Ping Pong

Went here on Saturday. Food was alright, but my partner and I now have food poisoning. The food came out worryingly fast so I’m not sure how freshly prepared they are?
Also 3 serves per dish seems like a really silly portion? People commonly come in pairs or fours.
Staff were friendly and well informed, but I don’t think it makes up for the fact that I am now spending my Saturday night feeling awful.

Fusion dim sum concept gone very wrong. I would not recommend coming here if you are looking for any sort of authentic or tasty dim sum experience. Almost all of the items on the menu were not really items that I would classify as traditional dim sum. This wouldn’t be a problem at all if the food was actually tasty. However, we ordered three different set menus, and everything tasted like freezer-​burnt, pre-​made frozen food warmed up in a microwave.
The amount of food you get for the money is very good, though. I hear it is especially good to come here on a Sunday for an all you can eat deal if you enjoy eating large volumes of food. Also, the cocktails are pretty good, so I would recommend sticking to those if you must be here for some reason.

Came here in a 3 on a Friday lunch. Managed to get a seat at the bar which was good as it was pretty busy.
I am milk intolerant and asked for a list of items without milk — which they helpfully provided.
Unfortunately, the rest of the service was pretty rushed and impolite. The server got our order wrong and doubled up on a few things which we only asked for once. The servers got a little pissy at that.
Food wasn’t the best quality either. Just so so dim sum.
This would have gotten a 3 but for the service.

I love Ping Pong! And this branch is no exception. A huge place with nice seating areas, this would be great for large groups. It was empty on Monday at 6pm and the service was a little slow but staff were friendly.
Anyone who hasn’t been before it is a dim sum restaurant with super tasty cocktails. Once seated you are given a menu, pencil and checklist of everything on the menu where you then mark how many of each thing you want. There are different sections on the menu — steamed, soup, baked, fried and rice dishes so there is TONNES to choose from.
The recommendation is about 3 – 4 items each but each of these has 3 – 4 dim sum on each plate. We went all out at 8 to share and there was just TOO much food. Next time I would get less of the steamed dishes as too many became a bit of a stodge fest!
My absolute favourites are the roast pork puffs, potato and edamame cake and char sui buns. At the moment they also have a Yuzu matcha finger cake which was so pretty and packed full of fresh flavours.

Yummy food, good cocktails and pretty flowering teas — a great recipe! All the dimsum I’ve tried here has been great, and the set menus give you a great selection to get started with if you aren’t really sure (you’ll soon get to know your favourites!). Handy location for after work in the city.

Lovely venue with above average food… It is different and refreshing. As it is a branch of a big chain you get exactly the same as everywhere else… Definitely worth booking as it is always busy…

Easy going, ok decent food (we took the selected menu for 2 persons). Very friendly service and delicious ginseng/​passionfruit cocktail! Surprisingly enough we went on a Saturday evening and the place was rather quiet.

I met up with a friend for a bite to eat after work. He works near St Paul’s, so he suggested Ping Pong. I’d heard lots of good things about this chain, but had never managed to get there.
We didn’t have a reservation and being a Tuesday night, we didn’t think we’d need one. Boy were we wrong.
When we arrived we were told it would be around 25 mins wait, which was fine, so we headed to the bar for a drink. We waited around 15 mins to be served. We each ordered a mocktail, and for the price, we expected something more than store bought juice in a glass.
After what felt like forever (around 30 mins) we were finally seated. We spent a bit of time looking at the menu, and the restaurant itself has a great atmosphere.
We’d decided what we wanted to order and waited a further 15 mins to be noticed. The problem with the service here, is that no one waited is responsible for a section of the restaurant, so they aren’t as attentive, and its easy to forget a table.
The food comes out as it is ready, and quite quickly. I did rather enjoy the food. Its just a shame I was starving by the time the food came out.
I’d be prepared to give Ping Pong another go, perhaps a different location.

