Every other review of a restaurant in Chinatown includes an msg soaked starter reminiscing about Gerrard Street's good old times. Food was terrible, service non existent and any complaints answered with five thunderbolts. Not too sure about the last one but over the past few years I've definitely eaten in a few hum dingers in London's China epicenter.
Not much has changed really. Just our budgets. A couple quid extra has opened the door to the chinese powerhouses of the Golden Palace and Feng Shui Inn. Now though, for a few more pennies there's a 'modern oriental' kid on the block.
Flashing a contemporary feel, Haozhan has been opened with the help from a former chef at Hakkasan. As you'd expect he's brought a keen attention to detail and presentation and influences from Japan, Malaysia and Thailand.
This being lunch, delicately grilled and herbed gyoza-style dumplings and light duck spring roll (served in a glass) made tasty light starters. Onto a clean, meaty champagne cod, soft and succulet jasmine ribs and a waiter recommended dish - beef in red wine served in a crispy noodle nest: Succulent beyond imagination and a taste not experienced before. Seeing one served elsewhere we praised ourselves for ordering a cream of pumpkin desert despite being far more satisfied than expected. It almost crept up - but everything was welll timed, well balanced and, well, delicious.
Haozhan is different. They've borrowed a couple ideas from the likes of Yuatcha, Nobu and Hakkasan and brought the experience down a level without compromising on the senses (or the wallet). It's a bit cheeky to go with such a homophonic name and, mate, the menu has pictures... but that aside and here is a welcome addition for when beef ho fun and char siu isn't quite enough.
Haozhan
http://www.haozhan.co.uk
8 Gerrard Street
London
W1D 5PJ (map)
+44 (0) 20 7434 3838
Showing posts with label eating. Show all posts
Showing posts with label eating. Show all posts
Tuesday
Taste: Sake no Hana Review
Disguised as an office building - Sake no Hana blends only too well into the Economist's Plaza on St James' street. A plaque by the menacing automatic door is the only giveaway before it slides open. A couple of bemused doormen look out - who I'm sure will get used to welcoming lost diners.
Inside is an office building's foyer. They've either painfully replicated the entrance to a Wall St bank in black marble or just left the old building as it was. This being Alan Yau and architect Kengo Koma the latter is a dead cert but it really just feels like the bank. Nothing like the decadence of L'Atelier. Alright, I know, hanging out here isn't scheduled, so up a dark, thin escalator to the 1st floor restaurant.
Somehow cater-cornered and not in a great way the restaurant is a mix of standard tables and sunken no-shoes Izakaya seating. Attractive bleached-wood skeletal pyramids echo the simplicity of the room which has a dab of sober beige, a splash of Dojo and the smell of money. Wait staff tiptoe around sinking awkwardly to their knees when serving, a feat not easily achieved by the burly sake sommelier balancing a £200 bottle with a grimace (they do serve 180ml taster carafes from £12).
The menu, traditional Japanese in summary; salad, tempura, marinated then fried dishes, rice and desert. Sushi and sashimi are not available, the sushi-bar downstairs is not yet complete although the glamorous table of soap stars behind are braying over a round of nigiri.
Over the next 90 minutes the courses roll (or rather loll - first week teething is passable) A minute jar or King Crab salad in a Japanese plum jelly is a silky mouthful of sweet flavors - shame there's only two spoon's and a tinkles-worth. Mixed tempura, with a good but not Tokugawa standard batter. Leaf wrapped oblongs of Chilean sea bass with giant soy beans and button mushrooms in an superbly overwhelming satay-notes sauce and korokke a painfully rendered yet too fussy beef, potato croquette. For staples we went for sticky rice and Udon noodles, both pedigree versions of their mainstream counterparts.
Almost all flavours were choreographed delights, fantastic, orchestraic but over far too soon. The better dishes were the more elaborate but they could fit on a 50 pence piece (whilst costing a fistful of golden coins). After 8 dishes and an onslaught of intriguing tastes we were left not quite satisfied - with a feeling more like eating a selection of Belgian chocolates.
Sake no Hana is the latest restaurant from Alan Yau of Hakkasan and Yauatcha fame. Sure it will get a third Michelin Star but in comparison I'm not so convinced. Maybe that will change when the new-wood smell calms down and the wait staff understand the dishes (and their sizes) better. I've a feeling though that for me there won't be a second time - fine Japanese cuisine exists in just one country.
Sake no Hana
23 St James's Street
London
SW1A 1HA (map)
020 7925 8988
Inside is an office building's foyer. They've either painfully replicated the entrance to a Wall St bank in black marble or just left the old building as it was. This being Alan Yau and architect Kengo Koma the latter is a dead cert but it really just feels like the bank. Nothing like the decadence of L'Atelier. Alright, I know, hanging out here isn't scheduled, so up a dark, thin escalator to the 1st floor restaurant.
Somehow cater-cornered and not in a great way the restaurant is a mix of standard tables and sunken no-shoes Izakaya seating. Attractive bleached-wood skeletal pyramids echo the simplicity of the room which has a dab of sober beige, a splash of Dojo and the smell of money. Wait staff tiptoe around sinking awkwardly to their knees when serving, a feat not easily achieved by the burly sake sommelier balancing a £200 bottle with a grimace (they do serve 180ml taster carafes from £12).
The menu, traditional Japanese in summary; salad, tempura, marinated then fried dishes, rice and desert. Sushi and sashimi are not available, the sushi-bar downstairs is not yet complete although the glamorous table of soap stars behind are braying over a round of nigiri.
Over the next 90 minutes the courses roll (or rather loll - first week teething is passable) A minute jar or King Crab salad in a Japanese plum jelly is a silky mouthful of sweet flavors - shame there's only two spoon's and a tinkles-worth. Mixed tempura, with a good but not Tokugawa standard batter. Leaf wrapped oblongs of Chilean sea bass with giant soy beans and button mushrooms in an superbly overwhelming satay-notes sauce and korokke a painfully rendered yet too fussy beef, potato croquette. For staples we went for sticky rice and Udon noodles, both pedigree versions of their mainstream counterparts.
Almost all flavours were choreographed delights, fantastic, orchestraic but over far too soon. The better dishes were the more elaborate but they could fit on a 50 pence piece (whilst costing a fistful of golden coins). After 8 dishes and an onslaught of intriguing tastes we were left not quite satisfied - with a feeling more like eating a selection of Belgian chocolates.
Sake no Hana is the latest restaurant from Alan Yau of Hakkasan and Yauatcha fame. Sure it will get a third Michelin Star but in comparison I'm not so convinced. Maybe that will change when the new-wood smell calms down and the wait staff understand the dishes (and their sizes) better. I've a feeling though that for me there won't be a second time - fine Japanese cuisine exists in just one country.
Sake no Hana
23 St James's Street
London
SW1A 1HA (map)
020 7925 8988
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