the rice noodle roll was al dente, strachy and springy and held together well. Stuffed with three different options, shrimp, char siu and scallops, and doused with sweet soya sauce. Yummy. I had no complaints.

Congee with pork ‘bones’ and fermented cabbage (I think), £3.90.

Proper texture, gloopy and dollopy as Cantonese style ‘juk’ should be. The flavours were stocky, slightly salty, and overall just a hearty experience, which in London, usually means something a little watered down, but this was far from it. About the only thing missing were slices of you tiao.

…Alot of food arrives.

Midway through lunch, the steamed dishes joined the fried stuff. The fried taro puff was great, and while I’m no fan of intestines, the better half really enjoyed the tripe.

Satay Baby octopus, £2.50.

Sweet and spicy.

The obligatory shui mai and har gaw. £2.50 each.

I was pretty surprised with these – this for me is the acid test – as I think they got ‘em spot on. Bursting with flavours of prawn, and a hint of pork fat in the back of the tongue, and spring-like in texture, great shui mai. Similarly the har gaw bounced like a basketball, with a juicy, prawn filled centre.

Steamed rice with Salted fish, £3.90.

Or you could also get one with steaming spare ribs, generally speaking, these steamed pots of rice are fab. My mum used to cook them just like this, and they are amazingly hearty, perfect for the wintry season. The entire steamed pot means that all those lovely juices that eek out of the fish during the steaming process would be reabsorbed by the rice, in essence leading to a flavour charged base of rice. Not many places in London do this, so there isn’t much in terms of comparsion. But it would be nice if they would pump up the variety in toppings, instead of just salted fish, which could be rather bland to some.

If they did Chinese mushrooms, chinese sausages (lap cheung) and some pak choi throw in, that would be a dream steam.

Tapioca and yam dessert, £2.30.

Served cool (probably already prepped in the fridge), milky, syrupy with chewy pearls and stodgy yam – just as one expected. Great way to end the meal.

So the burning question is if Wing Yip – being that it is such a trek to the North West – is worth the trek out or not. Well, food is pretty good, not quite the best as I said, but good enough to leave you satisfied. Prices are fair, and comparable to most dim sum serving restaurants in Central, but at the end of the day, I do think it is worth an expedition simply because it has great atmosphere. It is always full on a Sunday, and I think it says alot about how much people like it. To savour the ambiance – save for perhaps the Royal Chinas – alone is worth the wait. Do bear in mind though, if you go there at the height of lunch at 1pm, you will be in for a long wait for your ticket number to be called. So I do recommend to either turning up early or abit later. And then afterward, make sure you visit the Superstore, in fact, make the trip anyway to stock up your pantry with exotic perishables, like oyster sauce (by Lee Kum Kee no less), black bean sauce and try some bottled bird’s nest (ready to eat and pre-cooked in rock sugar) by Brands. And do swing by the fish counter and tell the live crustaceans, I said hello.

The Gist.

Wing Tai at Wing Yip
Chinese, £25pp
395 Edgware Road, Cricklewood
NW2 6LN
Tel: 020 8450 0422
Bus : From Kilburn Underground, take the No. 32 or anything to Cricklewood till you see the Pagoda.

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Eight (baat) is phonetically similar to fortune (faat) or “about to hit the motherload” more like and is significant if you’re Chinese¹. Chinese being a culture which has an insurmountable archive of superstitions and a belief system that links fortune to being fortunate. Lady luck is not a bad thing to have on your side, Rob Green could do with some. People will go to great lengths to associate themselves with the number 8. Like bidding for a mobile phone number, car license plate detail, the house number, the more 8′s and multiple 8′s – my brother’s mobile number ends with triple 8s – in one’s life, the more prosperous one’s life might turn out to be. So it is believed.

Imagine my delight when I saw the number 88 stamped across one of the giant red pillars outside My Old Place. It’s like winning the lottery, yes… just a number indeed, but if superstition was anything to go by, it would appear to be working. The modest restaurant has garnered gleeful reviews² online, the Guardian critics especially love it, but more than that, the layman raves about this place too. The word amongst the various social circles (Facebook mostly) is that My Old Place is one of London’s finest Szechuan restaurants, Taiwanese people in London especially love this place. Situated in the shadow of Liverpool Street station, it is the sister restaurant of Gourmet San³ and together are two of the foremost Szechuan restaurants in town seen as the substance to the stylised shell of more centrally located and faddish joints Bar Shu and Ba Shan to name a few.

As one would expect service is not dismissive, but neither is it warm, it is as it is, a contrast to the flamboyant decorations. Red fans, red lanterns, red posters with greetings of longevity, happiness, it’s like they didn’t bother taking down the ornaments from CNY celebrations. We were a table of four who had decided to pop-in for a pre-theatre numbing session before falling asleep at a Wigmore Hall recital…. they landed a Chinese menu, so I had to concede the ordering to the better half…

Clear noodles with sesame paste.

The creamy paste had flavours of peanut, sesame oil not dissimilar to a ‘satay’⁴ sauce, the mung-bean based clear noodles spongy and expectedly starchy while garlic and salt overloaded my tastebuds. Cucumber and spam (or luncheon meat…I think) also accompanied the mash-it-up, I actually quite liked the creamy, nutty paste with the noodles, but man was it salty.

