Beijing Dumplings @ Jen Café (Chinese), London

Jen Café is a Chinatown institution and has been on its corner site on Newport Place for as long as I can remember. It's very much a caff reminiscent of the cha chaan tengs of Hong Kong serving a wide choice of hot drinks and breakfast stuff like toasted sandwiches. Whilst the bulk of the menu consists of siu mei (Cantonese BBQ) served with a choice of rice and noodles, there's only one reason why you come here and that's for their hand-made jiaozi or Beijing dumplings.

These dumplings remind me of Shun Yi Fu in Beijing and you know they're hand-made as you can see the ladies making them in the shop window. I ordered the jianjiao or fried dumplings (£5/8 pcs) but you can also order boiled dumplings (£4.50/8 pcs). There was a bewildering choice of drinks but being a bit of an old git, I ordered a tankard of hot chrysanthemum tea (£1.20).

The dumplings were perfectly pan-fried with a nice char on the outside. As these are Northern Chinese dumplings, they're more rustic than Cantonese dim sum but what they lack in delicacy they make up for in taste. The filling of pork, spring onion, chives, and Chinese leaf was juicy and was complemented well by the traditional vinegar dip.

I liked these dumplings so much that I decided to take some uncooked ones home with me. These cost £4.50/8 pcs and I was told to boil them for 10 minutes. After cooking, I dressed these with soy, sesame oil, chilli oil, garlic, ginger, and spring onion. As you can see from the photo above, I have a great future in plating-up !

Verdict: Jen's handmade dumplings make for a great snack or to share as a side order with a one-plate meal.

Other Stuff: They also serve veggie versions of the dumplings as well as Fuqing fishballs which I understand are the same as these.

Dinner @ Empress of Sichuan (Sichuan), London

There's no doubt that the Chinese dining scene in the UK has been reinvigorated by the spicy flavours of Sichuan. You should know by now that my fave is Chilli Cool but there are loads of Sichuan eateries across London with Soho's classy Bar Shu being the most renowned. More recently, I've tried Red 'N' Hot, which also has outposts in Birmingham and Manchester where it does battle with the highly acclaimed Red Chilli mini-chain. Even Chinese restaurants that aren't ostensibly Sichuan have dishes from this part of South-west China on the menu.

Now you'd think I’d be well chuffed that Sichuan cuisine is taking off but truth be told I'm worried as I fear it may go the way of many culinary trends with places serving up dumbed-down and inauthentic dishes. So would Chinatown newcomer, Empress of Sichuan be a welcome addition to the growing ranks of decent Sichuan restaurants or would it be a cynical attempt to cash-in on the latest trend ?

First impressions of this Lisle St restaurant were strong – I liked the classy look of the dining room although the retro photos of Cliff Richard & The Shadows and Tom Jones bemused me. If this incongruous décor sounds familiar, that’s because this restaurant has retained the fixtures and fittings of its predecessor, the short lived Taiwanese seafood specialist, Keelung. In actual fact, the management is still the same and the only thing that's changed is the menu and the name of the restaurant !

Joining me for this meal was fellow blogger, Luiz aka The London Foodie and his partner in crime, Dr G. We were going to go for a burger but Luiz twisted my arm to come here instead. And you know what, I'm so glad he did because any fears that Empress of Sichuan might not be up to scratch were soon dispelled when our order arrived:

• Beef slices in extremely spicy soup aka water-boiled beef or shui zhu niu rou (£12.50)
• Fragrant chicken with dried chilli pepper aka la zi ji (£13.00)
• "Farmers Fish" – baked fish with spring onion, cumin & black bean (£21.50)
• Spicy green beans with minced pork & preserved veg aka siji dou (£8.50)
• Dan dan noodles (£4.80)

The classic beef and chicken dishes did not disappoint - they were both gutsy with the chilli and Sichuan peppercorn taking centre stage. The beef was very tender and the 'spicy soup' seemed more refined than I was used to, well as refined as a giant vat of chilli oil can be. La zi ji – chicken bits tossed with dried chilli and Sichuan peppercorns – is probably my favourite Sichuan dish and it was as good here as I've eaten inside or outside of China. This superior version of the dish was the real deal with the chicken served on the bone. 

