SHIKUMEN FINCHLEY ROAD

Shikumen first opened in 2014, their large flagship located in the Dorsett Hotel on Shepherd's Bush Green, which was awarded a Michelin Bib Gourmand in 2015. A restaurant offering Chinese fine dining, Shikumen is so called after the traditional Shanghai stone house architecture of the 1940's whose stone gatehouses were influenced by Western traders as they made their was to the gateway to the East. 

When it comes to dim sum, I tend to have a handful of regular/dependable places that come to mind: Royal China, A. Wong, Pheonix Palace, Imperial China, Yauatcha ... and of course there are plenty more others that I have yet to try when I find the motivation to make an +1hour journey across London ...

I've been wanting to try out Shikumen for a while having read and heard good things about it, and was happy to be informed about their latest branch that opened in Finchley Road within the O2 Centre - conveniently located only 15 minutes away from home (!)

I visited on a late Monday afternoon for lunch (a nice time to visit if you're looking for some peace and quiet), looking forward to some dim sum to refuel in between my dance classes - dim sum isn't just for weekends after all ...

We started with the steamed Dim Sum Platter, a combination of har gau, pumpkin seafood dumplings, Chinese chive pork dumplings, and crabmeat and prawn dumplings - a nice variety of delicately made dumplings, and each one was a tasty mouthful of goodness. 
There is some chilli oil and sweet chilli on the side as dips, but I tend to have mine plain to get the most out of the flavours.

 The skewers of beef with jasmine tea from the appetizer section, was tender, and the flavours of the jasmine tea was pleasant and came through really well.

I do love cheung fun, usually with either prawn of char siu, but we were intrigued to try the one with crispy grilled eel and seaweed, which has now been made a permanent dish on the menu following it's success as a temporary special in their Shepherd's Bush branch. 

Lovely, soft translucent cheung fun, silky with a slight sticky texture, wrapped around the flavoursome crisp eel that was grilled perfectly.

Definitely a must-order dish if you love eel as much as I do - cheung fun will never taste the same again ...

From the baked/fried selection, we ordered the Roasted Duck Pumpkin Puffs, which were shaped like cute mini pumpkins, crunchy on the outside with a hot, steamy filling. 

The Yakitori Platter gets you six different skewers: mixed vegetables, bacon wrapped asparagus, chicken with spring onion, chicken meatballs, miso marinated salmon, and beef with crunchy chilli, garlic and sesame seed. My favourite amongst them were the chicken meatballs and chicken with spring onion which had a nice marinade.

Other Robata grilled dishes that weren't part of the platter included the lamb chop with miso herb butter and scallop wrapped in herb bacon that both sound equally good - I will be keeping them in mind for next time.

Finishing off with something sweet, we had the steamed cream custard buns, and black sesame balls in ginger tea. Both simple and satisfying, although I would have liked the custard to be a bit creamier and more runny ...

Overall, the food was enjoyable and the menu has a good variety of dishes to choose from - great for a quick solo meal or larger groups. 
There is only so much that one (or two) can consume in one visit, so I'll be sure to pop back in again to try more from the menu, particularly the Shanghai Xiao Long Bao (can't believe I forgot to order this), Crispy Aromatic Duck, and more of that Crispy Grilled Eel Cheung Fun ...

You can find out more about Shikumen on their website -  relaxing ambience, good quality food, and one more to add to my list of dim sum favourites.

The Cheekster, signing out x

The meal was complimentary, but views remain my own.

A. WONG, LONDON

After about a year since we expressed an interest in visiting A. Wong, we finally got ourselves organised for a lunch meet just in time for Chinese New Year.
The dim sum menu is only available during lunch time and as opposed to our table of ~10 for our usual dim sum brunches, we were only allowed a maximum of 6 diners for lunch time. The dim sum is priced per piece and we were required to email our order request to them a couple of days beforehand. 

We ordered a pot of tea for the table, which was served with some goji berries on the side that we could soak in our tea to add sweetness to it.

The first dish to be served was the Shanghai steamed dumplings with ginger infused vinegar, otherwise known as Xiao Long Bao - perfect mouthfuls which released the delicious broth inside as you bite into it.

The clear shrimp dumpling was served with sweet chilli sauce and topped with citrus foam. A modern take on the har gow which tasted okay, although I'm not too sure about the foam... 
The quail egg croquette puff had a nice light, crispy texture and concealed within was the egg which still had a lovely slightly gooey consistency.

We also ordered a few portions of sesame butter smoked chicken which was served shredded and the Chinese chive pot sticker dumplings. They were tasty, but not quite as good as the other dishes.
The crab, seafood and bean curd cannelloni was a bit hard and too chewy for my liking.

One of my favourites was the 'Breakfast in Causeway Bay' sticky rice rolls, filled with crispy dough stick and lava floss. I do love rice and enjoyed the chewy texture combined with the slight crispiness of the dough sticks, or what I would usually refer to as you char kway.
I would happily order this again on my next visit.

The Xian City 'lamb burger' was a much smaller portion than we were all expecting. The bowl of filling for the 'burger' consisted of lamb, sesame, coriander, chilli and Xinjiang pomegranate salad. The buns were nice and fluffy but were quite small, and there seemed to be more filling than buns. The meat was tender and there was a nice mix of flavours, but I have to say that it was quite tricky and messy to eat.