Trotters….peppers….

Trotters were coated with copious amounts of tiny red pods⁵ that vaguely resemble mini rambutans. Initially, there was a tingling sensation on my palate, causing my buds to vibrate. The tingling then grew to a sting before a numbness finally settled, like micro tranquillising darts immobilising the tongue.

Before I lost my buds to the effects of hydroxy-alpha sanshool (only 3% in every pepper-pod…on average) though, I quite enjoyed the full-bodied flavours of the braised trotters, oily, fatty and deliciously savoury. My advice when you order this… scrape away the devilish mini-bombs before you start eating.

Tripe.

Oily, pungent, salty, gamey and with yet more Szechuan pepper pods. Probably the best dish of the meal. I have to say, I can take my fair share of spicy food, but this had me defeated. We opted for Cobras instead of Tigers, but downing cans of lager was barely enough to cut through the numbness.

Skewered beef tendon or Impaled offal-on-a-stick.

If memory serves, these were a pound each. We had ordered the popular lamb skewers too, but in light of all the food which had already landed, we decided to cancel the order. So offal lovers should enjoy this gruffness. It doesn’t get gamier than this, it literally tasted of rubbery fat and chilli…

Yellow chives with prawn and squid and dried beadcurd.

Not every dish was a rollercoaster ride however, this was where we got off for a breather. But it was entirely pedestrian, my notes say nothing about it, though I just wonder if it were because my tastebuds were still under the numbing effects of the pepper, seemingly the major theme of this meal.

Cumin beef.

The cumin certainly gave the beef an interesting aroma, akin to the fragrance of curry, but alas the quality of the beef itself was horrendous, that it was unchewable was an understatement. The sloppy stir-fry with what seemed like recycled lard was distasteful and utterly unappealing. The meal hit a low at this point.

Finally, Sour vegetables with fish fillet.

The sour vegetables ⁶ did little to mask the absolute dire pungency of the fish, it stank and that’s not a good sign.

We were amazed with the gargantuan portions, each dish averaged £7, but it was easily much more than we could manage. We didn’t finish any single dish and elected to take home all the leftovers, which we had to scoop into plastic containers ourselves. The leftovers lasted two days by the way. The final bill was £59 for four, £15 per person, though I thought we were ordered at least two dishes too many.

As we left the restaurant just before 7pm to make way to Wigmore Hall, we noticed how the restaurant was completely full up, mostly Chinese, and I couldn’t shake the sense that perhaps people come here more for quantity and passable quality, than for absolute finesse. Personally, I won’t be returning, too salty, way too much pepper, and questionable ingredients. I felt bloaty after the meal, having much difficulty sitting through the piano recital after, and a stirring guilt as if I had just stepped out from a greasy spoon. It leaves me to ponder about the oil they had used in their stir-fry. Nevertheless, My Old Place is cheap, abundant and abominably entertaining, if you’re looking to load up before a night-out, this might be the alternative to Tayyabs, but personally, I’m sticking with No.10⁷. It might not be a fancy number, but it is definitely easier on the tastebuds.

The Gist of It

My Old Place
£15pp Szechuan, Cash Only.
88 Middlesex Street E1 7EZ
Tel: 020 7247 2200
Tube: Aldgate East or Liverpool Street

News of the World: Clandestine Critic ; Trusted Places ; London Chow ; An American in London ; Mawi ; Matt Norman

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My first visit to Pearl Liang was a little over a year ago, going on a recommendation from Helen, the retired but still ever so amazing World Foodie Guide and whom I still look up to as the Queen of London food bloggers. Since that time, I have visited other reputable dim sum restaurants though it hasnt kept me away from Pearl Liang – it is my most frequented dim sum restaurant in 2009. I am usually averse to set menus in general though the nine piece set for nine pounds eighty is just sheer value for money, and most of all, delicious. There is this convention about restaurants serving good dim sum and the assumption is that if dim sum rocks then dinner will be appalling. It is not entirely unfounded of course, case in point : Leong’s Legends. Great dim sum, some even claim it to be the ‘best’ in Chinatown which is the view I share (if we leave Yauatcha out of this equation… different price class), however I found that like many contemporaries – including Royal China – they have utterly ordinary dinner menus. I don’t know why there is a disconnect in quality, perhaps some sort of Chinese wall exists between the dim sum and the dinner guys even though they share the same kitchen. Anyway, enough hot-air, let’s dissect some evidence. Table of six.

Lobster Noodles, £33 (Market Price)

It is well-known that Paul Ngo, the head chef at Pearl Liang used to lead the capital’s most famous restaurant for lobster noodles at Mandarin Kitchen. While the latter has maintained its legacy since Paul’s departure, it comes as little surprise that he has brought his most commercially viable creation to Pearl Liang. A variety of sauces are available including shaoxing wine or black bean and one can even choose to have it as a sashimi. We chose ginger and onion. The sauce is great, thick gravy-like, full bodied flavours, so richly aromatic of its major ingredients. Juicy chunks of lobster meat wok-fried with savoury floury bits, noodles are just a tad chewy. Overall, the dish has an effervescent quality about it, satisfyingly lively. I prefer this to the current Mandarin Kitchen.

