Orient London (Restaurant)

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A dim sum spread, captured by @fatfoodbeast

A post shared by Orient London (@orientlondon) on Aug 30, 2019 at 10:36am PDT

Top 10 things to know about Orient London:

1) Chinatown is perfect. It’s perfect for everything: a full-on evening out with your colleagues; a quick catch up with friends; a first date; or a chilled out spot for some food and subtle people-watching. Today, though, it’s not leisure that brings you here, but the need for life-giving food after a tiring day at work in nearby Soho. You’re not here for frills.

2) Dodging a street performer dressed as a Pokemon, you practically run through the doors of Orient London, a Chinese restaurant near Leicester Square and your food haven for the evening. One of the lesser-known Chinese restaurants in Chinatown, it’s minimalist, music-free and, above all, smells great. Simple China, the best China; exactly what’s on your mind.

3) There is no small talk from the waitress. Thank goodness! Order a Tsingtao beer and relish the peace and quiet.

4) Wanting the best of the menu - the restaurant focuses on authentic Cantonese and Szechuan cuisine and dishes from the northern regions of China - you order the dim sum platter, mixed seafood platter, egg fried rice and mixed BBQ platter with banana fritters and red bean pancakes. The prices aren’t cheap but they won’t break the bank.

5) The quiet of the restaurant that was, for a few moments, so pleasing is ripped apart by the arrival of a 30-strong tour group - potentially looking for a pre-theatre dinner before the show starts nearby - who talk over one another loudly and to the extreme. Suddenly, the lack of music makes sense.

6) Just as your stomach starts to eat itself, the food arrives. Baskets of steaming hot dim sum are placed on the barren table along with a large platter of glossy meat lying lasciviously in shiny, sweet-smelling sauces. The mixed seafood hors d’oeuvres are deep-fried and there are bowls of neat mounds of white rice, peppered with perfectly yellow egg and crunchy green spring onions.

7) You dig in and find the BBQ platter is verging on cold but you’re too hungry to care, so you mix the hot rice and cold meat to make a lukewarm sensation. On a better note, the seafood platter is not only hot but each scallop is like fried gold, and the satay prawn skewers are moreish.

8) As you finish the last of your dim sum platter and the rice, you notice the tour group has dissipated. Peace and tranquility resumes. Ahhhhh!

9) Draining your beer, dessert arrives on cue. The red bean pancakes are heavy but the fritters are shockingly light. The sweet syrup wipes away the last of the salty platter and, just like that, your tongue is balanced.

10) Bill paid, coat on, train to catch, you say goodbye. Stepping back out into Chinatown, all at once you’re enveloped by the sounds of London and a very off-key busker singing Miley Cyrus. Joy.
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