Let's chase the dragon

There’s nowhere in my town that does good Chinese food. There used to be an all you can eat buffet that did surprisingly passable crispy duck and yes, there’s a Wagamama-esque place that does pretty decent kung pau king prawns (although they’ve taken the wonton noodle soup off the menu). 

And of course there’s a real Wagamamas with the great veggie katsu that surpasses the chicken one. But they are not the kind of neon lit places, on a corner, that you stumble into after a night on the beer for a foil tray of mixed meat chow mein and a big bag of prawn crackers, to use in lieu of cutlery.

I’m not even talking about ‘good good’ Chinese food, ‘bad good’ would be just fine. Ribs the colour of my scalp after half an hour on the beach without a hat on; mounds of crispy seaweed sprinkled with the mysterious powder that’s more addictive than opiates; Yeung Chow fried rice that tastes even better when slightly congealed and eaten the next day for breakfast.

Thankfully there is salvation not too far around the North Circular, at Bang Bang Oriental Foodhall, that I have previously written about here. While the bustle and the excitement of upstairs can't be beaten if you fancy a quick bowl of noodles or a bubble tea or slice of pandan swiss roll or a brightly-coloured Korean shaved ice dessert, I'm beginning to favour Golden Dragon, the more serene and refined Chinese restaurant that can be found in the ground floor.

We visited recently for Sunday dim sum, something I have pretty much given up trying to write about - there's only so many superlatives you can come up with to describe the endless baskets of dumplings and buns that a proper yum cha feast involves - but it would be remiss not to talk at least a little bit about our meal.

First out were the pork puffs, which have been a favourite since our visit to the original Tim Ho Wan restaurant in Hong Kong. Flaky lard-enriched pastry stuffed with sweet barbecued pork, these are a must order (even if my wife always seems to get the extra bun).

The main event was out next - some top drawer crispy pork belly - layers of sweet meat and wobbly fat, topped with a crisp carapace of crackling, even better when dipped into a sauce that was very reminiscent of Colman's mustard. Alongside were chinese greens, this time gai lan, stir-fried with big chunks of fresh ginger, to help bust the Ewing's cold.

We also had a selection of steamed dumplings, including some unmemorable, UFO-shaped ones stuffed with chopped scallop and some nice crunchy veg; verdant prawn and chive; excellent har gau (truly the king of dim sum) and the special cheung fun stuffed with scallop, char sui and prawns. Luckily the Ewing isn't really a fan of the slippery, slithery steamed rice dough wrappers. All the more for me then. 

One of the best things about dim sum is the fact you get pudding at the same time as your main. My faves are the custard buns, either deep fried or steamed. Far better than a doughnut This time we went with the latter, the puffy, squidgy balls bursting with oozy yellow egg custard.

We were back again for a roasted meat fix not long after. This time for an evening visit following a visit to Go Outdoors to buy a new tent and mattress for our camping trip. The next day. As you can appreciate the icy Tsingtao was well needed.

Roast duck and rice was a decent specimen- if you go to the loos at the back of the restaurant you can see all the roasts meats as you walk past the kitchen, hanging glistening in the window - with a good ratio of glossy, lacquered skin to sweet fat and tender meat. With a heap of fluffy rice, salty soy sauce and some token steamed greens, I struggle to think of a more perfect plate of Chinese food. Or any food, for that matter.

One thing the Chinese are good at is elevating the humble pig and I have wanted to try mei cai kou rou – steamed belly pork with mustard greens – for a long while. Fortunately I managed to persuade the Ewing that she did too. 

It’s a Hakka dish, so not often seen on the predominantly Cantonese menus we are most familiar with – that consists of thick slices of streaky belly pork braised in a mix of star anise, ginger, Chinese wine, rock sugar and soy. The hunks of pork are braised until tender and served with the cooking liquor on a bed of fermented veg. All I can say after tasting it was; where have you been all my life? It was certainly worth the wait.

We also ordered some customary chinese greens, although the Ewing was slightly disappointed that the pea shoots were 'out of season', which lead to Googling later to find out when the pea shoot season is. (Answer: we still don't really know, but we are going to keep trying until they are available). The choi sum was on the menu, so we had that cooked with garlic.

Afterwards, as has become the custom, we went next door to Loong Fung supermarket and picked up some more veg, although if you're getting concerned this has become an #eatclean blog, this time they were in the form of deep fried spuds flavoured with cucumber. We also picked up a  basket stuffed full of crackers and mochi and frozen dumplings and fresh noodles. 

On balance, it's probably a good thing there's nowhere to get good Chinese food closer to home, as I've still got a cupboard full of ingredients to get through....

Dim Sumday

It’s been a little while since the Ewing and I have been out for Dim Sum Day, but a visit down south from my Aunt and Uncle in Yorkshire, combined with the news that my aunt’s favourite yum cha stop in Leeds - Ho’s on Vicar Lane - has closed, made it easy to decide what we were going to eat.

Where to eat was scarcely more problematic as we had also recently discussed walking across the Isle of Dogs - home of the Lotus floating restaurant, sitting on the Inner Millwall Dock - and under the Greenwich foot tunnel. Its curious waterside location, in the shadow of Canary Wharf and the looming Baltimore Tower, made it the perfect starting point for a Sunday stroll to the South of the River, as well as being a curiosity in its own right.

The last time I visited was in the dark and distant past, before I started writing the blog. An almost mythical time where I still took lots of photos of my lunch, but didn’t post them on Instagram or write about it afterwards. I do remember the meal though, if only for the reason that a rather bullish the Ewing ordered curried whelks, being quite adamant that ‘I like all types of seafood’. It turns out that this precludes whelks, a lesson she has learnt from, unlike me, who persists in ordering strange gristly, knobbly bits of protein whenever I see them.