Half Drunken Chicken with Old Wine (£15)

One from the ‘cold toss’ section. Salty soya sauce flavours, with a fruity (is that the right description?) alcoholic, almost medicinal compliment. It is served cold so the elemental flavours are muffled, but refreshing. As for the chicken itself, a very juicy texture, the breast meat is mellow, probably from a delicate poach and perhaps broken down further by the wine marinade. The leg meat was satin. My only gripe was the alcohol content, a tad high, and the balance just tipping over at times but that’s just me being pedantic. It took nothing away from the overall experience. I really enjoyed this.

Pei Pa Tofu (£8.80)

A staple offering in most Cantonese restaurants. Deep-fried tofu swaddled in a golden gravy, straw mushrooms, carrots and spring onions all feature. I cannot remember if the tofu was stuffed with shrimp to be quite honest, while the hearty sauce filled the senses, it was ordinary.

Sizzling beef sirloin with fruity mandarin sauce (£10.80)

‘Chinese style steak’, a literal translation, is usually one of the dishes I order for benchmarking purposes. I’ve done this in Chinese restaurants around the world from Singapore, Hong Kong to Sydney (not Taipei I don’t think) and is something I inherited from my dad. Usually it is medium rare and served cubed. A good example will still bloody and juicy. A good example will also exhibit the hallmark smoky charred flavours otherwise known as wok-hei. A good example will also have a skilfully balanced fruity sweet sauce, where one can taste the sugar, but in which that tarty edge is taken away by salty soya and just a hint of pepper. This had none of those qualities. The beef was ridiculously rubbery, the sauce was too salty. A horrid example.

Sauteed King Prawns with Salted Egg Yolk (£10.80) … Twice.

There were times during this meal, where I would have very nearly wrote it off. Just as I wanted out, they reeled me back in (Pacino!). These are not just your average battered prawns. These are battered with the yolk of salted duck eggs, which are pre-prepared by soaking in brine or sometimes covered in charcoal paste. The duck egg takes on an intense salt flavour, great with congee, though this is the first time I have experienced it being used as a batter, and if my research is right, a bona fide Cantonese dish. Very interesting indeed, the yolk crust formed a powdery yet crunchy batter, rich in brine flavours and with a creamy eggyness. Some of the yolk was also made into a runny juice with grainy bits of what I suspect are the egg white. Doused over the prawns, it intensified the flavours. Fantastic with steam rice, in fact I liked it so much I ordered another just to have it all over again. I’ve had deep-fried shrimp in all its various guises, wasabi, cornflakes, butter, nestum, thousand island sauce, you name it, this is my favourite recipe.

Stewed Pork Belly with Preserved Vegetables (£8.80)

We had to order a pork belly dish and this took me all the way back home. Stinky, mellow, hearty, homey and the fatty bits just disintegrated like hot butter. What excellent texture. I thought it was just right, however my Taiwanese half claims that it was a tad too sweet compared to say the Hakka recipe. The differences probably down the choice of ‘mui chai’ or Chinese pickled mustard cabbage, and in which there is a preference for it to be sweeter in order to fit Cantonese cooking.

You know me, I take – what some would say – a rather dim view of Chinese restaurants in London. Compared to most other cities around the world, I feel that our Chinese restaurants are weak. I keep hearing these hero stories of Toronto’s char siu rice from my cousins, London just doesn’t have quite the same depth or variety. I’m sure most Chinese restaurants would not hesitate to kick me out if they knew what I’ve said about their food. I still stand by the view that London Chinese restaurants are mostly – for want of a better term – lousy. I am only so critical partly because I feel that quality has slowly dwindled over the years. I feel that Chinatown circa 2002 had alot more to offer than Chinatown today. Take Royal Dragon for example, pre-refurbishment days in 2005/2006. Fantastic dim sum, amazing chinese style steaks. Now, a mere shadow of its former self. Mayflower did I hear you say? No longer the institution it once was, just surly service, more reputation than actual mettle. Other reputable places such as Matt Norman’s 9.95/10 outpost in Hampstead, Goldfish, and Hakkasan (which I was once I huge fan of during its hey day and when it was still owned by Alan Yau), are in my opinion overpriced and not worth a visit. So it is refreshing to find such good food at Pearl Liang.

Food, plus tea and rice for six came to £130, just a little over £20 per head. Great value, as it should be. The menu is expansive, it is spread across ten pages. I don’t think that everything is amazing, based on the evidence from my visit, I believe most are of decent quality. And based on this visit, I would be comfortable to take my family to this restaurant, confident that it can even impress my dad – one of the pickiest eaters I’ve ever dined with …You should have seen him let rip at Gaucho…

Overall, I enjoyed dinner at Pearl Liang, benchmark cooking and I highly recommend it if you are in the mood for affordable and delicious Chinese food. For those of you who prefer dim sum at night, I believe there is a small selection on their dinner menu, so do feel free to mix and match. I recommend the wasabi prawn dumplings.

