Leong’s Legends

At long last and I’m more than glad to have made this pilgrimage. This place has been talked and blogged about among the cognoscenti and followers of the ‘alternative’ Chinese food scene. I came primarily for one thing and that’s the Xiaolongbao (Siu Loong Bao in Cantonese)- the remarkable soup dumplings that’s so easy to cock up during preparation and recipes often tempered with to ease mass production for the freezer and delivery to restaurants who don’t make them on site.

Like all new Chinese restaurants of this ilk, the dining room is dark, in fact they’re all getting darker; I think we’ve got Alan Yau to thank for with his pioneering chic ‘lack of light’ ambience at Hakkasan. Before I talk about the food, there’s one thing I ought to point out; the service at this place has been constantly lambasted as being rude and callous, I think this may well be true but I’m not in a position to judge on this alone. This is because I just about speak the same lingo as the waiting staff, this advantage alone will prevent me from getting mentally frustrated, being ejected from the table before finishing the meal and receiving the final bill that’s inflated with a double dose of that dreaded gratuity charge. Take heed and good luck.

Came here for a solo lunch and after careful perusal of the ‘tick yourself’ dim sum menu, I started to regret that I came on my own. There’s simply no way I could try out all the appetising sounding dishes that you don’t normally find at your Royal Chinas and Ping Pongs (sniff). The Noodle with Oyster ordered was certainly stodgy in appearance, which is due to the thickset gravy that the noodles and oysters were swimming in. This heavy tasting dish was surprisingly yummy, mildly spicy and I’m pretty sure it was meant to be slurped without a care in the world of what your next door diner thinks! Now for the pièce de résistance- I’ve certainly found soup dumpling nirvana in London. Leong’s Xiaolongbao came in a basket consisting of eight of the most perfectly formed and heavenly tasting dumplings. I was lucky enough to savour all the dumplings intact without any of them being pre-punctured. These dumplings should come with a warning or two; like McD’s apple pie, the contents are very hot and likely to cause an injury to the uninitiated, and when you bite onto them the soup within is likely to splurt everywhere (goodbye finest cotton shirt!).

As ever with all new-found treasures like Leong’s Legends, I have this unfeigned desire and hope that at the very least the good cooking is maintained and the mere thought of complacence should be banished without ado.
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bellaphon
Overall rating
Food 9 | Service 6 | Atmosphere 5 | Value for money 9
Wednesday, November 19, 2008

China town needs more places like this - but only in terms of food!

The food is a departure from the normal anglo-chinese fare served up everywhere else and we were very impressed with what we ordered.

The food is presented in a variety of ways as well, such as the mushroom room (so tasty!) being presented in mini wooden barrels. The turnip puffs were so good we ordered them twice.

However, the service is terrible - you arrive and ushered to your table (no booking allowed) and left with a constant sense of being on borrowed time. We through them completely by ordering starters and then asking for a pause before ordering mains.

The bill was practically forced upon us (as if someone was waiting to pounce with it as soon as we gave any sign of wanting to leave). Bear in mind that we were drinking throughout and ordered 4 beers each so its not as if we were wasting time.

My advice would be to increase the prices, which are very reasonable, and let people stay a bit longer!
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Kowoski
Overall rating
Food 10 | Service 3 | Atmosphere 7 | Value for money 8
Wednesday, October 08, 2008

Authentic & tasty Taiwanese dishes and a nice atmostphere. You cant book so be prepared to queue. Food was quick to arrive and staff were even quicker to give you the bill without you asking for it. Not a place to hang around but its an interesting quick fix if you are in Chinatown.
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Anon
Overall rating
Food 7 | Service 5 | Atmosphere 8 | Value for money 8
Thursday, September 18, 2008

We visited a couple of days ago on a rainy wednesday night, it was only 7pm and the place was packed, we only had to queue for a minute though since we agreed to share a table with another couple. the table was for 6 people however so it was fine and we had plenty of space.

the friend i was with was a vegetarian so we shared quite a lot of vegetarian dishes. the dumplings were delicious!! the best dumplings i ever had, 6 of them too (not the usual 4) so great value. in addition we had the garlic shoots which were very tasty, a tofu dish in a delicious chilli sauce with rice which i would definitely order again! the other two dishes, the vegetarian fish, (basically vegetables and noodles deep fried with a chilli sauce) and the taro noodles, apparently a chef's speciaility but that was probably the dish i least liked out of them all. we also had a coke and a pot of green tea, we were full at the end of it and the bill came to £33 not bad for all the food we ate!!

service was good, attentive, friendly and fast. place was packed. the staff asked us to leave when we had finished our meal because they had a queue of people trying to get in but were very apologetic about it. the restaurant is decorated nicely, very modern and cool, with dim lighting, will definitely be back with my boyfriend to try some meat dishes!
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Annie - View all reviews by this user
Overall rating
Food 8 | Service 8 | Atmosphere 9 | Value for money 9
Friday, August 22, 2008