Dumplings Legend, China Town

Spicy pork xiao long bao

On Thursday night I met up with Ed for dinner after I missed our planned catch up last week by flying to Chicago for work. I fancied Asian food. Bao has been on my wish list for a long time, but their new restaurant in Soho has only been open for a few weeks and we didn't fancy battling the hipsters to get a table, so selected Dumplings Legend instead from Lizzie's excellent list of recommendations.

The restaurant has a good reputation for xiao long bao so we ordered a basket of the spicy pork xiao long bao. If there were more of us I would have been tempted to order a couple of steamers of different flavours, however, as there were just the two of us we decided to go for a bit of variety and also chose the steamed prawn dumplings.

Steamed prawn dumplings

Rather than being spicy, there was a burst of ginger soup as I bit into the pork xiao long boa. Some people are a bit fanatical about their xiao long bao. I don't eat enough of them to give a serious opinion, but I did enjoy them.

The prawn dumplings had generous amounts of large prawn pieces inside (too often it is minced finely) and were also good.

Beef brisket curry

Thinking the dumplings might not be enough we also ordered the curry beef brisket. The beef was incredibly tender and although it was only mildly hot it gave me the chilli hiccups which have become a recent embarrassing feature of when I eat something that is even vaguely hot.

The service was efficient with the food coming out quickly and the staff perfectly friendly. My only gripe would be that they add 12.5% service to the bill but this isn't made particularly clear and I suspect many people end up double tipping as a result. (I don't have an issue with service being added, just the fact it wasn't transparent.) We paid £19 a head all in.

I'd happy head back for a dumpling fix next time I'm in China Town.

Dumplings Legend
15-16 Gerrard Street
Chinatown, 

London, 

W1D 6JE