Read about Dim Sum at Pearl Liang here.

The Gist of It

Pearl Liang Official Site
£25pp Chinese
8 Sheldon Square W2 6EZ
Tel :020 7289 7000
Tube: Paddington

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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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I once held the narrow view that only three types of Chinese restaurants exist in London. Ones that specialized in barbeque meat, others serve dim sum and the rest ripped people off. This perspective is largely unfounded as the diversity of London based Chinese restaurants with specialist regional cuisines are more than far reaching. There is a healthy army of Szechuan inspired eateries, ‘hand-pulled’ noodle specialists are easily accessible, till recently Taiwanese cuisine has been making its waves and not forgetting the ever popular ‘Dai Pai Tong’ style café concepts imported from the streets of Hong Kong. Ah yes, the beauty of Chinese food – diversity. Quite separately, there has been a quiet revolution in what I view as a rebranding exercise which new fangled Chinese restaurants are embarking upon in applying abit of gloss to their respective businesses. The highest profile of these self-appointed fine dining establishments being Hakkasan – a Michelin star holder since the early noughties – serving as an inspiration and subsequently igniting a trend that has seen more success recently with Kai also awarded a star in 2009. Hakkasan wasn’t the first to do it as much before my time, Lee Ho Fook (which today, is rip off central in Gerard St as far as I am concerned) achieved the eponymous status in 1974. So it seemed that there is a market for seasoning Chinese food with a sprinkling of pretension.

Plum Valley falls into this category of a highly produced concept of refined Chinese food served in surroundings which are so slick, one might slip on it. Ironically, it is located in the centre of China town along Gerard Street as if to publicly signal that a change of guard is due in Chinatown. Everything about this restaurant screams ‘I am different’ which swaps expensive looking solid black wood for the withering old world charm of its neighbours. It is about as anti-Chinatown as it gets, and we felt it immediately as we stepped through the glass doors, and were amazed with the loss of lighting. I was here to meet with my brother and also an impromptu rendezvous with a couple of foodbloggers.

Service seemed swift and slick at first even though I was a little miffed when our waitress suggested we start with a crispy duck salad – their best seller we were told.

Crispy duck shaved and shredded into a bed of mixed salad leaves with pomegranate seeds alternating hoisin dips tidily arranged around the plate. I was looking for the unique selling point of this dish, as if to try and figure out where the prestige was with this magic trick, especially since this trickery costs a hefty £14. To my dismay, there was none. Granted the duck was crispy, there was little else to suggest that this was Chinese cuisines’ finest hour. A ridiculously overpriced bunch of leaves.

Lamb chops in Lemongrass £15.80.

Ah, this looks better – beautifully arranged lambchops made to resemble a sort of culinary structure of some kind with a seared celery base as a foundation. First of all, the intense sauce was wonderful, as I detected strong hits of chilli and coriander. Sadly though, I had also detected salty hits of powdered tenderiser as the meat while soft was very artificial. I don’t know, this wasn’t high cooking nor was it fresh produce, this was an an above average lamb chops dish which any of the Chinese restaurants in Gerard Street could easily replicate, for half the price.

Next, egg tofu hotpot £10.80

A thick gravy enveloping silky egg tofu with fragrant mushrooms and aubergines – very hearty indeed, but again nothing out of the ordinary, and I’ve had better versions at Four Seasons.

Sacha seafood hotpot £16.50

As the saying goes : “Big fish, big vegetables” . Great Chinese restaurants distinguish themselves with a mastery of seafood dishes, particularly a kitchen’s ability to churn out properly steamed fish (my choice is grouper). Though on this occasion, we chose the seafood hotpot as a minor acid test . The sauce was slimy, hearty and sizzly however, the rather paltry portions of cod, prawn and squid left me wanting. It was above average, inoffensive but by now I was beginning to see that the dishes followed an unexciting theme.

Finally, the last of the mains : Mongolian fillet of beef £15

This was the only dish which suggested a spot of brilliance as the seared meat swam in a honey sweet sauce with a unique mocha smokiness infusion. Upon further investigation, we surmised that is perhaps down to the a well seared meat with the charcoal somehow being imparted into the sauce. Liquified smoke.

Up to this point, we were still half convinced that Plum Valley might appeal to those looking for a restaurant that boasted ambiance and high class service and could overlook the largely tasty if uninspired Chinese food. But just then, the staff hit the self-destruct button. We ordered three willow dew creams to end our meal, in which the menu describes a sago desert with pomelo and mango but when it got to our table, it turned out to be sago-less. And so we flagged the waitress down to simply ask about the exclusion. Wrong move. The first waitress nervously replied that she did not know and that she had to ask someone else. Fair enough. Fifteen minutes later, no word, we flag another waiter down. This guy also replied nervously but this time insisted that the Willow Dew Cream was meant to be sago-less. We told him to bring the menu around, and pointed out the description regarding the sago. Puzzled, he left us to ask about this with the kitchen. Another ten minutes later, he comes back and informs us that their dim sum department makes the sago, and since this fell out of the jurisdiction of the team which looked after the ala carte menu – his answer was “I don’t know, ask the dim sum guy”. Third time’s a charm then, we flag down another waitress to ask what “the dim sum department” actually meant. This was funny, she seemed fidgety, and it was quite apparent she was nervous, but she suddenly burst out in a very defensive tone – verging on reprimanding us for ordering the desert and then threatening to take the deserts away since we didn’t like it. Her body language turned aggressive and it was only until waiter no.2 came over to calm things down. He then explained that the dim sum guys had excluded the sago because their latest batch wasn’t ‘fresh’. Now I’m no sago expert, but as I understand it, sago can be bought as a readily available flour format in most supermarket, so I was a little miffed at the notion that it wasn’t ‘fresh’. In any case, it was never about the sago, this was a lesson in miscommunication hell and we merely asked a question which took half an hour to produce an answer and which turned into a sour fiasco.

