YAUATCHA, SOHO

Without a doubt my favourite Chinese meals in London have been at HKK which has sadly recently closed it's doors. Part of the Hakkasan Group, and with its own Michelin star, it was a smart but friendly and very slick Chinese doing fixed menus to die for. Beautiful plates of food each with their own story and history were paired perfectly with drinks, giving you a meal and a night to remember on every visit. So having shed a little tear about its closing, it was time to find my new favourite Hakkasan restaurant. And when I was invited to check out Yauatcha in Soho, my problems were solved!

I'd heard good things, and they too have their own star, so I headed down to Soho, to see if it could live up to my HKK dreams.

Yauatcha have two sites in London - Soho and Broadgate Circle in the City. The Soho site is vast. A large, bright open ground floor level, with a slightly darker, moodier cavernous sprawling out downstairs. We sat on the ground floor level and kicked things off with tangy, refreshing mocktail (it was pre Kili and I was on a bit of a cleanse!) Closely followed by plate after plate of incredible food. I'd found my "new" HKK!

We started with one of my favorites - the venison puff. I order these whenever I go for dim sum and Yauatcha's were the best I've tried. Light, flaky pastry encased rich, gamey venison meat, so soft it all just melted in the mouth. Dunked in a ludicrous amount of chilli oil I could eat these more often than I should! Whenever I think of dim sum an image of steamed, light dumplings comes to mind, but whenever I get to a dim sum restaurant it's these that are first on the list. The wagyu beef version that Yauatcha do is also excellent - a strong meaty, fatty alternative to the gamey venison. 

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THE EMPEROR'S FEAST at HKK, LIVERPOOL ST

January can be a gruelling month - whether it's because of a new diet, dry January, resolutions you're trying to stick to or the tightening of purse strings after the Christmas period it can all seem a bit bleak. But there's still plenty to celebrate, especially with Chinese New Year round the corner. And my favourite Chinese restaurant, HKK, have got a pretty spectacular menu running from now until 11th February, aka The Emperor's Feast - a ten course tasting menu, with paired alcoholic or non-alcoholic drinks. Before I go on, I have to say that this is pricey (£98 for food plus £58 for alcoholic drinks pairing or £28 for the non-alcoholic), there's no escaping that, but my plus one who came with me on the review (and has been on a lot of reviews with me) said she thought this was the best value meal we've been to - so you get what you pay for, which in this case is food, service and a restaurant worthy of the Michelin star it holds.

So what do you get? The meal starts off with what they call a "punch". I've always classified punch as being a weaker kind of cocktail mix. Not this one! This one is made with Baijiu (a Chinese spirit coming in at 64% abv!) mixed with two types of rum (to dilute it!!) and lime.... It's punchy, warm and delicious and is served with a goji berry jelly that explodes in the mouth.

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CHAI WU, HARRODS

Afternoon tea's never really appealed to me. I don't really drink tea, not a fan of cake and try not to eat too much bread. But make it a Chinese afternoon tea with champagne and it's a different story! I was invited to try the offering at Chai Wu in Harrods and having read the menu that includes dim sum, savoury pastries and bubbles, it seemed worth checking out.

Chai Wu is the only restaurant in Harrods that's not part of the food hall, so we headed up to the fourth floor, where the restaurant is located. At Chai Wu afternoon tea is much more about the savoury than the sweet, so kicked things off with a glass of bubbly and soup watercress soup, before plates of fried dim sum were brought to our table. We sampled wagyu puff with gold leaves, sesame prawn, lobster wanton, prawn dumpling, chicken gyoza with foie fras and lots of other delicious mouthfuls, as well as a plate of their signature steamed dim sum, and some coconut prawns, and chicken satay. 

Afternoon tea is £59, or £69 with a glass of fizz, which isn't bad value for the quality and amount of food you get. 

Chai Wu also do lunch and dinner so I took Bron back with me to try more of their offerings. The smoking sushi plate was delicious - excellent fish, expertly sliced and served. 

The Harrods special roll and smoked BBQ eel were both top notch - perfectly balanced flavours and texture. 

As was the huge scallop and wagyu beef.

Chai Wu isn't an everyday restaurant. Our bill would've been astronomically high for the main dinner we had there, and as it closes at 9pm, I do think it's better as an option for one or two dishes to break up a long day's shopping in Harrods, than a destination restaurant. Though having said that it was busy both times I went with lots of people eating their way through the menu, so each to their own!!

