Ba Shan (Chinese) – London, England (8/10)
May 20th, 2009 by admin
Background:
Ba Shan, youngest sibling of Bar Shu and Baozi Inn, specialises in xiao chi, literally ’small eats’, from the provinces of Sichuan, Henan and Shaanxi. I’m no expert on the food of any of these regions, but I do love xiao chi – small dishes of cold meats and salads, dumplings and noodles, flatbreads and buns. At both Baozi Inn and Bar Shu, the xiao chi selection isn’t that large, whereas here they dominate the menu. As with the other two restaurants, Chinese food expert (or should that be expert on Chinese food?) Fuschia Dunlop is again consultant.
When Australian food blogger Jennifer Lam emailed me to say that she and her boyfriend were visiting Europe for a month, I thought she might appreciate Ba Shan. Armed with recommendations from Charmaine from tasty treats!, we were more than prepared for an excellent lunch.
First Impressions:
I’m a sucker for the period Chinese tea house / inn look (having watched too many Hong Kong TV drama series during my childhood) and Ba Shan had all of this and more to offer (photo below courtesy of Ba Shan). My heart initially sank when I saw the uncomfortable-looking wooden stools (Baozi Inn-style), but I really didn’t notice any discomfort during the two hours I was there. The service was both polite and helpful and more importantly, we didn’t feel at all rushed to order our food. As a result, Jen and I spent more than thirty minutes analysing the menu and making notes before ordering a single dish.
Menu:
The menu is roughly divided into appetisers (followed by small jiamo, chaoshou and steamed lotus-leaf bun sections), dumplings and noodles, with a few fried rice and vegetable side dishes. Even though it wasn’t a particularly complex menu, there was a lot to absorb before the crucial decision-making process started. Dumplings and noodles are made in-house, so they were a must.
- five-spiced beef salad with coriander and garlic (£5.00) – a small and delicate salad, which wasn’t as spicy as I imagined it would be. However, I don’t like over-spiced food and this was a lovely dish with which to start the meal
- Xian style spicy potato slivers (￡4.50) – I’ve had potato slivers before in China, and again although this was served with large pieces of dried chilli, if you don’t eat them, which I never do, then all you’ll get is a subtle kick rather than an overwhelming tongue-numbing sensation
- jiamo with cumin-spiced beef (￡2.80) – 2 pieces – I’d seen photos of this before lunch and really wanted to try it. Jiamo are filled Shaanxi crispy unleavened flatbreads, served mini-sized at Ba Shan (another friend has described them as tiny pita breads). The cumin-spiced beef filling was excellent, although a little more of it wouldn’t have gone amiss
- pork chaoshou with spiced soy sauce, chilli oil and garlic (￡5.20) – 6 dumplings – chaoshou is Sichuanese for wonton (at Baozi Inn, I think these are called Chengdu wontons). Filled with pork, they are boiled, drained, then served in a small bowl sitting in the sauce. As I’m going to be making these at home soon, I wanted to see what the Ba Shan version tasted like. These were lovely and meaty, but I wonder (being Cantonese!) if the sauce didn’t overwhelm the dumplings a little
- prawn & water chestnut dumplings served with vinegar (￡5.20) – 6 dumplings – I’m glad we tried dumplings (boiled, not steamed) in both vinegar and the spicy, garlicky sauce. They were both lovely, but I think the delicate flavour (Terry Durack called them bland but I disagree) of the prawn and water chestnut was more suited to the vinegar dipping sauce
- chicken & shiitake mushroom dumplings served with spicy, garlicky sauce (￡5.20) – 6 dumplings – these arrived a glorious purple colour. The waitress tried to explain the reason, but I’m afraid I was too busy taking photos to listen properly. However, it wasn’t the result of artificial food colouring!
