Haozhan

How do you mess up in Chinatown? You don’t. Almost everything is delicious. Saw some complaints about dim sum here… um, there are lots of places like Golden Dragon that pride themselves on dim sum — this place has duck and pork hanging in the window — it’s a small place — perfect for duck/​rice or pork/​rice. Large groups might struggle a bit here without a booking, as it’s very popular. Good mix of asians and tourists. Authentic flavors, friendly staff.

We ate there tonight, xmas day. I don’t understand why all the Chinese restaurants in the area cover the street menu and up the prices by 30%. The food was very good. The size of the dishes were very small. All in all it would have been better if the price was less. What really gets me is why do they charge 5 pounds for a bottle of water. Highway robbery. They should be ashamed!!! Oh, they also request cash this day. I wonder what they report to the tax authorities.
Shame on you!!!

Friends in town so decided to give this a try as I’ve read good reviews. Crispy duck pancakes were delicious and our meals were high quality and very flavourful, presentation was definitely considered by the kitchen staff. The wait staff was extremely friendly and attentive. This is a level above the other dime-​a-​dozen Chinatown restaurants — I’ll definitely be back. If you have a choice, ask to sit upstairs — much nicer!

They do not serve the normal dim sum here, it feels a bit more high class, and you get some unusual stuff served here that you can’t get elsewhere. The price doesn’t differ much from other places.
BUT somehow they do not get the normal Chinese family crowd gathering here. I can’t tell whether it’s because their tables are smaller (more 2 people tables than 10 people tables) or whether they didn’t like the food or something else.
Personally the food is ok for me but not enough for me to give it a wow factor. In fact, I think a lot of its food is way too greasy for my taste.
Service is hit and miss, you may have the older generation serving you who is attentive up to a point, or the younger generation who are generally helpful.
But one thing why my mum likes coming here with her friends, is due to the 10% discount offered to the elderly.

With late night options in China town shrinking on a Sunday night we ended up here. Very disappointing — the food, crispy chilli beef, char sui (pork), prawn noodles and egg fried rice arrived over cooked and tepid, their solution? Microwave in front of us. This was factory feeding at its worst. So many others to choose from…

I really love this place for their dim sum. It’s got the majority of the standard ones and then a few modern twists. Try their xiao long bao and giant har gau (special dim sum menu). As expected at most cheap and cheerful Chinese restaurants, you shouldn’t go there for the service!

For a Saturday afternoon, this place was not too full. The prices seemed decent, and they had what our group of six wanted on the menu.
Upon entering, we were greeted by a seemingly hyper-​attentive waiter who seated us at a round table with only four chairs, then proceeded to go back behind the bar and wait around before bringing us over two more chairs. Not once did they ever think to bring us the two extra place settings.
After waiting quite some time to be waited on, we ordered a bunch of appetizers and some waters. The water did not come until we had been there for quite some time, which was a bit of a nuisance. The waiter handed two waters out, then backed up, and his tray of the remaining four waters spilled all down my friend’s back and all over her chair and soaked her and her clothing. Without even saying sorry or anything, the waiter rolled his eyes and left the table. He came back with one napkin and a roll of paper towels and focused on cleaning the floor rather than helping the poor, freezing girl he had just spilled water all over. He muttered an apology, and left the table.
At this point, we were starting to get our food at the table. A different waiter, the one who had seated us, just started putting things down on the table without announcing what they were or asking whose it was, and with some force. He was very pushy and impatient, despite us having been spilled water on and getting quite frustrated at this point.
We had to flag down a waiter to get the rest of the waters for us (which didn’t come until we were halfway done eating), and our poor friend who was shivering and cold had to wrap herself up in her scarf to try to keep warm. Every request we made was accepted with either an eye-​roll, or with a shaking head and scowl. Despite having asked for the chopsticks and napkins we didn’t have, we never received extras and had to eat with our hands and share napkins.
The food itself was pretty decent, although the dumplings were a bit too spicy and very soggy, which was sort of a theme for all of the food. Maybe it was just what we ordered, but I’ve never had such soggy dumplings before.
Once we started slowing down our eating, a waiter came and started clearing everything, despite one of our friends who still had a full plate of one of her appetizers. She felt so rushed and had to take the food off her plate and hold onto it so it wasn’t taken from her.
We were then brought the bill, and as we were a big group, there was an included service charge which we felt we certainly did not owe to them and chose not to pay. When we were about to get up and go, the waiter came over to our table, which we were all still sitting at, grabbed the check, and proceeded to count the money in front of us and ask for the service charge money. What audacity! We explained to him our unhappiness with the service and that we honestly felt that the service we received did not deserve a payment. Upon this, he nodded and quickly left the table.
So, if you are looking for a place with good service and good food, look elsewhere as Chinatown has much better food and service to offer up than the rude, unprofessional experience we had.