I did note that they were kind enough to take the willow cream off the final bill… which came to a shocking £111.90 for four. I did not like that they had charged us £7.60 for tea and £8 for rice respectively – something which most ‘fine dining’ establishments would do, and something which I continue to find troubling. In the end, the bottom line for me has always been about the food; if we give the restaurant the benefit of the doubt regarding the faux pax in service, sadly, I have to conclude that the food at plum valley does not cut the mustard. While food was above average, it was nothing spectacular, comparable to the rest of China town which are on average about half as expensive. Categorically unexciting and I think Plum Valley is a little confused as to what a ‘good’ restaurant is supposed to be. The gloss is entirely superficial in my opinion, and this pretension is unnecessarily driving up the costs of food, which is largely forgettable. It is a victim of it’s own high nose concept.

I will give it that the restaurant has great décor, but so does Leong’s Legends. With a front of house that cannot talk to the kitchen and whom are hopelessly giving customers the wrong impression, this operation is stunned at best, and this equates to a very disjointed experience altogether. There is a reason why Four Seasons continues to pull in huge queues in Chinatown and it has nothing to do with décor – it is simply because they serve great food.

More photographs on my flickr account here.

The Gist of It

Plum Valley £40pp
20 Gerrard Street W1D 6JQ
Tel : (020) 7494 4366
Tube: Leicester Square

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Dim sum week continues to roll through LondonEater and I have chosen to return to Leong’s Legends Continues – a restaurant which I panned not too long ago. I have good reason to go back because I have heard good things about their dim sum. I take the view that ala carte and dim sum menus in the same restaurant are entirely mutually exclusive; I feel that the style of food is distinct enough which can lead to wildly differing meals. I suppose it is also the same reason why some Chinese restaurants hire dedicated chefs who are in charge of either menus. This isn’t just limited to London restaurants; I carry the same sort of mentality wherever the restaurant is, be it Crystal Jade in Singapore or Kam Fook in Sydney – both of which were memorable meals.

And so with this revisit, I emptied my memory banks of my previous meal. The subject of yet another massive tweatup and the usual suspects my missus, Mark, Euwen, Catty (in spirit) and Charzsiubao were all in attendance. There are actually two Leong’s Legends within a stone’s throw away from each other. Both are in chinatown with the original based in Macclesfield Street and Leong’s Legend Continues (this revisit) in Lisle street. I’m not entire sure if there are notable differences between two branches or if LLC exists to handle the overflow. Many accounts suggest that food quality is interchangeable. The uniqueness of the Leong’s Legends are their nominated style of regional cooking – mostly Taiwanese, though not limited to it. This offers an alternative to the largely recognisable Cantonese cuisine that punctuates much of Chinatown. This extends to their dim sum menu, while staple yum cha choices such as har gao and charsiu bao are ever present; one could supplement the old favourites with something different.

One of the best things about dim sum is the sheer variety of food, especially when visiting with large groups. The organised chaos which the table turns into when the bamboo steamers start stacking up on the table is really part of what makes dim sum so much fun. It does however make it trickier to piece together a cohesive narrative though.

Let’s kick things off with a Taiwanese classic : Gua Bao.

Basically this is a Taiwanese burger, and a form of streetfood (loosely speaking). One would usually find street vendors selling these at night markets in Taipei (it’s how I discovered it), and Leong’s Legends is one of the few places in London which does them. Served with pork belly and peanut shavings, and also smothered with a ridiculously good gravy. The bun was puffy and very soft, carried a touch of sweetness and overall it produced a very juicy mouthful. The tender pork belly was soaking with flavour. Oh yummy, just like Taipei.

Next up ‘Juk’ or Congee.

Oh wow, I was really surprised with the quality of the congee; very smooth going down, a consistent pastiness about it and it exuded the hallmark chicken stock saltiness which – in my opinion – is what makes or break a congee. We ordered some youtiaw – deep fried dough sticks – to dip into this traditional Chinese (Hong Kong I should say) breakfast and it felt like I was in Asia again. My all time favourite congee was a small two person vendor who sold in an open air food market in Brunei. It was a mother and son outfit originally from Hong Kong, whose family were basically descended from a generation of congee brewers (makers?) – the smoothest congee I’ve ever had the pleasure of eating. Last I checked (with my mum), they’ve long since moved on from their modest shop. Anyway, I think the congee here compares well. The only other place in London which I rate for congee is Yauatcha. Just to be clear, this style of congee is more Cantonese than Taiwanese, where the latter version sets itself apart with it being characteristically watery.

