A queue of young Asian students crowds around a new brightly lit canteen just off Hammersmith Broadway.

It looks pretty slick – those neon Chinese characters sure are bright! – but the usual news sites are empty of details?

A quick Google of “YGF Malatang” throws up a new February 2024 opening… in the East Village New York. According to Eater NY, YGF stands for Yang Guo Fu, which apparently means something like “Lucky Northern China” and is a chain with 6,000 branches across Asia. Presumably that puts it in close competition with Chinatown’s ZhangLiang Malatang, which opened in 2022 and is (according to a 2020 post by Sydney blogger, Miss Dent) YGF’s main rival domestically, with both now spreading their wings abroad.

Mala-tang is a Sichuan hot pot, and in both chains you choose the contents of your own broth, take your selection to the counter, pay up and wait for your custom broth to be cooked up for you. The interior in W6 looks like a cross between a convenience store (with chiller cabinets down the side of the wall) and a canteen.

Is this part of trafficky Hammersmith Broadway’s emergence as a food scene? Flat Iron are about to open just across the road, and Faber, the seafood restaurants, is a new arrival just around the corner.

杨国福麻辣烫hammersmith店 YGF Malatang
8 Hammersmith Broadway, London W6 7AL