Chinatown, London

xinran

I am taking my 9 year old son to London next week, as he has a day off school. He loves Chinese food, and wants to go to Chinatown for lunch. However, I always get overwhelmed by the choice of restaurants, and last time made a bad choice.
As there's nothing better than personal recommendations, I thought I'd ask here.
Any advice? Somewhere with a nice atmoshphere, but MSE friendly prices.
Thank you:) .

Mr_Mister

Yes theres so much choice and not all the restaurants are good. I always go to the buffet ones as you can try whats on offer and its cheap.
The best buffet restaurants is Mr Wu's around China Town and Leicester Sq. They charge around £5 per person which does not include drinks but the choice is limited but great food.
Mr Wu has a new restaurant in Shaftsbury Avenue just around the corner to China town which has a good wide buffet for £8.50 per person and I highly recommend that for the food and surroundings.

xinran

Thanks Mr Mister. It's good to get personal recommndations.
However, I'm a little put off by the reviews on this site: http://www.london-eating.co.uk/4807.htm , though I apprecieate that people tend to put reveiws on only when they are dissatisfied, so I'm not ruling it out.
Does anyone had any other recommendations?
Thank you.

Voyager2002

Try and get a look at the Lonely Planet guide to London (in a bookshop or library). It specifically mentions Mr Wu, but says that the quality is low, reflecting the low prices. It recommended a place round the corner, which turned out to be pretty good but rather pricey. Anyway, I can't remember the name or address now.

Personally, I would just look for a place with lots of Chinese people eating there (presumably most of them would be locals) and with appetising smells wafting out.

Are you called Xinran after the writer?

slinks

Have been to 2 vegetarian buffet restaurants on Greek St, near Soho Square. £6 unlimited buffet, great variety. Lots of mock meat like sweet and sour 'pork', fake 'chicken' etc (OH not veggie but agreed they were lovely)...

One called Tai on greek Street which is Thai/Chinese, can't remember the other but it was nearby!

Great value, great taste and the drinks in both places were priced ok (eg £1.50 for a yummy sugar cane drink!)

whambamboo

Mr_Mister wrote:

Yes theres so much choice and not all the restaurants are good. I always go to the buffet ones as you can try whats on offer and its cheap.
The best buffet restaurants is Mr Wu's around China Town and Leicester Sq. They charge around £5 per person which does not include drinks but the choice is limited but great food.
Mr Wu has a new restaurant in Shaftsbury Avenue just around the corner to China town which has a good wide buffet for £8.50 per person and I highly recommend that for the food and surroundings.

I have to disagree. The buffets are MSG-filled rubbish.

Chinese buffets are horrible.

Chinatown's most infamous joint is Wong Kei. http://www.london-eating.co.uk/2971.htm Worth a trip.

I'm not actually aware of any truly *good* Chinese restaurants in Chinatown.

Good Chinese in LOndon that I've had?

Yauatcha
Hakkasan
Alisan (Wembley)

movieman

Yeah, I haven't been to Wong Kei's for a few years, but it used to be a regular haunt when I was younger and in London with friends.

I still remember the time we ordered something like 'crab with ginger' and got a whole crab each... took about three hours to work through it .

liz545

There's a really nice little cafe around the corner from Leicester square, called, IIRC, Jen Cafe. It's pretty basic, but there's often a member of staff standing in the window making homemade dumplings, which could be entertaining for your son? A bowl of the vegetarian or Beijing (pork and spring onion) dumplings and a drink should set you back about £5; so a great budget stop. Also, have a look on http://www.timeout.com/london/restaurants/area/130/1.html - they have a searchable list of restaurants, which is really helpful!

xinran

Thank you all for the suggestions.
I'll let you know how we get on.:)

xinran

Again, thank you for your suggestions. Unfortunately we didn't get a chance to put any of them to the test.
I had a frantic call from the mum of a little boy in my son's class today - she had forgotten that the school was closed.
So we went to the local cinema and then they had to make do with burgers and chips!