Next : Xiao Long Baos.

We ordered the two variants of this dish, both the pork as well as the crab, with the latter supposedly differentiated by the fish roe at the summit of each individual dumpling. I found the that both variants had great meaty flavours, the piping hot broth was quite abit intense, with a sharp tanginess in aftertaste. The crab version had a touch of fishiness probably due to the inclusion of a couple of frozen crabsticks – otherwise the differences in taste were relatively minor. Disappointingly, I found the wrapping to be a tad too thick, so much so that I thought that parts of it were undercooked, as it was definitely a little powdery. Abit of a let down, but otherwise the xiao long baos were quite good.

More good news : Prawn and chive dumpling.

I’ll use this part of the review to speak about the har gaw as well as the shui mai. But first, I have to say, the prawn n chive dumplings were very, very good – a prawn punch soften by the gentle dumpling wrap. Similarly, the har gao was dominated by an intense hit of shrimp, but with a peppery edge to it – something which might confuse purists, but which I thought gave it an interesting dimension.

The shui mai though – totally different story altogether – to be frank, it was disgusting. It reeked of pork fat, but not in an aromatic way. It was more like lard which had been boiled and then left outside to rot before being reused to make the dumplings. It gave rise to this stink which felt as if I had just rinsed my mouth with sewerage water and then proceeded to chew on newspaper. Some of the worst shui mais I’ve ever had, even worse than the frozen stuff from SeeWoo.

Next, grilled minced pork buns.

Pan-fried to toasty exterior, with the insides warm and hearty. I quite enjoyed these for the nostalgia it evoked – it felt like I was in my aunt’s kitchen all over again. Sizzling pan, sesame oil, the smell of toasty dough, could do with abit more soya sauce in the filling though.

So here’s what we are saying: best dim sum in Chinatown. It is less of a compliment than it sounds because in my humblest of opinions, Chinatown dim sum is categorically torrid. On the other hand, it is refreshing to know that I can start removing the mental blocks with regards to Chinese restaurants in Soho. Are there better restaurants to have dim sum? I think so, but then again, there are few places in town which serve good gua bao, xiao long bao or even good congee and Leong’s Legend delivers in that regard. I came out of this meal feeling uplifted which I’d put down to the high amounts of endorphins released, a pleasantly positive experience all around and a total contrast to my first visit. As I said before, there really are two sides to the dinner and dim sum menus in Chinese restaurants and I believe that Leong’s Legends is no exception. If you are looking to sample a range of great Taiwanese a la carte dishes, you’re better off looking elsewhere. However if you are looking for radiant dim sum with a difference, Leong’s Legend might just surprise you.

Other polarising viewpoints : The London Foodie ; Tales from the tip of my tongue ; World Foodie Guide ; London Chow ; Tamarind and Thyme

The Gist of It

Leong’s Legends Continues official site £25pp
26-27 Lisle Street WC2H 7BA
Tel : 020 7734 3380
Tube: Leicester Square

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The countdown to Chinese New Year begins now. We are technically now at the tail’s end of the Ox year – an insidious one I must say, but in little over three weeks, we will be welcoming the year of the steely Tiger and one which should see us return to prosperity once again. I have been saving up my Chinese restaurant articles and thought it’d be a nice lead-up to the Lunar New Year celebrations. The first day of Chinese New Year will coincide with Valentines this year, and it will last for fifteen days. Depending on who you ask, there are several reasons for the CNY festivities running for as long it is, though as my parents had explained it to me, this period was traditionally the only fifteen days in which people had time off work, technically, there are no more Chinese public holidays during the rest of the year.

Chinese culture is one that believes in not just working hard, but to be able to amass as much wealth as one can. The goal is to be able to pay for your knee replacement without financial aid well after you retire – if you can do that then you’ve achieved the ultimate dream, Chinese style. I am particularly looking forward to CNY this (next) year because it will the first in eight years I’ll be celebrating it with my folks. Yes, all these years galavanting around London restaurants will finally be swapped for some family time. When I think of Dim Sum, I’ll always think of my family, and for us, dim sum was every Saturday breakfast, without fail. Dim Sum is Sunday breakfast/brunch, preferably in a big group lots of friends, families and their kids. Of course, one can choose to have dim sum at any day one wishes, but personally, this is something I would only do on a weekend, any other day and it would have lost that special feeling. Sentiments aside, I somehow feel that in London, this tradition is a little lost, though one can still feel this bustling weekend dim sum buzz in Wing Yip (Cricklewood) or Royal China in Bayswater. Being brought up on morning dim sum, I still cannot understand why some restaurants serve it for dinner. It is the equivalent of having a full English for dinner… hmm, which doesn’t sound like such a bad idea. I’m saving the rest of this dim sum rant for Friday instead, my drafts are overlapping.