- Shaanxi noodles with pork, beancurd and hot and fragrant sizzling oil (￡6.80) – I tried a spoonful of the soup broth and spluttered a little. This would be good for those who like a kick to their food, and of course Shaanxi noodles are world famous (with many ways of making them, including knife-cut, single chopstick and scissor-cut)
- noodles with red-braised beef and carrot (￡6.50) – these noodles tasted relatively less spicy, although the broth was practically the same colour red. My only gripe with this is that there weren’t enough pieces of beef and each piece was no larger than a sugar cube. The beef was meltingly tender and flavoursome, but I wish there had been more, much more, of it!
Tips:
Before we left the restaurant, the manager offered to show us around the restaurant, otherwise I would never have known that Ba Shan was made up of so many different sections. When you make a reservation, you can also request to be seated in a particular section, for example the shadow puppet theatre, the farmer’s cottage, the snack restaurant and so on, all themed (but not in a tacky way). There is also a private dining room called the grand official’s residence, that seats 10-12 people at a round table where the minimum spend is £350. We sat in the snack restaurant, which is the first section that you will see on your right as you enter, while the other sections are hidden away up and down various corridors and stairs. I particularly liked the shadow puppet theatre area…
The verdict:
I waddled out of Ba Shan and one hour on, was still feeling extremely satisfied. Out of the three restaurants Ba Shan, Baozi Inn and Bar Shu, I most definitely had the best meal and overall experience at Ba Shan. Some of the dishes at Bar Shu are seriously expensive and there are very few xiao chi to choose from, while Baozi Inn does not provide a serene or relaxed environment in which to enjoy a meal as Ba Shan does. I was also relieved to see plenty of vegetarian options (Sichuanese spiced cucumber, spinach with sweet potato noodles, lotus-leaf buns with pressed beancurd and slivered vegetables, to name but a few) for the next meal with the most fussy of eaters, the vegetarian husband. It’s not often I leave a restaurant feeling this buzzy and content, and Twitter certainly felt the impact of my happiness that afternoon…
Lunch for 3 people cost £61.00 including service charge. The price also included three drinks at around £3.90 each, including the delicious Tang Dynasty Concubine, made with lychee juice.
NB I was surprised to see that Ba Shan is located at number 24. It’s the most unlucky number you can get (as it sounds like ‘easy to die’ in Cantonese) and when I saw the number right next to the entrance, I was taken aback. However, it seems to not have affected business so far!
10 – Perfection, 9.5 – Sensational, 9 – Outstanding, 8.5 – Superb,
8 – Excellent, 7.5 – Very Good, 7 - Good, 6.5 - Above Average, 6 – Average
All the London restaurant reviews on World Foodie Guide
Contact details:
Ba Shan
24 Romilly Street
London W1D 5AH
Tel: 020 7287 3266
Helen Yuet Ling Pang @ World Foodie Guide
Excellent write-up, good food but so très expensive. I love the number four as well as thirteen for that matter…discarded things often come out best! (My business’ phone numbers are full of 4s)
I’m so glad you enjoyed it! Your photos are wonderful, especially the purple things. (I could literally eat those all day long). Our waitress explained that all the colours are from vegetable juice – nothing artificial
I’ve been putting off going here due to a bad experience at Baozi Inn and suspicions over the hyperbolic reviews – but you may have changed my mind !
Interesting observation on the chaoshou – I had some in HK as part of a dim sum lunch and was disappointed that the dressing was too mild – this after my HK colleagues warned me that they were spicy ! I guess the moral of the tale is don’t order Sichuan xiao chi in a HK dim sum restaurant !
Sounds like you had a much better meal than I did. Sadly it’s too expensive for me to make a return. (I didn’t notice the 24 – it certainly rang true for me!)
I love discarded numbers like 4 and 13. My business phone numbers are cluttered with deadly 4s.
Great write-up nonetheless.
