Worthy of an Emperor? (Imperial China Restaurant (London))

Member Name: sunmeilan

Product:	Imperial China Restaurant (London)
Date:	03/10/06 (651 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Pleasant service, good food

Disadvantages: Not completely authentic

It was my birthday recently and I wanted to arrange a dinner for my partner and I and three of our friends. After debating where to meet (we all live in totally different parts of London), we decided on central London, and because of our links with China, China Town was the obvious choice and Imperial China seemed as good a restaurant as any.

Address
25A Lisle Street
London WC2H 7BA
Tel: 020 7734 3388
www.imperial-china.co.uk

Lisle Street is one of the main streets in China Town and is literally three minutes from Leicester Square tube station.

First impressions
As I walked in off the street, I was quite impressed. The entrance is decked out in the style of a traditional Chinese garden, complete with curved bridge. This was tasteful enough to not look too tacky. The ground floor consisted of a large room, attractively decorated, with a variety of sizes of tables. My next impression unfortunately wasn’t so good. We were immediately greeted by a waitress, but when I explained that I had booked a table for five, she was unable to find my booking. As I had specifically called the day before to ensure that we got a table, I was slightly annoyed. Luckily, there was plenty of room and we were taken upstairs to a small room with four large tables. Ours was set for double the number of people, but the waitress quickly removed the excess crockery and left enough for just us.

The décor
The room was very plain, but exceptionally clean; the table was dressed in an immaculately white table-cloth that looked absolutely brand new. The room did feel a little too pristine to be comfortable, but not being a particularly tidy person, that is just me.

The food
Now for the important bit. I wasn’t overly impressed by the menu; there wasn’t as much choice as I was expecting – usually Chinese restaurants have far more extensive menus than this. However, there was enough choice to suit everyone round the table. The menu included a variety of different styles of Chinese food, but my partner and I chose mainly Northern Chinese food because we wanted our friends to experience the sort of food we had eaten regularly during our time in China. This included Beijing (Peking) duck, complete with pancakes and spring onion, fried pork dumplings, Ma Po beancurd, Kung Pao chicken, chilli beef, spicy lamb and a veggie dish. We also ordered a selection of dim sum, all of which was prawn-based.

The food was all pretty good. My only real gripe is that the food was not particularly authentic, apart from the Beijing duck and the dumplings. The Ma Po beancurd and Kung Pao chicken was not spicy enough and was clearly missing some of the key ingredients that are used in China, although was perfectly edible. The chilli beef was a huge disappointment. As often seems to happen in this country, the beef was deep-fried and covered in a scary looking orange sauce, which was supposed to be chilli-based. This is a very westernised version and is nothing like as good as the original, which is dried spicy beef stir-fried with chilli and is utterly mouth-wateringly delicious.

The drinks
A wide range of drinks were available, including wine and Chinese beer. I stuck to water, but the others had wine and Tsingtao beer. We also had Chinese tea, which was complimentary (I don’t think it is usually).

The service
Apart from the fact that they had lost my booking, I couldn’t fault the staff. Our waitress was attentive, polite and very pleasant; nothing was too much trouble for her and she looked like she was genuinely happy to serve us. She and the other waitresses all looked beautiful in cheongsams.

The price
I was very impressed. It cost us 120 pounds for five people, which included more than enough food, and worked out at just under 25 pounds each. Two of us weren’t drinking though, so this did help to keep the price down.

Conclusion
My only real gripe with this restaurant was the lack of authentic food. However, my friends thought it was delicious and for a Chinese restaurant in London, it actually wasn’t too bad. I was initially annoyed that they had lost my booking, but as the restaurant is large and there was plenty of room, it wasn’t really a problem.

Our room was right next to the toilets, which was a convenience rather than anything else. The toilets were immaculate, like the rest of the restaurant. We were also next to a room hired by a group of girls celebrating a hen night with the help of a karaoke machine! This, surprisingly, hardly affected us at all; the only time we heard anything was when the girls came in and out. The sound-proofing was obviously excellent.

There are definitely better Chinese restaurants to be found in London, but this wasn’t by any means a bad choice and I probably would go back if I wanted somewhere nice to take a guest. If you happen to be in theatre land and want somewhere reasonably cheap at short notice, this would definitely be a good choice – there is no shortage of table space here. Recommended.

Summary: Good if you're in the area