One of the hardest things to accomplish when in Chinatown is to find somewhere genuinely decent to eat. In terms of Lisle Street, it more or less starts and ends with Imperial China. As for the main street, it can be a tougher proposition. Three of us went into Royal Dragon on the main street, given that we'd been here before and we knew it was likely to be good.
The food we ate was actually rather tasty. It was late in the evening, following a birthday party and at that sort of hour, you're looking at places becoming increasingly full of people who just want sustenance at a moderate cost and damn the quality. Here, it's a little different. Their deep-fried soft shell crab, for example, is something I've enjoyed many times and is certainly a cut above the standard kinds of mush in batter you might find elsewhere (left). Moist, sweet and fresh, it's just as deep-fried seafood should be.
Equally enjoyable are their meat dishes. Barbecued pork and stir-fried chicken are both things which you nearly expect to go horribly wrong at a late night Chinese restaurant but here it works well (right). Big, sensible flavours combining with a genuine Asian sensibility might sound simple, but it's all too often missing from London restaurants.
Even standards as trite as 'crispy duck' are great here (left). Not at all the dry, shredded rubbish we have come to accept as standard, this is more a succulent, rich, comfortingly fatty delight which can cure midnight hunger, hangovers and a critic's gripes.'It is not one of the most incredible restaurants I have eaten in, but it is a welcome and staunch venue in one of those places where it can be hard to get a genuinely good feed. It's certainly got my recommendation and it's somewhere I will continue to go when I am in the West End and in need of a late supper.
Royal Dragon
No comments:
Post a Comment