Broadly speaking, I feel that the standard of Dim Sum is pretty good in London, though there is nothing particularly outstanding. I am measuring this against the best experiences I had in Singapore, Hong Kong to Taiwan and even to Sydney – The best dim sum I’ve ever had was in Hong Kong. My uncle (a.k.a HKEater, 1979, yo yo yo) lives in Hong Kong and he took us to one of his favourite restaurants. Every time I have prawn cheung fun, I would always mentally refer back to that version.. chunky prawns, silky thin yet bouncy rice noodle rolls, sweet soya sauce…ohh… dim sum so good it ‘touches your heart’. Over the years, I’ve tried many dim sum places in town, but not all, I’d like to think that I have tried the best dim sum in town, though in my opinion, the real expert is Helen the WFG, who had recently hung her boots up in foodblogging. So I had heard lots of good things about Yum Cha (not to be confused with Yum Chaa, double a’s) ; based in Camden, I visited on a Sunday brunch with my homies: Catty, Charz and Euwen.

Our meal kicked off with the charsiu puffs.

The charsiu puffs form one fifth of the benchmark dishes which help me decide whether to love or hate a dim sum restaurant. The pastry was a little papery but the juicy honey sweet charsiu filling more than made up for any deficiencies.

Next up, the yam puffs.

Even better than the charsiu puffs, with a fragile crust and a silky yam centre which exuded a richness.

Xiao long baos.

I have to admit I’m not the biggest fan of xiao long baos purely because they burn my tongue everytime I have them, although this is the same reason why they can be a rush. One is suppose to wet the dumplings with the ginger and vinegar sauce it is served with, and grasp on to the dumpling with chopsticks with one hand, then position a spoon just under it, in case the hot juices go spewing everywhere when you bite into it. An immediately way to gauge the skill of the chef is look the thickness (or thinness I should say) of the wrap. A good xiao long bao should have a wrap thin enough that if you hold the dumpling from the tip, then you should be able to see through the translucent wrap to broth inside. The weight of the fillings should pull the entire dumpling down, it should hang and its shape should change, but then the xiao long baos should be strong enough to deny gravity without breaking apart. Too thick, it’s chewy, too thin, everything falls away. An example is this photo I found on flickr. Anyway, I did the hang test on the Yum Cha dumplings and I thought they were ok, just a tad thick, but overall the standard is pretty high. As for the broth & minced meat inside – very good, very mineral and then with a sort of porky hit. I burned my tongue again – a good sign. Although, I noted that these were nothing like the xiao long baos I sampled in Taiwan, it does not even come close to Ding Tai Fung.

You know one of the best things about dim sum is that half way through your meal, bamboo steamers start stacking up and then it’s like wow – I feel like a king. Here we sample tripe, the crystal scallop and prawn dumpling, carrot cake, har gaws and siu mai.

Another two benchmark dishes: the har gaw and siu mai, I am happy to report that both are agreeable. The har gaw was prawny and oily – good, while the siu mai tasted very meatbally, above average. On the other hand, the crystal scallop and prawn dumplings had rich seafood flavours and were brilliant. The slippery pan-fried turnip cakes were simply a joy to eat, it carried the signature charred starchy saltiness which makes this dish so interesting.

Next : The cheung funs.

I tried all the variations here and the best one of the lot are the cheung fun filled with char siu. Thick & tender charsiu, impossibly fragrant, it was heavenly – the best charsiu cheung fun in London I’ve yet tried. The prawn cheung fun was pretty good as well and I was pleasantly surprised with the crustiness of the Youtiaw filled version. Cheung fun is one of my benchmark dishes and I thought the noodle wrap was very well done. Smooth, a good thickness and a lively bounce, with the soya sauce that carried just a subtle tinge of sweetness.

Glutinous rice with chicken, or ‘Lo mai gai’.

Avoid this – this is bland.

Steering away from the steaming and puffy, we gave the squid a try.

Thick and mostly juicy with an able batter, it was let down abit with a blandness. The last of the benchmark dishes (if you are counting) are the charzsiu baos. I found that it had the standard fluffy fragrance, but not enough of it for me to give it my gluttonous stamp of approval, in fact it wasn’t even enough to motivate me to photograph it.

Finally, we ended with some egg tarts. They were served piping hot (I burnt my tongue again) , the crust was just a tad crusty in the place of a consistent density, but the egg custard itself was divine. Eggy and milky and probably rivals the Pearl Liang version, which I think is also excellent.

They got four out of my five benchmark dishes right and on the whole, I think Yum Cha is pretty good. Their xiao long baos, egg tarts and char siu cheung fun in particular stack up very well against the competition in town. I made a return visit a few weeks later to take the missus there, and the second visit pretty much aligned with the first. I lost the receipt from both visits although I can tell you that the price is comparable to their peers. If memory serves, they run regular discounts (25% off the bill) during the weekdays, making it even more of a compelling proposition to give this place a try. As a rule of thumb, there are few restaurants which get both their dim sum and dinner menu right and I don’t think Yum Cha is any exception. I would only recommend you try dim sum at Yum Cha and just ignore the rest of the ala carte. In that regard, it gets one and a half thumbs up from me, but with a warning because I don’t think everything on the menu is top drawer, though the positives far outweigh the negatives.

More photographs on my flickr account here.