Delicious Modern Chinese restaurant. Excellent service, beautiful plating, and fresh ingredients. Even the simple side of egg fried rice was perfection. Vegetarian ‘chicken’ Satay was yummy, along with all other dishes we ordered. They were happy to accommodate any changes to the menu, and delivered without error. The last star was left off only due to the slightly inflated prices, and our host was a bit pushy with trying to upsell. I would definitely return when back in the area.

Classy, simple, modern restaurant with excellent service and fabulous food. My new favorite restaurant in London’s Chinatown!

I tried this after searching for aromatic duck on tastecard. The pictures on the website are enough to get you to say, «eh, let’s give it a try». One you arrive, you discover how well done the website was done… It was almost empty when we arrived and stayed that way until we left. The menu is vast, but I think they should focus on limiting the selection, and then doing it better. We tried one of the Lobster dishes, the duck spring roles, soups and another main that was served in a bread bowl. That’s all I really remember about it. There’s many better options in the area to discover I believe…

Aromatic duck and pancake was awesome. Service was friendly and fast. Would eat here again in a second.

This is supposed to be one of the more upscale places in China Town. The restaurant has some nice décor, but that’s pretty much it. The food is way overpriced and doesn’t offer anything exciting. We had the duck which was dry and hard to eat. Also the other dishes were not very well executed neither and the portions are tiny. Wouldn’t go back or recommend it to anyone.

I haven’t actually ventured in here for a good few years, but I did today for lunch because Yee Gan has RAVED about the new lunch menus they have in place.
My mother and I turned up around 2, quarter past, so the lunch rush had clearly gone and the restaurant was pretty empty. Not really filled with proper chinese goers, but if you looked at the price in comparison to other places. That’d be why. Also no round tables. The chinese love their round tables, more of a family feel i guess. It’s all pretty westernised with square tables in here. LOL
First things first, I’m NOT a big fan of bitter melon, but the black cod and bitter melon vermicelli BLEW ME AWAY. The fish was silky and soft, cooked to perfection and the bitter melon was crunchy, cooling and had a sweet bitter taste. After this dish, I am truly a bitter melon convert. The vermicelli could do with less oil, but i think i was snacking away at bitter melon to notice. The Grilled scallops were perfect, it was cooked perfectly and 3 MASSIVE scallops for £3.60. Size of your palm. Not even kidding.
BUT, The lamb curry dry noodle dish was just WEIRD. The noodles were limp and with the curry sauce just tasted a bit wrong. Soggy + Thick/​gloopy sauce. It was just so far away from a good match. The lamb meat was okay, it was a bit tough but not disastrous, it smelt better than it looked, but I think it might have been the curry leaves that made it smell nice. We left most of the noodles.
Didn’t get dessert, too full. Bill came to £24 including service charge. and two teas. It’s not the cheapest option but if you want to try different flavours in chinatown that less generic, this is the place.

Walking past Haozhan today, a large sign caught my eye. Yup, they’re re-​inventing themselves again. Located on the main Chinatown drag of Gerrard Street, they offer high class inventive Chinese cuisine in the Hakkasan style but also with the attendant Hakkasan prices, with the result that it was a ‘treat restaurant’
Thye’ve brought out a cheaper lunch menu in the hope of tapping into more everyday customers. There are about 25 dishes on this menu with starters around £3.60 and one plate mains at around £7
However, their ambition to serve Chinese cuisine with a twist remains. My starter of pan fried scallops was outstanding — 3 large juicy scallops were served up with sweet chilli sauce and topped with a sprinkling of deep fried Greek katafi pastry shards and a twist of lime.
My main of jasmine tea smoked pork ribs were served atop some braised thin egg noodles with Chinese greens. The ribs were nice and tender though I struggled to identify the jasmine tea element
With this more reasonably priced lunch menu, I may come here more often rather than just for a treat

Christmas music in April made this a very surreal experience. The food was fine but no atmosphere and not the best service either if I’m honest. Coffee is served in a thimble (ended up ordering three) and the wrong order was brough to our table more than once.
Meh.

