The Times
Giles Coren made his way happily to the “new Bloomsbury Chinatown” and a “brilliant” restaurant indirectly recommended by Fuschia Dunlop, the British oracle of Chinese cuisine.
He attempted – and largely failed – to define the differences between the Chongqing (a vast city, “pronounced Chong-Ching”) and Chengdu versions of Sichuan cuisine, but that was fine: this is a “Chinese-for-the-Chinese place” whose “exciting menu” means it’s impossible to go wrong unless you turn to the back page and order curry, satay or French fries presumably aimed at Westerners.
All the starters Giles sampled – spicy beef tongue; sliced whelks with chilli; grilled scallion pancakes; fried crispy pork; fried lotus root – hit the spot. He followed up with signature £52 sharing pot, selecting spicy braised chicken with pork intestines; the other possibilities were duck and fresh asparagus with peas; rabbit with fresh red and green pepper; and seabass with frogs’ legs.
“When they brought it, I laughed,” he wrote. “It would have fed ten. £52 went from being the most expensive main course of my year so far to the cheapest thing I’d ever eaten. In a tureen no smaller than my car, there were the pieces of at least one whole, large chicken. Possibly a capon. Feasibly a hippo.”
Giles Coren - 2024-09-22The Times
Giles Coren made his way happily to the “new Bloomsbury Chinatown” and a “brilliant” restaurant indirectly recommended by Fuschia Dunlop, the British oracle of Chinese cuisine.
He attempted – and largely failed – to define the differences between the Chongqing (a vast city, “pronounced Chong-Ching”) and Chengdu versions of Sichuan cuisine, but that was fine: this is a “Chinese-for-the-Chinese place” whose “exciting menu” means it’s impossible to go wrong unless you turn to the back page and order curry, satay or French fries presumably aimed at Westerners.
All the starters Giles sampled – spicy beef tongue; sliced whelks with chilli; grilled scallion pancakes; fried crispy pork; fried lotus root – hit the spot. He followed up with signature £52 sharing pot, selecting spicy braised chicken with pork intestines; the other possibilities were duck and fresh asparagus with peas; rabbit with fresh red and green pepper; and seabass with frogs’ legs.
“When they brought it, I laughed,” he wrote. “It would have fed ten. £52 went from being the most expensive main course of my year so far to the cheapest thing I’d ever eaten. In a tureen no smaller than my car, there were the pieces of at least one whole, large chicken. Possibly a capon. Feasibly a hippo.”
Giles Coren - 2024-09-22
