Your favorite London Chinatown restaurants?

Nobody?
Throw me a bone here, guys!

We have eaten at Gerrard's Corner twice. Once my daughter and I met Kavey at her suggestion, and the other time we joined a small GTG with Kavey, Starspinner, Julia, David, and some others I'm blanking out on. We enjoyed it very much, and it is inexpensive.

Hi mr_go!

In Chinatown, we have tried Rasa Sayang , sort of malaysian/singaporean cuisine. Excellent, especially their pan-fried crab dishes (you can order spicy or non-spicy). Inexpensive.

We have also eaten at Ba Shan ,which we found from Time Out London.We had dumplings and noodles here. Very, very good...our teen considered it one of the best meals he had in London.

Hope this helps.

My go-to place is HK Diner, 22 Wardour Street. It serves authentic Cantonese "fast food". http://www.timeout.com/london/restaurants/reviews/9306.html

Baozi inn gets good review. I ate there once. http://www.timeout.com/london/restaurants/reviews/13356.html

Both places are very casual.

This from my trip report of last May:

" . . .we liked the look of a place called Leong’s Legends -- and this was a revelation. I later learned that it is famous for its dim sum. As it happens, they keep a few on the dinner menu, too. We had the vegetarian and the crab meat dumplings (astounding), a plate of the green beans with minced pork (vibrant) a fiery dish of chicken and chilies and lamb in an aromatic broth (delicious, but the lamb itself was an odd cut and a little gummy). Drank a bottle of NZ sauvignon blanc."

I highly recommend it!

Thank you all very much! We'll be in London tomorrow, and will post a quick trip report when we get back next week.

Cheers!

The "Golden Dragon" on Gerrad Street - recommended by my Chinese Neighbour and was and still is excellent.

in chinatown on the main street..plum valley, excellent. great service, fab food with a large range of prices. You could spend a lot of money. My partner and I had a great dinner there for £23 and they gave us free dessert and tea when we were waiting for the rain to let up.

I want to mention a restaurant in Chinatown NOT to go to. It's called Far East and I just read in the Evening Standard that they have been fined 10,000 GBP for extreme cockroach infestation!

time out London will have some reliable listings.

otherwise look for the formica tables and a restaurant full of chinese people.

Is Wong Kei still going? the agressive service was a legend in the time when Thatcher ruled the waves. City boys would get very drunk and have food thrown down them whilst coming up with pretty poor chinese jokes.

I took my brother there when I was a student in London - he was 14 and asked for a knife and fork, never had chinese before - got an aweful lot of grief and was told to go to McDonalds by the waiter - I loved it!

cafe de hong kong, leong's legends (as mentioned), hk diner, feng shui inn.

be careful though...there are a lot of bad places.

"Is Wong Kei still going?"

Yup.

Though - except for watching a fistfight about ten years ago when some dickhead Mainlander insisted on speaking Mandarin and the Cantonese waiters pointed out to him (in Cantonese), with the famous Wong Kei subtlety, that they hadn't smuggled themselves onto a containership for six weeks to put up with that kind or crap from a Party arselicker and if he wanted to speak Mandarin there were thousands of dirt poor communes back home that'd be delighted to talk boondocks peasant to him so why didn't he piss off back there - I've never seen the curmudgeonliness.

They always strike me as courteous, charming, considerate, bullshit-free and suitably intolerant of braindead tourists asking bloody stupid questions. And for £4 a plate of thick noodles, serving bloody good grub.

Kind of restaurant I'd run if I were in the business. Possibly erring a shade on the side of this silly modern customer focus fad - but more or less perfect for a reliable quick cheap lunch with decent service.

yes markrosy wong kei is still there and pretty much as you describe. that's not a bad place either imo.

flanner...i hope you don't mind but i'm going to take your wong kei anecdote and use it as my own next time i go to a sgh cocktail party. and i will tell it just as you do. like all good cocktail anecdotes it will be more about me than the story itself.

it has everything...'edgy' language like 'dickhead' which will show that i'm cool and 'down with that'. i will be able to show everyone that i can speak cantonese AND mandarin. it shows that i can slum it in chinatown so i'm no out of touch poshy. it includes the word 'curmudgeonliness'. best of all describing wong kei as 'courteous' and 'charming' will show that i have a keen sense of irony (god i do love irony).

thank you flanner. i do love this anecdote. sgh will be roaring with deep guffaws at this one. i'll let you know if i can pull it off.

Is Wong Kei still going? >>>

Yes and it's still crap. It ain't that cheap anymore since it started getting into guidebooks.

There's a tip top buffet gaff in Lisle St, I have no idea what it's called but the food is visible through the window and it has a green frontage. Highly recommended.

cw...what's wrong with you? why can't you be charming, ironic and edgy like flanny? all that £ for your education and all you can say is:

"Yes and it's still crap."

you'll never be welcomed to a cocktail party on sgh.

you'll never be welcomed to a cocktail party on sgh.>>>>

And for that let us all be thankful as I don't play golf, read the Daily Mail or wear slacks, pringle sweaters and boat shoes or horrible protestant hats.

I'm sorry I saw this post a bit late but for others who are following this thread, we have eaten several times at The Magic Wok, 100 Queensway, opp.Bayswater Tube. Good value for a set menu with different options. A speciality of the house is - Deep fried softshell crab with garlic and spicy chilli.
There are more Chinese restaurants in the same street offering Dim Sum.

sorry, i meant baozi inn (also recoommended by yk) and not feng shui inn. i've never been to feng shui inn. apologies for my mistake.

Thanks, again, for all the suggestions. We are leaving shortly to see the "Beatles to Bowie" exhibit at the National Portrait Gallery and are planning to head to Chinatown afterward--armed with all of the above recommendations. We'll let you know where we end up. I wish we had another week so we can try more than one...

We're back from dinner. We ended up going to Baozi Inn, which we enjoyed very much. We were seated right away, even though it was pretty full; there was a line when we left. It's a chilly night in London and nothing sounded better than a hearty bowl of spicy noodles--a specialty here. We had a three-sliver salad (kelp, carrot and vermicelli); a spiced peanut salad; pork dumplings in broth; spicy cold peanut/sesame noodles; and Sichuan pork noodles. Unfortunately, they were out of the baozi (buns), but we ended up with plenty of food--with beer, less than £30 for three people. It certainly met our needs: fast, tasty and a solid value.

Thanks, again. We're having a great time and eating well (Italian, Turkish, Chinese...tomorrow, maybe Indian?). Full trip report when we get back.

mr_go/ms_go

Bookmarking for restaurants and hoping for a gtg when DH and I get across the pond. I must know what you "guys" are like in person since you've provided me with countless giggles and visits to the OED of slang....

Spot on observation walkinaround!

hearty bowl of spicy noodles--a specialty here. We had a three-sliver salad (kelp, carrot and vermicelli); a spiced peanut salad; pork dumplings in broth; spicy cold peanut/sesame noodles; and Sichuan pork noodles>>

yum, yum.

I'm glad you enjoyed Baozi Inn. Does it still only have stools as seats, with no place to hang winter coats? That was my only complaint when I went.