Imperial China

Posted on 2007/09/27 13:42:54 (September 2007).

[Monday 24th September]
A while ago I'd bought a tin (yes, a tin) of mock duck - a vegetarian version of the stuff you get in crispy duck pancakes. Whilst I'd managed to find this in a health food shop near where I live, what I hadn't been able to find in any nearby shops or supermarkets is the actual pancakes to put it in. So tonight we ventured to Chinatown, and even there had a bit of a hard time finding these - although finally managed on the third shop we went to.

As we were feeling a bit too lazy to go back home and cook, we decided to get some dinner in Chinatown. The last few times I've eaten in Chinatown I've been pretty disappointed, and in fact the only Chinese place we know in London that is consistently good is not in Chinatown at all (Royal China, on Baker Street). Chie had asked around at work today, and had got a vague recommendation for a place called Imperial China on Lisle Street, so we thought we'd give it a go.

It was, as I should have predicted, a bit of a disappointment - the decor was quite nice I suppose, but the food wasn't really any better than anywhere else in Chinatown. I am somewhat baffled at why Chinatown can foster so many at-best-mediocre Chinese restaurants. We went for the vegetarian set menu. It started out quite well - the soup was OK, and the mixed appetisers were not bad as well... but the main course was a selection of five dishes which were, with one exception, bland and unimaginative. I always despair when I see boring ordinary white mushrooms used in Chinese food. One of the other dishes looked like a collection of leftovers of odds and ends of uninteresting vegetables, and almost all of the dishes used the same rather bland sauce. The one exception was the dish made with yuba (the skin from tofu) which was used to wrap some vegetables - spring roll style, That was fairly tasty and interesting, the other four just a waste of time really. We couldn't finish all the food (partly because it didn't exactly get my appetite very excited), and I couldn't help but think it would have been so much better if rather than giving us five largely bland and unimaginative dishes they had just concentrated that effort on making two or three things that were really good.

Oh stop fussing and mumbling about, would you ?!

Posted by Sheri at 2007/09/27 18:43:48.

Sheri: yes I agree this is very trivial indeed, however this outlet helps me to delude myself that my pathetic and meaningless existence on this planet actually has some form of minuscule significance.

Posted by John at 2007/09/27 18:49:09.

John, you never know someone may actually be reading all this tripe!

;)

Posted by Kev at 2007/09/27 20:23:34.

I agree with John, when you have had better it's hard to settle for a lower quality product... That's why I tend to avoid Italian food when I am abroad...

Posted by Lox at 2007/09/27 21:04:11.

Funnily enough... Last time I went to China Town I actually ate in a Chinese restaurant in Soho... It was on a corner kind-of overlooking... As far as I recall... A lot better food too.

Posted by Nigel at 2007/09/27 22:34:30.

However trivial, his Mum reads it.

And generally resists a comment.

Posted by John's Mum at 2007/09/28 15:22:00.

John Mum: Of course I was only joking about the tripe thing :)

On a more serious note, however, I do think John should turn all this tripe, er, I mean interesting stuff, into a book of some sort. ( As long as he's not just been making this all up ).

Lots of Photos, interesting anecdotes, better than a Jade Goody biography :0)

Posted by Kev at 2007/09/28 22:10:15.

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