My parents were visiting for the weekend and I wanted to take them somewhere a bit different. We were going to the late comedy show at Leicester Square Theatre, so I wanted somewhere with food and some music.
My dad is a bit of a blues fan and my parents both like Chinese, so Shanghai Blues in Holborn seemed to fit the bill.
On Saturday nights they have live music and despite the mixed reviews I’d read, I thought I’d go and check it out.The venue itself is quite dark and stylish and seems to be modelled on Hakkasan. Overall the food was ok (though pricey), but was let down by some really slow and poor service.
After a bit of deliberating over the menu and what to have we ordered a selection of starters to share and then a couple of main courses and some rice and noodles.
The first two starters arrived fairly quickly. Prawn toast was ok, with each piece being a fair sized individual prawn on a small piece of crisp toast. A bit different from the usual way it's served and a step above your average Chinese restaurant version. The butterfly prawns were also pretty reasonable. Crisp pastry and good, succulent prawns.
It was here that the problems started with the service. I know there is often a wait between dishes and you get them when they are ready, but we waited over 15 minutes for the third starter to arrive.
These were actually some pretty good ribs. There was plenty of meat on them and it was tasty and tender and the accompanying sauce was tangy, with a hint of pepper and not overly sweet or gloopy.
The final starter then arrived another 10-15 minutes after we’d finished the ribs!
Once the starters were finished we then waited 20 or so minutes for our plates to be cleared and to make things worse they managed to spill some of the sauce over Grace. Luckily most of it landed on her napkin.
We then had another 10 minute wait for our half crispy duck to appear. This was pretty standard, nothing bad about it, but nothing particularly memorable either. In the meantime (and after another 15 minute wait) we had to ask where our drinks order was.
This duly turned up with an apology and to be fair to the staff they were friendly and chatty throughout, it’s just that they weren’t actually that good at the waiting side of things!
Our final wait was for our main courses and the clock was starting to tick as we had to make it to the theatre and I was winding my mam up that we were going to be late and the comedian was likely to pick on us.
Singapore Noodles & Shanghai devil lamb
Anyway, the rice and noodles arrived pretty sharpish after we’d finished the duck, but sadly the main courses did not. We were just about to send them back when the first dish arrived, followed, in Shanghai Blues time, relatively quickly by the second dish. Sadly the third dish made it on to our bill, but not to our table.
As for the food, well actually both main dishes were good and a little bit different from standard Chinese fare. The lamb was a definite favourite. Tender pieces of lamb in a moreish sauce (with a good kick to it) and plenty of sweet peppers.
The salted chicken was also good with a subtle hint of ginger. The chicken had steamed in the lotus wrap and so hadn't dried out or taken too much flavour from the salt.
So overall, whilst the food was ok it was disappointing that it took nearly two hours from arriving to receiving our main courses, one of which never arrived. This meant that we had to rush eating them and had no time for coffee etc.
The other disappointment was the music (or lack of it) - I hadn't requested a table in the area where the blues band were on and so we were seated in a back room and couldn't hear them. It would have been nice to have been told this at the time of booking.