The Background: A long time ago, I was in either Virgin Music or HMV…one of the ones by Piccadilly. I picked up a random CD by a random band called Cut Copy. I vaguely rememnber that there was a note on the CD saying that some band I liked (whose name escapes me) liked Cut Copy. So I bought the CD. And I fell in love.
Apparently, all of Australia is in love with Cut Copy too because at the Scala on April 23rd, you couldn't swing a dead cat without hitting an Aussie. (Dead cat swinging? Where did this come from?) And the next day, my colleague Andrew–an Aussie living and working in Chicago–noticed my Cut Copy Twitter and commented on his excessive jealousy. Cut Copy rocked the house, and the Scala is a good place to see a show. (Loved the sound-proof bar overlooking the floor.)
Anyhow, before any house-rocking got started, Ben and I had dinner at London Szechuan/Sichuan Snazz. Now I should mention that Ben is married, and in a three day period, I had dinner alone with two married men. (My friend Jason was in town from Swaziland on Friday and we had some nasal-passage-clearing wasabi rolls and assorted sushi at Life on Old Street on Friday night.) Man, I get around.
The Food: I like the food at Snazz. We had the ma po tofu, which was probably my favorite dish. And some green beans, which were nice and crispy with a little fire to them. And then some kung pao chicken, which was great as well. Very peanut-y, which I liked.
The Funny Bit: I ordered some tap water. Our server told me that she wasn't allowed to bring me tap water. I could only have bottled water. Now firstly, I think this is illegal. Secondly, she failed to realize that we were sitting right by the men's room, where there was lots and lots of tap water. Ben made about five trips to the men's room to fill up our beer glasses during the course of our meal. It was fantastically funny. To me, anyhow. Serves them right. Not allowed to serve tap water…give me a break!
Also, Snazz is up the road from a what might appear to be a tanning parlour. But it's so not a tanning parlour.
Four Seasons 84 Queensway W2 3RL Tel: 020 7229 4320
Date of Last Visit: Sunday, April 20, 2008
The Victims: Rutton, Jay, Orvis
The Damage: £20 each
The Background: Running is both a good and a bad thing. It's good, of course, for your cardiovascular system. It's good for losing weight. It's good for increasing endurance.
It's bad, however, in that it creates–for me anyhow–a license to eat.
Meaning, I'm starving.
The Food: Not one but TWO whole ducks. Peking Duck and Crispy Duck. I can't really tell the difference. Shame on me.
Chinese broccoli. I want to eat all of it. I've always had a fondness for broccoli. Egg-fried rice, which I'm not so crazy about normally, but which I polish off like there's no tomorrow once it arrives. It's good. Sticky. Good.
A mysterious beef platter. We order the sizzling kind–you know, the type they bring to the table with a flourish while it's still making noise–but we just get something with beef and green peppers, no sizzle. It's a little gooey. I prefer the duck pancakes.
All washed down with copious amounts of tea, water, and talk about property (of course) and our investment banking friends and the storm they're weathering.
The Loo: UGGGGHHHH. Plus, the floor outside the loo was coated in duck fat, I swear.
The Verdict: There's just something about that egg-fried rice!
Firstly, can I tell you the challenges of a keyboard where the letter A sticks? It has affected my blogging mojo, and for that, my dear readers, I apologize.
Secondly, Stacey is getting married next month. In the south of France, no less. So we took her out for tea at Yauatcha, where the macaroons are lovely and the service is a little all over the place. And then we spent 3.5 hours in Selfridges. (I never thought that possible, but pink champagne makes anything possible) And then we went to The Soho Hotel for more champagne. And then somehow, we ended up in Barrio Norte in Islington (the old Warwick). And then I went home.
Yauatcha 15 Broadwick Street W1F 0DL 020 7494 8888
What is it about me and Chinese pastries? I love them. I love the sesame seed balls. I love the coconut stuffed thingies. I love the bean paste sweets. We found these outside a pastry shop on Lisle Street in London’s Chinatown during all the festivities. Very close to the Leicester Square tube entrance/exit. I think the Chinese pastry shop is called Sun Luen, but I could be wrong…I’ll be back soon though, so there’s time to figure it out.
Maybe only the born-and-raised New Yorkers will appreciate this. As found on a Chinese take-out menu in South Florida. Who knew? Apparently, this is not an uncommon statement. There’s a whole thread on Chowhound about it.
Shanghai Blues 193-197 High Holborn WC1V 7BD Tel: 0207 404 1668
Date of Last Visit: Thursday, November1st
The Victims: Al, Dave, Natalie, and Dave's friend whose name I've forgotten. Bad of me! And she was really nice, too.
