Tuesday 23 October 2012

Royal China Club

After 5 + City Pig’s summary
Snapshot

Cuisine:
Chinese
Price:
£25 - Approximate cost for lunch based on dim sum dishes.

Healthy:
·         Steamed dim sum
·         A variety of fish and vegetable based dim sums
Tasty:
·         5/5 – Food (Based on dim sum)
·         3.5/5 – Service
·         4.5/5 – Overall rating
Occasion:
·         Long lunches and dinners with friends and family
·         Business dining

Address:       
40-42 Baker Street, W1U 7AJ
Opening times
Monday to Thursday – 12pm – 11pm
Friday – 12pm – 11:30pm
Saturday to Sunday – 12pm -10:30pm


Eat in/Takeaway:
Eat-in
Recommended dishes & drinks
Dim Sum – Cheung funs; turnip pastes. Dessert – Black sesame glutinous balls.
Vegetarian dishes
Yes
Loyalty card
No.
Website

Notes
Upmarket Chinese restaurant bringing high quality Chinese food. Mainly specialising in dim sum and Cantonese dishes. Expect to pay a lot more than your usual Chinese restaurants.


After 5 + City Pig’s analysis

Royal China Club is the upper end of the well-established Royal China restaurant group.
It prides itself with its reputation of delivering high quality dim sum and Cantonese dishes.

Its restaurant sets it apart from its competitors as offering tasty and consistently well cooked Chinese food.

I went to Royal China Club as I am a fan of the Royal China group restaurants and was curious to see what was more special.

The inside of the restaurant does not feel that much different from the other Royal Chinas. Here you will find a contemporary looking Chinese restaurant.

We were asked to sit in one of the private rooms as the main restaurant was already full.
The dim sum here is much more expensive than standard Chinese restaurants because of the variety of dim sum found here and the quality.

The menu consists of other ingredients that may not be the standard dim sum e.g. there may be fish dumplings rather than pork or prawn. Expect to see other more interesting dumplings and be brave and try them. I found a fried roll with fish and aubergine tucked inside with a black bean sauce dip. Most of the standard dim sum dishes are here as well e.g. turnip paste which was not greasy at all.

The dim sum is very tasty and is very high quality for outside of South East Asia. I know that a lot of people from Hong Kong who come to London also recognise that Royal China delivers excellent Chinese cuisine.

Sometimes the staff can be a little distant and not attentive. This seems to be a common theme in London Chinese restaurants unfortunately. I found the price to be very expensive as most Chinese dim sum averages about £12-£15.However, I thoroughly enjoyed the food and the creativity in some of the dim sum created. It is very authentic despite being top end, it has Chinese people eating here too.

















square meal Square Meal

Sunday 7 October 2012

Salvation Jane - Cafe

City Pig’s summary
Snapshot

Cuisine:
Cafe
Price:
£15 Approximate cost for lunch and drink (one main dish and a soft drink.)
Healthy:
·         A variety of dishes have vegetables.
·         Beware of the cakes.
Tasty:
·         2.5/5 – Food (main dishes) (Desserts and coffees 3/5)
·         3/5 – Service
·         3/5 – Overall rating
Occasion:
·         Eat in.
·         Take-away.
·         Coffee catch ups or business meetings

Address:       
Unit 2, 1 Oliver’s Yard, 55 City Rd, EC1Y1HQ (near Old Street tube station).
Opening times
Monday to Friday – 7:30am-3pm
Saturday to Sunday – 9am-3:30pm


Eat in/Takeaway:
Eat-in and take-aways.
Recommended dishes & drinks
Cheesecake
Latte

Vegetarian dishes
Yes
Loyalty card
No.
Website
Notes
Another Aussie style café – similar to its sister restaurant Lantana. Amazing cakes and coffees that keeps this place going.


City Pig’s analysis

After, having been to Lantana, I thought why not try the sister café Salvation Jane. It is near Old Street station and is a good sized café compared to the small Lantana café.
This is an Aussie style café that brings one of the best coffees and cakes to the City. Take-away baguettes and sandwiches are at the front. The menu for sit down is much more expensive than one may expect.
A range of food can be found here, ranging from Thai fish cakes to risottos to salads.
I noticed how small the dishes were and was not impressed seeing the cost for a main was around £9. My colleagues and I had ordered Thai fishcakes, Duck noodle salad and the risotto.
All were relatively small and we all even had room for dessert.
The desserts were amazing, the cheesecake was divine. Everything about it was perfect. It was smooth and light. The lemon polenta cake was also very refreshing and went well with my latte.
The service was efficient and polite. Overall, it was an enjoyable experience as it was spacious here too.
However, the mains could be tastier and the price is too steep in comparison to the portion size. I much preferred the coffee and cakes and think an afternoon coffee break here would be ideal.












Square Meal