Sadly, the whelks have gone, although they still offer cold baby octopus in curry sauce alongside chicken feet and Sunday specials including jelly fish, trotters, honey roast ribs, and beef shank, which I thought sounded pretty interesting, but was dissuaded from trying by the voices of reason.

In the end we stuck to a more prosaic array of dumplings – there’s nothing wrong with the classics – that included delicate scallop with the crunch of water chestnut; shui mai, with their fluted open tops and minced pork and shrimp filling; virginal har gau, stuffed with bouncy prawns (still my fave); and fragrant Chinese chive, the jade green flecks showing through their translucent wrappers.

Some good roast pork puffs - with their friable lard-enriched pastry and sweet and sticky filling - and a trio of Ewing’s beloved puffy steamed buns, filled with more sticky char sui, quickly followed. 

Customary custard tarts were just so-so, although I still always love the fact eating pudding in the middle of your main course is thoroughly encouraged during a yum cha feast, even if they came garnished with a thoroughly retro sprig of curly parsley.

There were also rolls – deep-fried wonton pastry filled with rich shredded peking duck and hoi sin sauce, and slippery cheung fun filled with sweet shredded pork in a pool of tangy black vinegar and a crispy beancurd and prawn roll that was snaffled before I could get a pic.

And we finished things with an array of fried things including batons of crispy salt and pepper squid, my Aunt's favourite, and some slightly oily prawn croquettes that benefited from a liberal dredging in perky chilli sauce.

Overall the food, while not quite up to the location, was a step up from many jaded Chinatown stalwarts, and service efficient and friendly, despite there being a full house, and everything was ably washed down with pots of very good jasmine tea, icy bottles of Tsingtao and pints of draught Sun Lik. Prices all seemed pretty reasonable, around the four quid mark for each dim sum dish, although I’m not sure what the total damage came to as my Uncle, very kindly, treated us. 

Best of all was the postprandial stroll with lovely people in the glorious sunshine afterwards; the stillness of the city shimmering on Dim Sumday. 

Crispy Duck

Every time I see my Leeds-based Aunt and Uncle they seem to have a story about their most recent visit to London - a story which usually includes going to ‘Crispy Duck’ on Gerard Street, their favourite dim sum spot for more years than my aunt would care for me to tell you. And every time I hear about it I think I need to get to Chinatown to try it out for myself. Before completely failing to do so.

Of course food and failure are not compatible concepts in my mind - especially when it involves missing out on copious amounts of saturated animal fat with a side order of those puffy little pork buns that have become the Ewing's must order - so when we recently found ourselves tired and hungry somewhere around Shaftesbury Avenue, there was only one place we were going to end up.

Auspiciously, our visit wasn't long after my Uncle’s 70th birthday celebrations - where we had all walked from the Southbank to Piccadilly and I had asked my Uncle to point out the restaurant to me when our route took us up Wardour Street. 

Not that it would have hard to miss, with the big yellow letters and the hooks of roasted poultry hanging up in the window. Although, from the larger, more discrete, sign above the door, it appears the official name is the more prosaic 'Oversea Chinese Restaurant'.

Set on three floors, we were led down to the basement dining area, where the clientele was comprised of fifty per cent Chinese couples, studiously eating dumplings; and fifty per cent couples on first dates, eating the set banquet for two while making nervous conversation. With a raucous family reunion thrown in for good measure. 

All of which provided a lively atmosphere and the perfect mix for people watching - although the distractions made attempting to fill in our choice of dumplings on the carbon paper slip with the little Argos ball point pen more difficult than usual. Luckily the pictures and corresponding numbers on the menu made things a little easier.

The Ewing, who was sporting one less tooth than the week before, was mainly sticking to a liquid diet (something that’s very easy with my Aunt and Uncle around…) and so started with a small bowl of wonton soup.  While I didn’t sample the soup – 'good and gingery' was the verdict – the wonton I managed to snaffle was plump and tight and stuffed with bouncy prawns and minced pork.

From the roast meat and rice menu I paired the eponymous flying avian with a helping of roast pork belly. The duck, as its name suggests, had a crisp, lacquered carapace which gave way to the soft and sticky meat underneath. The pork belly was even better; wobbling chunks of meat striped with thick ribbons of fat and edged with crispy skin.

Ask for their (super hot) homemade chilli oil, which, along with the soy sauce served with the rice, provides a foil to cut through the richness. This isn't food for the faint-hearted.

When I first got together with the Ewing my two favourite things (apart from her of course) were burritos and turnip cake; two of the only things she didn't really like. Subsequently I've had a Mexican wrap and Chinese snack-shaped hole in my life for the past eight years. 

Because of the recent dental work, my wife had already announced she 'wasn't going to eat much', so I took this as the perfect opportunity to order the stir fried turnip cake with chilli sauce, beansprouts, spring onion and finely shredded omelette. Unfortunately, not only did she decide she was quite peckish after all, but she also liked this dish as much as I did. Fortunately it was a huge portion and, well, sharing is caring.

Scallop cheung fun were fine, although retrospectively I wish I'd chosen the barbecued pork version as the bivalve/rice noodle combo was a little too slippery and slithery. More successful were the XO prawn and scallop dumplings with truffle and better still the delicate beef and ginger wontons.

We also ordered char siu buns, which have been the Ewing's favourite ever since we went to Hong Kong a few years ago. These were decent, if unspectacular. Although after years of ordering them every time we go out for dim sum, I think I can safely say I've reached peak pork bun. (Surely not possible - TE)

I've been on my aunt's team at the pub quiz and she doesn't often get things wrong, and her recommendation here is no exception. Good value, central location and, food-wise and it does exactly what it says on the tin - Crispy Duck looks like remaining a family favourite for a few more years to come.