I think it was red cabbage juice? Next time you’ve got to try the xi-an pan-fried dumplings, which are just so well done. Paper-thin wrappings, crisp and golden.
holly… they all look hot, ahhh need to find someone who can take hot food to go with me!!!
i wonder how other themed looks like? the picture you shown is that the snack one???? ^^
Lizzie mention expensive.. mmm.. still want to try kakak~
This dining experience sounds incredible. What a neat and interesting looking place. I’m adding this one to my growing list (thanks to you) to try when I get back to London. I just googled it, and while I forgot my layout of the tube, I may be able to make this one during my long layover coming up. Just take Heathrow express, and connect. Its right in the heart of some of my favorite walking areas.
“jiamo with cumin-spiced beef” looks alarmingly like a Chinese sandwich to me! Horray.
I have gotta try this in my next visit. I will mostly also need half an hour to study the menu. Thanks for sharing!
What a lovely name, Fuschia Dunlop!
So basically it was £20 each? Which is not that expensive compared to ‘western’ restaurants I suppose.
Glad you put in a bit about vegetarian dishes.
It looks like a nice outing.
oh also love the reference to the number. No non-oriental reviewer would know of this!
Is 11 a lucky number in Chinese culture?
I know 8 is and of course 8 is a signicant number in computing.
Great review! I can’t wait to visit!
Fat Les – my phone numbers are full of 8s, although 13 is lucky for me in Chinese numerology!
Kate – thanks for clarifying the colour of the dumplings! I knew there wouldn’t be anything artificial, from the way she was explaining it, but my attention was on taking photos…
Sung – hmm, not sure whether you’ll find the chaoshou dressing mild or spicy. I didn’t find it that spicy really (I think my description might have implied it’s very spicy!). Let me know what you think!
Lizzie – I know, sorry you didn’t have such a good meal here…
Charmaine – Xian pan-fried dumplings sound gorgeous! Thanks for letting me know it’s red cabbage juice…
Suzie – honestly, it’s just the colour. Nothing was that hot except for the broth of one of the noodle soups. I promise! That photo was provided by Ba Shan, so I can’t remember which section it’s of.
OysterCulture – I hope you’ll like it! Enjoy your brief stopover in London…
Jonathan – you and your hunt for sandwiches! Yes, I think you need to visit for the Sandwichist…
Janet – studying the menu is almost as fun as eating, in my opinion!
MsMarmitelover – I didn’t think it was that expensive, though others seem to think so. Without ordering three £4 drinks, we could have had extra dishes or a cheaper meal. Don’t know whether 11 is lucky or not (it has to be lucky for individuals according to Chinese numerology, so for example numbers like 13 and 15 are lucky for me, but they might not be for others).
Pigpigscorner – I hope you’ll like it!
Helen Yuet Ling
Helen great right up !
Had lunch today with a friend and we needed a table for 4 had most of what you had + a couple of extra dishes !
It’s on my to write up list !
helen, this is going to be the first place m gonna visit ven i get back to london. thanx to you dude. excellent review though.. keep it up!!
nora
I have to ditto Jonathan on this one – no surprises here but I can’t resist it – hooray for the Chinese sandwich!
Gastro1 – glad you liked it! I’m looking forward to trying loads of other dishes…
nora – ooh, I hope it lives up to your expectations! Let me know what you think…
Helen – you must go and try the Chinese sandwich! Three different fillings, two meat and one vegetarian…
Helen Yuet Ling
Having just eaten there, I can’t tell you how disappointed I am. The chicken with celery and pickled chilli dish I ordered was oozing with oil in a most unappetizing way. The taste was vaguely reminiscent of something good, but it just didn’t come together. Although the food was merely disappointing, the appalling service will ensure I never visit this place again.
admin Reply:
July 26th, 2009 at 8:11 pm
QuayWest – what a shame you had a disappointing meal. I don’t know how familiar you are with the dishes at Ba Shan, but quite a few are prepared like that. As for me, I had a wonderful lunch and look forward to my next visit.
Helen Yuet Ling
Funny that ‘24′ sounds like ‘easy to die’ in Cantonese..
In Mandarin, ‘24′ sounds like ‘die of hunger’!!!
Not exactly a number any Chinese restaurant needs!
Andrew – you’re right! Not good for a Chinese restaurant at all!