Red Bar

It's a newly opened Chinese restaurant. IMO there is nothing special about it. We tried 6 dishes and none of them is super outstanding. Will I return? probably not. There are so many nice Chinese restaurant around.
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4 Overall rating
Food 5 | Service 4 | Atmosphere 4 | Value for money 3
Sunday, October 23, 2011

A real find - really interesting chinese restaurant serving authentic sichuan and some hunan food. It's not in a glamorous location, near the north end of Brick Lane, but isn't far from Gourmet San if you've made the trek that far, and the food is bang on target - they must have a chef who seriously knows what he's doing. Dry pot fish was fantastic, as were the crispy, crunchy, spicy sardines-the-size-of-whitebait, the staff were friendly, and it was very cheap for the quality (and quantity) of cooking. The menu is smaller than Gourmet San (true of 99% of all known restaurants), but I think the cooking really is better...
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Tom - View all reviews by this user
9 Overall rating
Food 9 | Service 9 | Atmosphere 8 | Value for money 10
Friday, April 01, 2011

After reading many rave reviews on various blogs, my sister and I decided to give Gourmet San a try this week. But despite many phone calls, we couldn't get through to book a table so instead headed for Red Bar, another north China/Szechuan place a bit further down the Bethnal Green Road.

We were slightly put off by the canteen-style interior with zero atmosphere and bright lighting, but sat down anyway - mainly thanks to a group of Chinese diners tucking into a whole sea bass with gusto, and delicious smells coming from the kitchen.

I'm by no means an expert on Chinese food but the menu certainly looked unusual - the brave can try such specialities as Jellyfish in vinegar, Pork ear in chilli sauce or Braised pork intestines but we weren't feeling up to a tripe-fest. We started with lovely Crispy squid with spicy salt (£6.90), a very generous portion with a tongue-tingling chilli kick and really tender squid.

We greedily ordered three mains - Yu-Shiang shredded pork in a spicy garlic sauce (£6.50), Lamb pickled with Chinese rice wine "on fire" (£8.50) and Eggplant in spicy garlic sauce (£6.50). The aubergine came with black fungus in a spicy chilli oil and was stunning, with crisp edges and a melt in the mouth, creamy centre. As with the Pumpkin curry in Tayyabs, I was impressed that a veg dish turned out to be the star of the night - a rare occurrence for me.

Unfortunately, the other two dishes were so overloaded with salt (MSG?) I couldn't discern any flavours. I love Chinese rice wine but couldn't detect it in the lamb - my palate MAY have been slightly damaged by the two Martinis we had before dinner, but all I could taste was a deep overbearing savouriness and a lot of salt. The pork was a little slimy, shredded pork belly (I'll wager) in a thick sauce. When I see "shredded" on a Chinese menu, I think crisp, unctuous fat and tender meat. We agreed this was our least favourite dish.

Everything had a lovely chilli kick and was definitely way above the average Chinese, but I just left feeling like I needed a drip to rehydrate after the salt overload. Also, three mains for two people is WAY too much - we had to get it all packed up to take home.

Incidentally, I didn't sleep until 5am which leads me to believe Red Bar are over-excitable with the MSG. Would love to hear what other people think!
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BrightonSuz
6 Overall rating
Food 7 | Service 8 | Atmosphere 3 | Value for money 6
Thursday, November 26, 2009