The Damage: £57 each
The Background: I like Chinese food. A lot. In a past life, I think I was Chinese. Give me chicken feet and I will eat them. (Although let it be known that I do not necessarily seek them out.) Snake, check. Tofu, check check check. About the only "Chinese" dish I don't like is sweet and sour chicken (or pork). Too sweet for me. (Some would argue that this is not Chinese food at all, so in that sense, it makes sense.)
So when Al suggests meeting up for dinner at Shanghai Blues, I am intrigued. I read some reviews online and more than a few mention how dark it is inside Shanghai Blues. I am even more intrigued. Even more so when a very large man lets me in the front door. A restaurant with a bouncer? Porquoi? (I would write "Why?" in Chinese, but my Chinese is limited to gweiluo in Cantonese, xie xie in Mandarin, and beer, which I always forget the word for.)
I am late–very unlike me–because of an unfortunate incident with my cash card where the machine said it was dispensing cash but no cash was forthcoming, but I catch Al and brother Dave at the bar (which is dark–but not so dark that you can't see), drinking martinis. I am reminded of my Sake-tini in Mexico, of all places. I peruse the bar menu and there are no Sake-tinis to be found, but I ask the bartender and he smiles knowingly. He has to call up a cucumber from the kitchen, and proceeds to slice it up a bit. He uses the slices to line the bottom of a martini glass. I feel like I am in the hands of an expert. He tells me I am in on a big secret at Shanghai Blues.
The sake-tini arrives a few minutes later and it is COLD. Icy cold. Perfect. I am in love.
The Service: I am not so in love with the service at Shanghai Blues. The serving staff are gruff and unhelpful. I pry recommendations out of them like English people performing denistry at home. (Btw, guys, this has GOT to stop.)
The Food: Our starters are beautifully presented though, so there's that. Al's got some little pumpkins…They are, if I get this right, pumpkin dumplings shaped like pumpkins. They are cute. (I took a photo but it is way too dark.) My dumplings come in their own little dumpling hammocks. Well done.
My main–a recommendation for which which I gave away my first unborn child–is the star of the night. It's beef and peppers and it's amazingly delicious. Days later and I am still thinking abou it. The rest of the dishs are not so nice. There are some limp veggie noodles and some slippery some spicy tofu.
After our meal, a very creative fruit tray arrives with a candle in it…it is Dave's birthday, after all. The waitstaff are temporarily redeemed, as they apparently overheard us say it was Dave's birthday and decided to put the festive fruit tray together for us. They fall back out of our good graces when our request for the check takes AGES.
The Verdict: That beef dish was great. And the dumplings were so cute. I made good choices. I would go back.
The Damage: £20 each with Tsing Taos for the boys and me.
The Background: I store a lot of stuff at my office. Shoes. My monthly wine delivery. Mobile phone chargers. Gym clothes. Etc.
So every so often, I stop in the office to pick something up. The last couple of times, I've run into Xiang, who's newly arrived from China (for the second time). He's usually on Skype (or some variation thereof), talking to his wife and daughter back in China.
Moving to another country is hard. I've got it easy because I speak the language here. And even when I lived in Germany in 2003, I had the benefit of decently passable German. But in Munich, my weekends took on a noticeable routine–McDonalds. (It was right across the street, and they had bagels. Give me a break.). Gym. Wander streets endlessly. Go to scary Internet cafe at Hauptbahnhof. Call parents and tell them everything I'd already told them in email.
So I thought dinner with Xiang might be in order. Combine this with three reviews of Haozhan all in the same week–The Telegraph, The Independent, and The Guardian, and well, the gods were trying to tell me something.
The Entrance: You don't get written up in three major rags and not get a crowd. So Haozhan was already pretty full at 7 when we arrived. Here's the thing though–the three guests I brought were the only Chinese people in the place. Now normally, when I go out to eat with Echo, I'm surrounded by Chinese people. So this was a little weird.
The Ordering: We put Echo in charge, like she normally is. She starts off with the waiter in English, but they soon switch to Chinese and there's a barrage of questions towards me…"Do you like pork? Do you like beef? What type of vegetables do you want? Do you like it spicy?"
The Food: And it arrives. The clear winner–for me–is the quail with chillis which is lightly breaded and fried and is just so nice and crispy. We also had an order of jasmine ribs, which I have absolutely nothing to complain about.
And then come the mains…the tofu arrives and it's dramatic looking. Four fried short squares, each topped with a scallop and some roe. It's a very soft tofu that is creamy on the inside…these disappear quickly. The tofu was my 2nd favorite dish of the night after the quail. Szechuan duck is nice, but not very szechuan-y. And the mongolian beef is just beef, to me, but it's presented very nicely with some light onion-y things. The big let down dish is the vegetables with lotus root, which were very bland.
The Service: Pretty friendly. Pretty efficient. After reading all the reviews, I expected it to be super excellent, and it wasn't. It was good though.