So far so good but things got better with the star dish of the night, "Farmers Fish" which was the one dish that was new to us all. I'd love to take credit for ordering this but actually this was the one dish that I didn't order. In an attempt to shake off my control freak tendencies, I let my dining companions choose a seafood dish and Dr G certainly came up trumps with this choice. The fish was perfectly baked with the flesh flaking off under a coating of spring onion, cumin and black bean. Whilst this combo sounds full on and potentially overwhelming, the three ingredients combined well and extra rice was ordered to mop up this moreish coating.

Spicy green beans are a staple order at Sichuan restaurants and as you can see from the main photo, they were beautifully cooked here. There was more minced pork than other versions of this dish and you could also pick out the distinct taste of preserved vegetable too. We also enjoyed the dan dan noodles – more soupy than I'm used to but with the trademark Sichuan flavours.

Service was very good, probably because there were surprisingly few diners on this Thursday night. We were brought some tea after the meal and had a chat with the friendly head waitress. She explained that the head chef was from Chengdu as was most of the kitchen crew and that there was a 20% discount for the month of January. This discount will continue in February until St Valentine's Day (weekends excepted). Together with steamed rice and a couple of rounds of beer, the bill clocked in at £81 for three including service and the 20% discount. Even without this discount I would have happily paid my share of the £100 or so bill.

So how does this newcomer compare to other Sichuan restaurants in the capital ? As Empress of Sichuan is an elegant upmarket restaurant, I think comparisons with Chilli Cool are facile as the latter serves up rustic, almost home-cooked food in humble surroundings. Its main rival is therefore Bar Shu but I can't really make a comparison, as I haven't eaten there in years. That said it'd have to be pretty special to best Empress of Sichuan.

Verdict: If I eat a better meal this year, Sichuan or otherwise then I'll be a very lucky man. My only reservation is whether Empress of Sichuan can consistently deliver such high standards when it gets really busy. 

Other Stuff: The people behind this restaurant also operate Leong's Legends (Taiwanese) and Golden Harvest (Cantonese / Dim Sum) in Chinatown as well as the contemporary Chinese restaurant Goldfish in Hampstead.

{Update March 2010 - On a subsequent visit, I really enjoyed the starters of lamb skewers and a cold dish of cucumber marinated with garlic and sesame oil. Of the mains, I was a tad disappointed with the duck in beer & chilli sauce but only in comparison with the rest of the meal. But the coup de grace were the complimentary pumpkin pancakes and before you ask, no we didn't blag them as bloggers.}

World of Noodles

Despite my moniker, I sometimes feel a bit of a fraud calling myself Mr Noodles. My blog is a bit crap compared to some of the stuff out there on noodles. In particular, I love blogs that 'discover' new types of noodles as well as those that have great recipes. Here are a couple of my faves that I'd like to share with you.

The incomparable Eating Asia, which I have followed for a long time, is one of the most fascinating blogs around. Most recently, they posted about a noodle that was new to me, the amazing palm noodles (shouzhang mian) from Sichuan.

With so many food blogs around, it takes a very special one to catch my eye. 3 hungry tummies from Melbourne is more than very special and their post 'The wonderful world of Asian noodles' is essential reading. If that wasn't enough, their recipes are to die for, in particular the Chinese and East Asian dishes.   

Dim Sum @ Harbour City (Cantonese), London

I couldn't write about old school dim sum without actually going for a big blow-out. The obvious venue was Chinatown – home to many old school joints – and I decided to check out Harbour City. I hadn't been to this Gerrard St stalwart in years but my curiosity was aroused by Bellaphon. For this post, I decided to draft in some expert help in the form of Helen aka World Foodie Guide. Sadly, Helen doesn't blog anymore but her guide on where to eat dim sum in London remains essential reading.

Now you might think Chinatown is the place to go yum cha but those days are long over. Nowadays, London's best dim sum is found elsewhere, my regular haunt is Phoenix Palace whilst Helen favours Pearl Liang. That said, it's handy to have somewhere in Chinatown to fall back on for dim sum - would Harbour City be that place ?

First impressions weren't great. Whilst I didn't mind the slightly dated interior, I did mind not being asked what tea I wanted. In fact I think they poured it before I even had a chance to take my coat off. We also seemed to have walked in on a staff training session as a Cantonese speaking waitress was training up a Mandarin speaking waiter when taking our order. I'm not sure why they don't have the 'tick sheet' menu common in most dim sum places – it would have made life much easier. That said ordering wasn't too much of an ordeal as the menu was bilingual and from it, we went for a mix of steamed dishes, fried snacks and the rest.......

