LynFrance

We haven't been to London in a while, but we know that there used to be, and presumably
still are some excellent Chinese restaurants in London.

Some suggestions would be appreciated.

Thanks in advance for your help.

tuscanlifeedit

Chowhound.com is a good place for London recommendations.

I'm sure people here will help too, but what I found on our most recent trips was that Chinese wasn't being recommended as much as some years ago.

Pearl Liang was recommended, especially (I think) for dim sum.

I get the feeling, just from reading, that Middle Eastern food has risen in popularity.

We love Indian and we love Tayyab's. If I was in London tomorrow I would go there.

sparkchaser

When I was in London, I ate at this excellent dim sum place in Chinatown and I have been racking my brain trying to remember the name.

annhig

the go to places used to be Lisle Street and Gerrard Street near Leicester Square.

they mostly have plastic table cloths, and someone here once said that they were told, not asked to move tables mid meal, but the food is fantastic even if the service isn't wonderful.

Seamus

Tao tao Ju at 15 Lisle Street is a newer place that served us consistently good food on a couple visits.
http://www.taotaoju.co.uk/

LynFrance

Many thanks everyone.

flanneruk

I don't think Chinese food has declined in London - either in quality or in customer appeal (try getting into any decent dim sum joint at Sunday lunchtimes in less than an hour). But the pace of new openings and relaunches in other cuisines is so rapid and potentially headline-grabbing that journalism (in proper newspapers or online) has lost interest in less sensationalist stories about the odd new Shanghainese place.

As with food from the Indian subcontinent, much of the most authentic traditional food is in unappealing suburbs. Unlike "Indian" food, though, there's a very substantial number of serious, though increasingly pricey and blingy, Chinese places in the centre aimed at affluent Chinese-origin transients here.

Do bear in mind that standards in any Chinese restaurant are only as good as the proprietor's current run of luck in Mah Jong games, are as subject as most offshore investments by Chinese to alternatives they might be able to do with their money in Greater China, and that the value of restaurant owners' London property has almost certainly boomed more sillily than anywhere in China. By the time you act on any review, the owner might have sold up and invested in Taiwanese fish farms.

The most perceptive commentator on London's Chinese eating is the otherwise awful Giles Coren, but you have to get through the paywall on The Times website for that. His current rave ("the best dim sum restaurant in England") is Jun Ming Xuan (28 Heritage Avenue, NW9 www.junmingxuancolindale.com ), though that probably means two-hour queues at weekends.

Till recently, Time Out ( http://www.timeout.com/london/restau...se-restaurants )was the most consistently knowledgeable source for Indian and Chinese eating in London. I think its commentaries on Chinese places lack the bite they had five years ago, but they remain the best public source of sensible comment.

OReilly

If you want a more 'up-market' experience, try Yauatcha in Soho. I had dim sum there a couple of weeks ago - nice surroundings, great food, good wine list.

http://www.yauatcha.com/soho/

Smeagol

I too really like Yauatcha.
Try Hakkasan too, great food and fab cocktails!
China Tang in the Dorchester is FABULOUS.

One that we have been going to for years is Good Earth, they have a few branches we normally go to the one on the Brompton road. The other is in Mill Hill.

annhig

Do bear in mind that standards in any Chinese restaurant are only as good as the proprietor's current run of luck in Mah Jong games>>

flanner, you remind me of a case I did in my youth, when I was sent to court to defend the four "owners" of a chinese restaurant in Soho which had been running an illegal gaming house in the basement. it was the form that employees without previous convictions, usually the chefs, would be nicked in place of the real owner, and fines levied on a first appearance, but in this case that didn't happen, they were being threatened with gaol, and we had to go back a second time after probation reports. When we fetched up at court for the second hearing, and I tried to take instructions from one of the chaps about his family and income, I could get no sense out of him at all, and in the end, wormed out of the interpreter that the actual defendant was drunk, so they'd sent his brother! I insisted that they go and get the real defendant, and all through the hearing, he was helped to stand up and down by his fellow defendants supporting him on each side, with me trying to hide the pantomime going on behind me from the eagle eye of the magistrate.

Thank goodness I kept them all out of jug, so he was able to go home and sober up!

god knows what went on the table of that restaurant that night.

OReilly

The look wonderful Sméagol! I have also been to Kai in Mayfair (one Michelin star). It was beyond wonderful

carolyn

A few years ago we met Fodor's poster Kavie, a Londoner who suggested the restaurant, at Gerrard's Corner on Wardour Street in Chinatown for lunch. We enjoyed it very much. I just looked at it on Trip Advisor, and it has three-and-a-half stars.