The Bad Part: An older couple came in about 30 minutes into our meal and were seated next to us. The gentleman was unwashed and I'll leave it at that.
The Funny Parts: Xiang's announcement: I like drinking. And smoking. Me teaching them all the meaning of ADS. (After dinner smoke. So later, on our walk to the bus, it became, "I like drinking. And ADS."
The Loos: They should send someone in to pick things up every hour or so. Although nicely done–great tilework–no one had touched it since lunch at least.
The Verdict: Echo declared that Haozhan was her new favorite restaurant in Chinatown. So I think that says something. I liked Haozhan too.
The Background: "Team China" is heading back to Shenzhen while I’m off to Mexico. (More to come on MY trip later!) I really am sad to see them go, and I’m sad I didn’t get to spend as much time with them as I would have liked. (But I’m hopeful that they will invite me to Shenzhen at some point!) We wanted to have a farewell dinner. A spicy dinner. And the gang had been to Bar Shu before and very much approved, which is always a good sign.
The Food: We put Wei (who, just to clarify, is not really a member of Team China) in charge and we get all sorts of good things. And they are all coated in chilies. I am afraid, but I know that I am in good hands. There’s a sliced chicken dish that’s quite nice. And a really great plate of spicy tofu. And some little rib tips.
And then along come the mains, and they are very plentiful. The standout has to be the boiled sea bass in chili soup. This big porcelein bowl comes to the table, and you can somewhat see that there is fish in there. But it’s COVERED in two types of szechuan peppers. (That’s it in the picture.) The familiar red ones, and little green ones. (The green ones, the team explains, are like a "cool hot." And now I understand why.)
Our server dishes most of the chilies out of the bowl. But leaves just enough to keep me sweating through the meal. HOT. But I just can’t stop.
There’s a great chicken dish, which the team explains is chicken served in a clay pot. And the garlic green beans are amazing–very crisp and crunchy and salty and garlicky. All the right things. Ah, and I also liked the prawns, which are slightly sweet, although they’re still spicy. And yes, I eat a pig’s foot. And I like it.
The Service: Pretty decent. But I think it helped that we had some native speakers. Although it did take ages to get the bill.
The Background: My Chinese friend Echo has told me on a number of occasions that Wong Kei is THE place to go in Chinatown for Chinese food. Matt has organized a night out for Gerry and Ben and myself–a variety show at the Cafe Royal in Picadilly–and so we drop into Wong Kei for dinner beforehand.
The Loos: I started my Wong Kei experience in the ladies’ room, and it was really gross in a very disgusting way. The stench hit me the moment I walked through the door. The 5-second rule could not be applied here. A little power-washing would go a very very long, long way. Like long in a dig-a-tunnel-to-China-way. Yuk…I am grossed out just thinking about it. The things I do in London for my blog readers, I swear.
The Food: We started with some duck pancakes, which were really nice, as they usually always are. And a platter of mixed vegetarian items for Gerry. I don’t get the whole crispy spinach thing. It’s hard to eat, and it’s not very good! It’s like eating paper, no?
Now while we were enjoying our starters, the woman at the table next to me got a great looking dish. Our server explained that it was eel, and being a huge fan of unagi, I decided to give it a shot. I got the unagi and pork dish with white rice. The pork was really great, but the eel wasn’t my favorite. So I ended up having a few pieces of pork for dinner, along with some white rice. Not the most filling meal.
The Drinks: Tsing Taos all around, plus a bottle of HOT SAKE. If I had a band, I would call it HOT SAKE. Forgive me if I’ve told you this before.
The Service: Echo has warned me that the service isn’t very good, but I thought it was okay. Sure, it took us a bit to get the check at the end, but that was alright. I was expecting rudeness, gruffness and maybe a little name-calling, and we didn’t get any of that. Part of me was slightly disappointed.
The Verdict: If I go back, I will go with Echo and make her order for me. Given the number of people streaming in the doors, Wong Kei has something going for it. I just have to find out what it is. It certainly is not the toilet facilities.
The Damage: £30 per person or thereabouts? But we got our money’s worth. We ate A LOT. A LOT, a lot. (Which, by the way, is two words. This is a pet peeve of mine. I get upset about it…A LOT.)
The Background: We headed over to Canary Wharf to have dinner with Kunal, who was in town from Chicago for a month and had been eating at Royal China practically every night. OK, maybe not every night, but often enough. Often enough that he didn’t need the menu to know what to order.
As someone who tries not to eat in the same places on multiple occasions, I (initially) thought this was a little weird. Wouldn’t you get bored of eating at the same place ALL THE TIME? Imagine…the same restaurant, the same waitstaff, THE SAME MENU.
But then I remembered that I do seem to have an unhealthy fascination with the Thai Green Curry frozen dinner from Sommerfields. I could eat that every night.
