London Food Detective

Chinese New Year at Ping Pong

Chinese New Year began on the 3rd February this year and I was invited along to Ping Pong to sample some of their special dishes and drinks to celebrate the year of the rabbit. 

Ping Pong is a bit of a favourite of mine and Grace's and we often take friends and family if they are visiting and have also held a couple of work outings there.  It's package of decent dim sum, good drinks list, quick service and well designed restaurants is a winner for me.

Anyway, we started off with some of the Chinese New Year specials before Khin, Ping Pong's development chef, ordered us a selection from the main menu to sample.  I'll pick out some of my highlights from the evening.  See if you can spot Ping Pong's PR photos v my phone ones... ;)

Chinese shitake mushroom & chicken hotpot

My favourite of the specials was this hotpot.  The slow cooked chicken and the mushrooms both soaked up all the flavour from the cooking juices and were delicious.

Celery dumpling in pumpkin pastry and Seabass dumpling in red cabbage pastry

As well as being aesthetically pleasing, the seabass was also very good with a generous chunk of seabass being surrounded by bits of water chestnut and prawn.  As a bit of a soy sauce addict I added a generous splash on it which I thought went well with the seabass.

Char Sui buns remain a favourite.

From previous visits I knew the duck spring rolls (like a deep fried duck pancake) with hoisin sauce and the sweet and sticky char sui buns with honey roast barbequed pork were both favourites and I was pleased when Keith had included these in his order.  Both lived up to expectations.

Vietnamese rice paper prawn roll

Out of dishes that I hadn't previously tried then two stood out.

The green chive dumplings with king prawn.  They were a lurid green colour, but you could really taste the chive in the pastry and they were completely different to anything else we had.

I also enjoyed the Vietnamese prawn rolls, which you wrapped in a lettuce leaf and a sprig of mint.  

My only disappointment was the prawn toast.  It used to be a favourite, but a couple of visits ago they changed the recipe and I don't think it's as good as previous.

Pear and Elderflower Collins

Another big plus point of Ping Pong is the drinks list.  They have one of the best range of non-alcoholic drinks I've seen and the cocktail menu is excellent.

We were given a couple of the special Pear and Elderflower Collins to kick start the evening before I moved on to my favourite Lemongrass and Lime.

Overall Ping Pong remains a guilty pleasure and one that I'll continue to go back to.

I'll be honest and say that I haven't visited any of the top London dim-sum places like Royal China or Yautacha (and I'd like to go and compare), but in a dozen or so visits to Ping Pong I haven't had a complaint and the people I have taken along have always enjoyed it.

 

Burgers, beef & rhubarb pannacotta - January's Restaurant Highlights

I tend to eat out at least once a week, but often circumstances don’t allow me to take photos or write up where I’ve been. 

For example, it would be a little bit rude if I’m out with non-foody friends or with work and I write up a scathing or just simply dull review of a place.  Frankly, I’d look a bit of a **** and I do this blog as a hobby rather than anything too serious.

Anyway, the orginal idea of the blog was to be an online diary and so I’m going to make a more conscious effort to round up the places I’ve been in a particularly month.

So, in short, that’s really a long, convoluted way of saying here is a quick summary of places I’ve eaten in January...

#MEATEASY, New Cross

There’s been a lot of hype and reviews about this place and even Marina at the Metro (my fav restaurant critic) reviewed it this week.  I took my friend who was on a flying visit from Uganda and said she was craving meat, so it seemed an obvious choice.

It was a fun place – a cool, speakeasy type joint above a pub in New Cross.  They had a slightly chaotic ordering system and the food arrived in a bit of a haphazard way, but it was made up by a top-notch burger and some of the best onion rings I’ve ever had.

Would I go back? Possibly, but MEATEASY might lose its charm/novelty factor on subsequent visits. Although the burgers were really good, I’m not sure they were that much better than my favourite Byron burger (and Byron’s fries are much better) and I’ll probably stay in town with them and their ordered service and professionalism then venture out to New Cross. 

Sartoria, Saville Row

An agency I used to work with invited me to their post-Christmas dinner at Sartoria, a D&D restaurant near Saville Row.  They’d hired the whole restaurant and as well as having our glasses of wine generously topped up at every opportunity we were served a surprisingly good medium-rare steak, which is unusual for banqueting/mass catering as it’s usually over done and/or cold.

I’d consider going back and trying the normal menu and hope it’s more Launceston Place (yay!) than the Blueprint Cafe (boo!) in the D&D stable...

Giraffe, South Bank

This place is fast becoming my quick dinner (i.e. lunch to you non-northerners) meeting venue near work and I went three times in January.  Plenty of choice, good booths to have a conversation in and excellent value.  The food is consistent and flavoursome with my favourites being the hot 'Thai' duck stir fry and the simple but tasty chicken schnitzel. Along with Byron it’s probably my favourite restaurant chain in London.

Zucca, Bermondsey

I wanted to take my team out somewhere nice before Christmas to say thank you for their hard work over the course of 2010.  Unfortunately we had to postpone due to illness and so went along a couple of weeks ago and I was seriously impressed.

I’m not always the biggest Italian fan, but the food from the small, compact menu was excellent.  I had a luxurious, warming oxtail ragu with polenta to begin with, followed by a rustic, wholesome slow cooked chicken stew with sausage.  The chicken was especially good – served on the bone in the pot it fell off the bone and melted in the mouth and was simply delicious.

I finished off with an excellent milky pannacotta with teasingly tart stewed rhubarb.  I will definitely be back...