Rating: 1 star (out of 5)

foodbymark said
upstairs downstairs… AWFUL
The fact that there are some Chinese people eating here – well there’s no accounting for bad taste in any culture or any part of town is there? From the start of my review I have nothing good to say about the food here. Prices are typical of most of the restaurants in the area. Cheap.

Wikipedia says Wong Kei is a famous restaurant in London’s Chinatown. It is probably the most famous in fairness. I’m not a fussy eater, I will eat anything from chicken feet to foie gras and sweetbreads to dried locust and some things worse I dare not mention here, but what you are paying for is bland food thickened and beyond with corn flour and laden with your favourite flavour enhancer, Monosodium Glutamate. That’s not to say that other restaurants do not do the same but there is a limit and take it past that. You will get very thirsty eating anything here. Virtually every dish has the same background taste is only made different by the sauce of choice (black bean, plain soya etc.) so essentially no better than the local chinese takeaway.

I don’t mind sharing tables but then there is the little matter of the service. You get exactly what they have always prided themselves in, two options – rude or abrupt, or if you are lucky both at the same time. The experience is always subjective but in the same way that some people insist on adding sweetcorn to bolognese sauce, I am purist and do not enjoy this place. No sweetcorn in my bolognese please.

Been there, done that, and someone else bought the t-shirt. Don’t go here.

Edit: My views on this restaurant have some wildly changed… perhaps my tastebuds have evolved or I’ve just become a less fussy eater. I do like their Ngau Lam Hor Fun (Braised Beef with Hor Fun Noodles in soup) and roast meats of any kind with steamed rice is a winner, mostly because they aren’t that bad. And let’s not forget… you will probably get change from a fiver. And the service that was once of legend. You probably won’t get it if don’t ask for it. It’s Chinatown in London after all right? – 5th January 2010