So Sommerfields and Royal China had me thinking…maybe there’s something to be said for revisiting a dependable classic again and again. Because the food we enjoyed at Royal China was some of the best I’ve ever had. Ever.
The Food: Well, firstly, they bring you salty peanuts and cucumber while you’re waiting. This is a nice touch. Given Kunal’s familiarity with the menu, we let him order for us. And order he did! The waitress even told him to stop ordering at one point.
When the parade of food began, it became obvious why she had advised halting the ordering procedure. There was no room left on the table! Because we had…
Broccoli type #1 Broccoli type #2 (We couldn’t tell the difference, except by color. One was darker than the other.) Sizzling beef! Chicken hot pot (my favo(u)rite) Steamed fish (sole, I believe) Another type of fish that escapes me, but it was almost like eating lightly fried calamari. (My second favorite dish of the evening.)
And of course, a big bowl of white rice. Well, actually, it ended up being two big bowls of white rice. I can still hear Kunal saying distantly, through a green Chinese broccoli haze, "Does anyone want more rice?"
I wish I had brought my camera to show you how beautiful the 2nd fish was…it was almost like a Thanksgiving cornucopia. It was served in the skeleton of a fish, which had been deep fried. My guess is that we could have eaten the bones…I did try some and they were very crispy. Not bad for fish bones.
And the chicken hot pot (which Kunal explained was the "special" chicken hot pot, not the regular one) was that perfect amount of hotness and so much more. Just enough to raise your temperature a bit! And super super delicious.
The Service: Brisk and efficient and always on the lookout.
The Verdict: I’ll be back to Royal China soon as humanly possible.
The Background: It is, in case you didn’t know, the Chinese New Year. Echo was kind enough to organize dinner out at a Chinese place tucked into Artillery Passage. Now I gotta tell ya, I love Artillery Passage. It is just the cutest, darkest, twisty lanes of a place.
I was excited to visit Eat Drink because they have karaoke. Yes. I do enjoy a little karaoke. Just a little.
The Approach: Hard to find. And dark and dingy. We were in the "private dining" area–or so it seemed. Right off the bar–the karaoke bar. Which had some of the cheesiest karaoke videos I’ve ever seen.
The Food: We put Team China in charge of ordering. And order they did! It just kept coming and coming. I really liked the eggplant. And the tofu. And the Chinese broccoli. (Or well, British broccoli as our server called it.) And I liked the "traditional dish from Canton" that was made up of vegetables and meat. (Yes, I know. I’m sure I can’t be less descriptive.) The duck was probably the most delicious thing we ate. (Not duck pancake–just duck. It was really really good.) We washed this down with some sake (I know–not Chinese.) and some Tsing Tao.
The Entertainment: They play Buzz in China too. (The game where you can’t say any number with a 7 in it, or any number that’s a multiple of 7.)
The Verdict: Pat Benetar once said, "Love is a battlefield." So too is Eat Drink. We were glad to make it out of there with our dignity intact. I am afraid to go back because someone might catch me on tape singing California Dreaming. (Hey, it’s a good song.)
The Background: Nick was in town from Chicago with his co-worker and very kindly suggested getting together for dinner. My boss has been to Yautcha and spoken highly of it, and I needed something suitably central. And you know I am a sucker for dim sum any time of day. So this was it.
The Arrival: It’s cool. And empty upstairs. But it’s Monday so that’s fine. I head downstairs (Oh how I hate stairs and heels. A terrible combination.) and Nick and John are already there, helping themselves to drinks. Which brings me to…
The Drinks: So they had this beer that was made by Sapporo, but it wasn’t Sapporo. And it was the only beer they had. I thought this odd. Surely they could have had a 2nd option? John went with whiskey, which I can see as an apertif, but whiskey and food? Hmmm.
The Service: Oh, I love empty restaurants where no one comes and waits on you. This tells me that there is just something fundamentally wrong, particularly when there are lots of staff. Also, restaurants where all the tables are empty, but they insist on sitting the only other party right next to you. (This is probably because of some weird thing with the wait staff table divisions, but who knows. It’s not like they explained it.) And then I love when you are annoyed that they put the only other party right next to you, but then they TOTALLY forget to wait on the other party, even though they are RIGHT THERE. I felt very bad for the poor French people.
The Food: Right on. Loved the ribs. Loved the dumplings. Loved the noodles. Loved the sticky rice in lotus leaves. Loved everything, actually.
The Loos: Loved the ladies’ sink! Very zen like. Hated the weight of the doors. Heavy suckers.
The Verdict: Hmmm. Only if I were famous and assured of fantastic service.
Snazz Sichuan
The Food: I like the food at Snazz. We had the ma po tofu, which was probably my favorite dish. And some green beans, which were nice and crispy with a little fire to them. And then some kung pao chicken, which was great as well. Very peanut-y, which I liked.
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