And of course we didn't miss out on the steamed duck yolk custard buns, a firm favourite around the table and I would definitely order more of it in future - if only I could have taken a whole box of them home with me (!)

There were unfortunately several items missed off our order, which included the Shaanxi province honeycomb oat noodles - the ones prepared were apparently not up to par hence they didn't serve it.
Overall, service was a bit slow, and it was a bit hit and miss with the dim sum dishes, but I think I've narrowed down some that I liked that I would order more of the next time I visit.
The prices of the dim sum are also pretty decent and the meal cost us £26 per person.
One to add to the list of dim sum places to try if you haven't already, or you can also check out their other menus from their website here.

The Cheekster, signing out x 

 

BO LONDON

It's not very often that I have dim sum on a weekday - usually it's an occasional weekend affair when I get the odd craving. However, I purchased a voucher from Groupon quite a while back, which I thankfully remembered about, just in time before it expired...

My Mondays are usually reserved for dancing, but I took it easy today (without missing the amazing class by Jasmin Saulo!) and excitedly rushed off after class to meet Mr D.

The voucher entitled each of us to two dishes from the Steamed section, two dishes from the Fried section, and a bowl of fried rice.

Our reservation was for 1.30pm, and it was rather disappointing that they had already sold out of four of the dishes (?!).

So this then narrowed down our choices, leaving us with eight other dishes which we ordered one of everything to share between us.

I also ordered some Jasmine tea, which came served in a cute little pot with a long handle.

 

| Black truffle, soy, Chinese cheung fun |

This is probably the daintiest-looking cheung fun that I have ever eaten - six delicate rolls of cheung fun with the tiny little mushrooms.

 

| Sichuan spiced lamb xiao long bao |

One of my favourite dim sum choices that is never missed off the order - we ordered this alongside the classic version. Lovely hint of spiciness. 

The skin was maybe a bit denser than what I'm usually used to, but tasty nonetheless.

| Har gau with black truffle XO |

Another one of my dim sum staples.

Delicious fresh and juicy prawns encased in a a lovely, thin, translucent skin.

The only thing missing now is my sieu mai.

 

| Wild mushroom dumpling |

 A nice, generous stuffing of mushrooms. A meat-free choice, but still one of my favourites, knowing how much I love mushrooms...

 

| Foie gras pot sticker |

A gyoza, but with foie gras stuffing.

One of the delicacies that I very rarely eat...just in case any of you animal activist/fanatics out there are reading this...

 

| Fried squid ball, kaffir lime |

 Juicy, bouncy balls of goodness - and the kaffir lime mayo sauce was a nice twist.

| Chicken pesto spring roll |

Smaller than your average spring roll, fried to perfection and full of flavour.

 

| Fried rice with Chinese olive leaf |

Very tasty, if maybe just a tad bit on the oily side. 

Then again, oily fried rice usually tastes way better...

As they say, you can't win 'em all.

The meal turned out to be quite filling. As with all my dim sum experiences, I always leave feeling guiltily satisfied. Fat yet happy.

Overall, Bo London is a bit on the pricey side in terms of dim sum, but I suppose it would be great for an indulgent treat every now and then.

Well-suited for those who prefer a more contemporary variation to the traditional dim sum.

The Cheekster, signing off x

SUNDAY-FUNDAY: PING PONG + GALLIVANTING AROUND LONDON

It's always a special day when I get to spend it with my special person.

Met up with Wai Kit and accompanied him to try on a suit at Moss Bros. 
Doesn't he look so smart and all grown-up x

As always we never can decide on where to eat so we ended up at Ping Pong along Great Malborough Street, as it looked pretty cute - good enough reason to step inside isn't it?

Judging from the menu it appeared to be another one of those modernized dim sum places.

 When trying to choose a drink my eyes automatically locked on the Lychee & Rose martini - I love anything with lychee.

Look at that baby...

 

We both ordered a set meal from the festive menu each, priced at £25.00pp.

The list seemed more extensive when we placed our orders, but the portions appeared much smaller than we expected when served.

Prawn crackers

Steamed dumplings, 'char siu pao' and sticky rice

Puff pastries and fried rolls

Mango cake and mochi

The Little Boy

The Little Girl

Presentation-wise pretty average, but the food was quite tasty. Though not a place I would normally frequent for dim sum at those prices.

But as long as I had good company I'm happy - and I did love my martini x

We then headed to grab some bubbletea at Chatime - kamquat green tea mmm...

Whilst waiting for our drinks we also observed some rather pretentious Asians placing their orders after us.

I tried to stifle my giggles as I watched WK roll his eyes.

Kitkit's first Chatime!

After a long day of walking around London we had to go our separate ways again.

One more(-ish) day until Christmas and I still haven't wrapped the presents - drats! Oh well, there's still tomorrow!

Thank you little boy for another lovely day out. I miss you already.

ps: Don't forget that list!

And here's my little random photo of the day...

Cute isn't it? :)

Hope everyone is in that happy festive mood!