So, thanks to my dad who helped renovate the place, I was able to use this link to blag us a taster session at Baozi Inn (chinese name: 人民公社). We visited on Thursday 29th May, straight after eating at Cha Cha Moon as I’d been told that we’d probably not be fed that much so don’t expect to be feeling full. How wrong was my dad.
Initially when we walked in, we were greeted by the waitress, whom I later found out to be Kelly, and informed the restaurant was not open, but once I’d replied about being.. etc – you know the story. We were sat down at a small square table for two, and asked what we’d like to eat, but we let the waitress decide since it was not our place to start demanding foods since this was going to be a free meal.
Whilst waiting for the food, we were politely served green tea (which was incredibly new, considering it’s emerald tinge to the tea). The interior design of Baozi Inn is a far cry from the normal chinese restaurants you find on Gerrard Street, and this all owes to the brilliant taste of the owner of Bar Shu. Every brick, chair, table and decoration was shipped directly from China to accommodate a more authentic, Chinese Communist atmosphere to the place, as you can tell from the Chinese name of the restaurant.
We were served with this cold (starter) dish to start off with. The colours looked so fresh on the place, but what was more, was the taste. The combination of vermicelli, carrots and ‘cloud ear’ infused with, what we thought to be vinegar, sesame oil and some chilli oil was refreshing on its very first bite. I’d recommend ordering this every time just to taste those flavours emblaze within your mouth. Yes, I like it that much!
Second, we were served what they called “Dragon’s claws” which were essentially dumplings. But boy do I fret, these weren’t just normal dumplings. The outside pastry of these dumplings were freshly hand-made and were as thick as your typical wonton pastry, but as soft and smooth as gyoza pastry. The small helping of pork inside was only bitesize, yet the aroma of the pork was so rich that you didn’t complain about how little there was. (Well, I would complain because I wanted more, but that’s my problem not theirs!) All this was served in a bowl of seaweed soup, which I likened to my mum’s seaweed soup which made it all very, very, very simple and delicious. Sometimes, when you’re dining out, it’s not the MSG you want to taste, it’s the taste of hand-made home cooking at its best.
Lastly, we were served Zha Zhang Mein, which, considering I had ordered it in CCM the other week, was a perfect opportunity to compare the two. I personally thought the CCM version wasn’t much to look at, but in contrast, Baozi Inn’s version was served almost full to the brim, and had the separate ingredients (Beansprouts, Cucumber, Carrots, and sauce – of which there were two). My only regret was that the waiter came to mix all the ingredients for us before we could snap a photo of it in all its glory. I personally didn’t like the strong black bean flavour because I found it a bit bitter on my umpteenth serving from the bowl (yes, there was THAT much), but that is what the dish consists of and V enjoyed it, so it’s not a problem with the dish itself.
All in all, I think we were pretty lucky to have a taste of how wonderful the dishes were, because we left with huge smiles at how delicious the food was and I was reminiscing to my parents days after eating there.
Baozi Inn is opening today (Monday 2nd June), and have an offer of BOGOF on their buns for their first week of opening. I’m taking friends there on Wednesday, so I hope that’s a convincing review for you to visit as well. It might be good to note, the restaurant only holds 24 diners MAX, so I would keep the group of people you go with to a minimum for a chance to get a table asap.
Baozi Inn
25 Newport Court
London WC2H 7JS.
Open daily 10:30AM – 9:30PM
Written by Dana
Tags: baozi, bar, chinatown, chinese, inn, london, shu, sichuan
June 6, 2008 at 9:17 pm |
I wasn’t very impressed with the buns, because I think they’d been sitting around and the bottoms fell off when I lifted away the paper! But the filling was excellent. I had the exact same thing as you – I loved the wontons, and the broth was great. There were lots of little tiny white shrimps in there, which was probably why the soup was so yummy! Zhajian mian, I didn’t really like… the noodles were too glutinous and the sauce lacked the deep savouriness from tobanjiang (and like you said, it was too bitter).
June 13, 2008 at 6:32 pm |
Thanks for coming by my blog! Oh the wontons weree delicious! Yes we found tiny shrimps in there too! I havn’t tried the buns myself yet, but i will go back and try it! It was on my list along with the tofu and congee. =)
June 28, 2008 at 12:12 am |
Thanks for this review!
I read about the restaurant on Timeout today, but was a little doubtful seeing as…, well… the usual reasons. Sorry to read the comment that the noodles weren’t that good though, since the Timeout review raved about the ‘dan dan’ noodles, which I know is a different dish but hey, Zhajiaan mian is a great favourite of mine! Is it quite good value for money as well?
June 30, 2008 at 10:26 pm |
Hi Flick, I was wondering why you were doubtful about the Time Out review?
September 30, 2008 at 7:36 pm |
[...] it with praise and bestowed upon it the runner-up for best cheap eat of 2008. Bloggers like delightful eggtarts wrote a pretty comprehensive review of the place, so I’m not going to repeat that. Instead [...]
October 19, 2008 at 10:29 pm |
I Havent been on this site for so long! Have loads to update! But……
@Flick, yes it was okie for money. I think it is quite good for a place to stop by and have a snakc or whatever, the prices arent too expensive either considering it is in central london.
@review on boazi inn: Thanks so much for including my blog in your post!! Thank you!
December 5, 2008 at 11:47 pm |
@Charmaine: Sorry about the late reply. I am almost always doubtful about reviews (even the ones in the Times) on Chinese food, simply because I usually rely on word-of-mouth – fellow Chinese students are normally very reliable when it comes to these things
December 19, 2008 at 8:42 pm |
flick – no worries, if I didn’t have inside knowledge I would doubt a review about a Chinese restaurant written by someone who is obviously not Chinese! Sally Peck however, is a very knowledgeable woman who has a considerable experience of Chinese food and I’d trust her judgment over someone like Jay Rayner. With that said, I do always have the niggling doubt that if someone hasn’t grown up with a cuisine, they can never really know it fully. So perhaps word of mouth by fellow Chinese really is the best barometer
For the record I actually think Baozi Inn is a bit overrated. Critics may fawn over it for the time being, probably because it’s relatively different to the usual Canto fare London has seen for the past few decades!
December 19, 2008 at 10:15 pm |
Hey Char,
it seems that Baozi Inn isn’t as great as it was in the first month (maybe they wanted to lure customers with the new opening at the beginning) because when I last went there to eat about a month ago, I remember that the ‘Dragon dumplings in seaweed soup’ had increased to twice the size I had remembered them to be, and the meat wasn’t juicy like it used to be. It’s cool they’ve given you more for the same value, but it’s totally taken away the joy of that dish for me!! I was so disappointed!!