Other considered accounts : Charmaine Mok for Timeout London ; Catty of The Catty Life ; Helen the World Foodie Guide ; The Wild Boar of Pigs Pigs Corner ; London Chow

The Gist of It

Yum Cha official site £20pp
36 Chalk Farm Rd
Camden, NW1 8
Tel: 0207482222
Tube: Chalk Farm

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I finally pulled the trigger. I downgraded my travel card to exclude free roaming in zone 1. I’ll have to pay as I go into central London (I work in zone 4) or use more bus routes, but that’s only a mild inconvenience compared to the annual £600 savings, not to mention the ‘health benefits’ associated with a longer walk home. So my new home station is now Earls Court (again) – probably just about the noisiest street in London. There are plenty of restaurants in the area (I’ve tried most multiple times, including the new-ish Mangosteen), but lately have been frequenting this Chinese restaurant for quick after work bites.

Unsurprisingly, the restaurant is named after the address (no.10 hogarth place). There are also Filipino grocery stores on this very street. Unassuming and somehow seemingly blending into the locale (explains why I’ve missed it for the past four years), or maybe I was staring abit too much at the hairdressers next door at No.8, I blame the well polished glass panels. My first visit to the restaurant was to escape the rain. While I waited, I thought I may as well sample a plate of soya chicken rice (about a fiver… give or take, one of my favourite things in the world). I usually ask for a drumstick, and the waitress informed me that they only do the most tender parts of the chicken. Hmm, I took that as a yes. Anyway, I was quite amazed at how good the chicken was – very tender (that sort of tender..), fragrant, and a good balance of saltiness and sweetness. It tasted like what soya chicken was supposed to taste like. For the record, it’s not Uncle Lims, but is close enough.

Reconnaissance successful, I thought it best to take the big guns for subsequent visits: the One with the knife skills in the house. So the menu is expansive, on the first page, the chef specials signal their specialty in Szechuan cuisine. There’s a lot of recognisable Chinese dishes on the menu as well (which I wont go through) but I’ll point out what I thought was a cracker: the braised pork ribs with rice. It came in a ceramic pot on a bed of rice, with ‘winter’ mushrooms (shitake). As the waitress lifted the lid, the gushing homely aromas were incredibly mouth watering, I kept thinking about my mum’s cooking. Ohhhhh, warming flavours, it bubbled in my mouth as my palate began filling with mushroom and white pepper. The balance of flavour is sound and as the juices soaked into the rice beneath the excellent spare ribs, it made for an incredibly hearty mouthful. The portion was large, I looked around and saw other lone diners savouring the gentle pot as well. £6.50 a steal.

We were glad to find a dependable Chinese in the vicinity, but we were curious about their specialties. So the following visit, we were back to go ala carte, but first, a slight digression from food. The tables at No.10 are so closely arranged that neighbouring personal spaces are on the fringes of encroachment. I saw ‘The ugly truth’ (you’ll see where this is going in a sec) and I didn’t quite believe the situation of the woman trying all kinds of tricks to get her man existed in real life. But funnily enough, a couple (I say ‘couple’) sat next to us, and the woman was so clearly flaunting it, trying to impress her male friend with her vast experience with Chinese food, and was she impressive and then some. She ordered in Cantonese, but with a distinct Glaswegian accent, and her intimate knowledge of good restaurants in Hong Kong even had me tuning in. I know what you’re thinking: “Kang, you are a such gossip whore” . Hey what did you expect, I write a blog.

Hopefully pecking was involved at the end of that meal. Anyway: monk fish in white wine sauce, £7.60. Another warming sensation, steam rising from every exposed area of this dish. First of all, it’s like there is some sort of heat emanating from the core of each parcel of fish. Encased in a batter, just thick enough to absorb the slimey, jelly-like sauce, and which created a unique texture, soggy but still kinda crunchy. Flavour wise, it was a big surprise – there was a lot of sizzly heatiness in the sauce (see wok hei), like a bouncy castle for the tastebuds. Yeah I enjoyed it.

Next we decided on the ‘ma la’ spicy pot, with mixed offals. £12.50

The waitress told us that this was the bona fide Szechuan speciality, ‘mala’ I think means spice your tastebuds to death. The offals included tripe and intestines but there were also slices of beef, pork and spam thrown in for good measure. The broth was incredibly sharp and spicy, to the point where all my my major orifices were watering. Nasal clearing stuff, it’s a tad potent, considering we’re in London.

And the award for eye catching dish names goes to …. Saliva Chicken £6.50.

Not a reflection of the recipe of course, but rather, a suggestion of what it would do someone when eaten. Anyway, this was the aforementioned soya chicken, but bathing in a hot and spicy soya based sauce, with crushed peanuts. I prefer the plain version, less distractions.

All in all, No.10 is a sneaky little gem which really surprised me with its quality. Not everything succeeds, like the dim sum for example, I’m convinced the custard buns are off the shelf. The Szechuan specialities on the other hand are masterful, and you know you’ve chanced upon a good Chinese restaurant when the rice are like fragrant drops plucked from the steaming heavens.

The Gist of It

No 10. £15pp
10 Hogarth Pl
London, SW5 0QT
Tel: 020 7373 7000
Tube: Earls Court

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