Har gau (prawn dumplings) are usually a good indicator of the quality of a dim sum restaurant. The wrapper should be thin and translucent whilst the prawn filling should be well seasoned and not be minced too finely so as to retain some 'bounce'. The dumplings here just about pass the test, if anything the wrapper was too thin as it broke on contact with the chopsticks.

Cha siu bao is a classic and like most dim sum, you get three in a portion. But Helen and I are old enough to remember the golden age when these steamed bbq pork buns had a more generous filling and were so big that the basket could only fit two buns. Whilst the buns here were larger than what passes for average nowadays, they were sadly more bao than cha siu. Steamed whelks in curry sauce were quite moreish although like the rest of the steamed dim sum, nothing special.

Moving onto the fried snacks, these were competently executed with none of the stale greasiness that afflicts some dim sum places. We ordered wu gok (yam croquette), grilled bean wafer with minced prawn paste filling (of our order, this was Helen's fave – it was bit like a large spring roll made with a bean curd skin wrapper) and mak yu beng (fried cuttlefish cakes). There wasn't much wrong with these snacks but I thought they lacked finesse.

In particular, I couldn't help but compare the mak yu beng to Phoenix Palace's version which is studded with finely chopped water chestnuts that give it crunch as well as bounce. I realise how ridiculous that last sentence reads and you're probably thinking 'what a fussy ****' – well you’d be right but that's what eating dim sum for over 30 years can do to a man !

Cheung fun is a dim sum essential and my favourite is zhaliang – in my opinion, this was probably the pick of the bunch as there were signs of delicacy absent from the rest of the order. The fried dough stick wasn't greasy, the rice noodle wrapper was silky smooth, and the soy was served on the side to prevent the dough stick getting soggy. Its dishes like these that underline the superiority of the old school.

A dim sum session isn't complete without siu mei and noodles so I killed two birds with one stone by ordering three roasts with fried noodles (sam siu chow mein). There were no complaints about this healthy portion of cha siu, siu yuk, roast duck, and pak choi sat atop crispy fried noodles.

The dim sum is very cheap here with prices starting at £2.10 and the damage was roughly £28 for two including tea and service – although the bill was presented in that typically opaque Chinatown way. I did over-order and I bagged up some of the leftovers to take home so if you ditched the noodles, you could probably get away with spending around £10/head. Service wasn't bad by Chinatown standards – let's put it this way, my only real grumble was not being offered a choice of tea.

I can imagine if you were a long time regular at Harbour City then you'd feel quite at home but unfortunately I'm not. Both Helen and I thought it was distinctly average and whilst the dim sum was far from bad, I'd be hard pushed to think of anything that would lure me back.

I also realised over the course of this lunch, how much I missed the bells and whistles of high-end old school places like Phoenix Palace. It wasn't just about the better food and service, I also missed the small touches like being able to choose your own tea, the little name label on the teapot lid, and most importantly, the water chestnuts in the mak yu beng.

Verdict: If you happen to be in Chinatown and have a sudden dim sum craving then Harbour City is a cheap and cheerful option. That said I wouldn't go out of my way to eat here.

Other Stuff: Helen recommends Leong's Legends as the go-to place for dim sum in Chinatown although I've yet to try it.

Matthew Norman - WTF ?

The last thing you anticipate from even the finest Chinese chef is the showing of respect to the veg. Here, though, the french beans were "wonderful. All spicy and ­perfectly crunchy," cooed my friend.

The above quote is from Matthew Norman's review of My Old Place from the Weekend Guardian magazine (16 January 2010).

So yet again, a 'professional' restaurant critic comes out with complete bollocks about Chinese food. Has this idiot never tasted Cantonese stir-fried pak choi with garlic or sampled fish-fragrant aubergine (yu xiang qiezi) from Sichuan ? Or perhaps, he thinks the chef isn't showing enough respect to veg when putting together lo hon zai or monk's vegetables - a complex dish comprising up to 35 ingredients eaten by Buddhist monks.

Well all I can say is that 'the last thing you anticipate from even the finest British restaurant critic is the showing of respect to Chinese food'.