I just wasn’t that impressed… I’ve had great Chinese food before, and this just wasn’t anywhere close. Definitely not authentic (which admittedly is not what they’re going for), but it just seemed like everything we ordered (there were 10 of us, so we ordered a lot) didn’t have much flavor. The spicy dishes we ordered weren’t spicy…
One thing I can recommend however was the hot and sour soup. Saving grace of this restaurant.

Echoing what I have already read — you can certainly see the Hakkasan influence here and it works. There were six of us angling for as many options as humanly possible on the menu, dutifully Unilocal — sampling.
We started with the Crispy Duck, Chilli Quail and Coffee Ribs and then moved on to the XO Black Cod, Wasabi Prawns, Sangpei Chicken, and Seafood Ho Fun and a few heaping orders of coconut rice.
Save the Avatar electric green presentation of the prawns, they were extremely well-​balanced and perfectly seasoned, and the XO Black Cod, though not inexpensive, made six of us fight and elbow for the final remaining lingering pieces. The seafood noodles were the major disappointment — a gluttonous tangled mess of bland unremarkable flavours — it all seemed to meld together (avoid). The quail was memorable and the ribs were sweet and perfectly gooey.
Admittedly, we had a few issues with service, including almost 20 minutes between asking for a waiter to order and placing an order. We were however, nearly presented with the bill after 6 beers (pre-​order) — slightly bemused. It was a good stall tactic for an overwhelmed kitchen. Eventually we ordered…
I realise this is far from the inexpensive Anglo-​Canto options along the strip, but after two Asahis and ample sampling, I walked away 25£ lighter — I think it is clearly a cut and price above the environs but certainly worth the visit and maybe a second…

The freshly made tofu in my XO Tofu with squid, scallop and prawns was delicious. Fact.
The cost of this dish was £10.50. Also fact.
Honestly, I could have gone without the seafood selection and just ordered a bowl full of that tofu, as the squid, scallop and prawns were most certainly upstaged by the tofu in the dish (which makes you start to consider whether the squid, scallop and prawns were not of particularly good quality or if by some Chinese witchcraft tofu managed to be more tasty and satisfying than «meat»). But, then again, I most certainly wouldn’t have wanted to pay £10.50 for what amounts to some soy beans, water, coagulator and/​or egg white (and seasoning, I guess). Not particularly costly ingredients, those.
A weekend lunch consisting of two mains, a starter to share, two Asahis, and a pot of tea came to £50+.
Ouch.
It was delicious, sure. The service was wonderful, yes. However, I can’t help but feel that everything was just LITTLE overpriced. I mean, £4.50 for a bottle of Asahi? Really?
So, yeah. I’m glad I ate at Haozhan, because it was pretty tasty. But I probably wouldn’t return. Because, well, it took me the rest of the afternoon to reconcile in my mind the fact that I had just dropped £50 on a Sunday afternoon lunch in Chinatown.

Chinese food with a bit of a twist. It’s not cheap but all of the food tastes good and looks even better! My companions and I particularly enjoyed the sea food — and couldn’t resist the unusual icecream desserts! They do a number of delicious teas by the pot as well — we had the Oolong tea, very tasty. Well worth trying and definitely worth a second visit.

Posh looking from the outside, but very disappointing once inside. The menu has alot of exotic dishes, but sadly the execution of the food is very poor. Out soft shell crab appetiser tasted very burnt, and none of the other dishes were particularly good, considering that this is Chinatown and you expect the best Chinese food here.
The prices are very expensive! Even though we had a TasteLondon card for 50% off, it still came up to £15 a person, without drinks.
With so many other Chinese restaurants in the area with much better food and much cheaper as well, I definitely won’t be going back to here ever again.