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CHINESE NEW YEAR AT HKK

Chinese New Year may've been yesterday, but you can carry on the celebrations, as the Chinese do, all week and beyond, thanks to HKK's fantastic specially crafted Chinese New Year menu that they're serving at their Michelin star restaurant, near Liverpool Street, until the 20th February.

I've reviewed the tasting menu at HKK before, and was expecting the same menu with little tweaks to add a CNY vibe, but their CNY menu is completely different (bar the duck course) and actually better than the menu I'd had before, in my opinion. To start with, the menu itself is beautiful. Not only does it give you the history of each course, but you're allowed to take it away with you as a memento of the meal you've had there (which is helpful when there are that many courses!)

Having just got back from a sake tour of Japan, I was interested to see that the first drink matched with the menu is a sparkling sake. In fact, the drinks paired throughout the meal are from all around the world - from Japan, to Venezuela, to France - and they all worked fantastically with each course. The cost of the CNY menu is £88 per person for food, plus £48 for the drinks, and I think if you're going to go for it, then definitely get the drinks too. I know it's not cheap, but as a special treat it's definitely worth it.

Course number one of nine (!) is the prosperity platter - a fresh and tasty salad of jellyfish, mouli, seaweed, ginger, leeks, roasted peanuts and crispy salmon skin - that's tossed high in the air for good luck and happiness. This is served with grilled spiced and salted Welsh pork with mustard and a goji berry foam, and a dried oyster sauce and iberico ham dumpling with black moss. All of which get the meal off to the perfect start.

 

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HKK WITH SQUARE MEAL, LIVERPOOL ST

When the words Chinese food and Michelin star ping into my inbox it doesn't take me long to clear my diary and say yes to the invite, which is what happened when Emily invited me to join her and Square Meal at HKK in Liverpool Street to sample their tasting menu and drinks flight. At £88 per head for food, plus £40 for the matching drinks it's not cheap but then again, it is Michelin starred, you'll leave very full and quite drunk, you can book a table in advance, and it's top notch Chinese food - probably the best I've ever tried. So as a treat, I think it's definitely worth it.

 

The restaurant is large, with tables nicely spread out so you have plenty of room, though we were sitting in the private dining room around a table for 12 people that has a window straight in to the kitchen so you can see all the food being prepped. We started with a glass of bubbly, followed by a glass of cold sake to accompany our first course, which turned out to be my favourite. Duke of Berkshire pork belly mantou - a steamed bun that had been deep fried to give it a crunchy texture on the outside, while it retained its soft, cloud like texture inside, and was filled with a slice of rich, sticky pork belly. Next was chrusanthemum supreme seafood soup - a delicate flavour and gelatneous texture, I really liked this, though others didn't care too much for it. It is a gentle dish, with a subtle seafood flavour, and was paired with a warm version of the sake we'd tried with the pork bun.

 

  

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SCHOOL OF WOK with JEREMY PANG

If you love Chinese food and want to make it properly at home yourself then I've got the perfect course for you to try. Last night I joined 11 others in Covent Garden for a 3 hour class with Jeremy Pang at the School of Wok, where we learnt how to make veggie gyoza, black bean rib eye and braised aubergine.

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FU MANCHU, CLAPHAM

I think it's pretty obvious that I love my food, and I'm not a fussy eater, so will happily munch on Mexican, Japanese, Italian, African and all sorts of food, though I do have my preferences, and dim sum is pretty high up the list. I just love the little nuggets of fillings encased in their different "shells". Slow cooked pork puffs, light and airy buns, and steamed dumplings - there's so much to choose from at a good dim sum restaurant. So last week, off we went to try out Clapham's new dim sum spot, Fu Manchu. Set under a railway arch it's a cool space that's selling itself as not only a dim sum restaurant, but a cocktail bar that becomes more clubby at the weekends, and is open til 3am. We were definitely there for dim sum not dancing so rocked up at a reasonable hour on a Tuesday, and although it was pretty empty when we arrived it soon started to fill up with dim sum hungry diners.

Drinks for the evening were the Lin Tang's Szechuan Sling for me - a gorgeous cocktail that was Dr Fu Manchu's daughter's favourite tipple, made with homemade Szechuan pepper shrub, Finlandia mango vodka, yellow Chartreuse, mango juice and soda water - refreshing with a bit of a spicy kick, and a really good sized drink. The boy started with the Lucky Buddha beer, which came in such a brilliant bottle - a fat green glass Buddha. He then moved on to the organic jade sword tea, as he was driving, which was apparently delicious, and presented with a sugar timer to let you know when the brewing was done and it was ready to drink. I loved all the cute little touches like this that added to the great experience we had, along with the great service.

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