If you’re used to Dim Sum from Chinese Restaurants in the China towns around the world then be prepared for something a little different and slightly unusual. If you’ve never had Dim Sum restaurant then have a look at the Chinese selection at your local supermarket and you have a fairly good representation of what to expect here, this place is certainly not about authenticity.
We ordered a variety of dishes from what little there was as the menu is at least a quarter the size of what you might expect. Some of the more usual and classic dishes like «Cheung Fun» and chicken feet are completely missing which is almost criminal if you are going to call yourself a Dim Sum restaurant!
As already mentioned by previous visitors, the portions really are woefully small. Take the sticky rice wrapped in Lotus leaves, there is barely enough in the way of leaves to wrap my thumb. The chewy, almost meatless, Vietnamese spring rolls come as a portion of two (every other restaurant provides three) and you will have a great time trying to unstick the dumplings from your teeth.
As a party of five, we ended up paying over thirty pounds a head and left slightly hungry. If you think that you have to be near a china town for decent Dim Sum then you need only look at a certain Dim Sum Restaurant near Canary Wharf to see that location shouldn’t matter. This restaurant is more for people with more money than sense.

London Restaurant Festival has a great valued lunch set menu. 3 course dim sum (fried and steamed) and lychee cocktail for only £15.95! Decent food, but great variety — you get 10 different pieces of dim sum! Staff was slow and the restaurant was empty, but nice décor. Would only come back for another promotion.

Ping Pong food is delicate, fairly difficult to make and different to traditional Chinese dim sum. You can tell that they have put some creative thinking into their menu and the way they present the food which is good to see. Their service is also consistently excellent. However their portions are quite small and so you will need to order quite a few items to fill yourself up and this can be a little pricey compared to normal dim sum. I recommend you try their flowering teas and their rice cooked in clay pots. The seats are hard benches so not comfortable for sitting for long periods. This particular branch was willing to arrange to have ping pong tables set up so that a private party could play after eating. All-​round good stuff!

Not really for me. The location (City), the crowd (City) and décor (slick urban chain trying to appeal to 30ish business lunchers and date nighters) and the food was only ok.
We came in a fairly large group so tried A LOT, and I too found the dumpling wraps to be slick and gummy (liked they’d been cooked awhile and ago and been sitting in a steam basket to keep warm most of the day). The fillings weren’t too great either. I’m not a chain snob (I have a lot of good things to say about Pizza Express, for example) and I’m willing to admit when a chain gets it right.
I will say the service we got was great — we came as a work group so spent way too much time figuring out what everyone wanted and how to order accordingly, and then how to pay. Our server didn’t give so much as an eye roll or indignant hand on the hip, which was appreciated.
Also, one in our group had some sort of frequent diners card which got him a free drink off our order and some % discount as well. Ask about it if you’re that keen on this place.

Nice chain serving dimsum and chinese quisine. Strongly suggest taking a set menu and a lychee drink. The chairs are terribly small though.

Hey, I was wrong. I always though Ping Pong was a kitsch imitation of ‘proper’ dim sum designed for boring the London 30+ crowd. It’s for London 30+ crowd. Late twenties, fine. But hey its a really nice place, couple of nice cocktails, good service, prices are pretty reasonable and most of all the dimsum wasn’t bad either. Nice place — I am comming back.

Friends and I came into Ping Pong while waiting for a table at Burger & Lobster, which is right down the street. We grabbed a table at the bar and enjoyed a few cocktails – for the most part, the first bit of our experience was good, the drinks were strong and reasonably priced (by, of course, Soho/​Covent Garden/​The City’s standard).
When it looked like we couldn’t get a table at B&L in time for our after-​dinner plans, we asked for a table and were seated quickly despite being a five person group. The tough part was that no one ever came to explain the menu, nor to take our orders until we flagged someone down. Luckily, I know how to do dim sum, so when we finally got service, we ordered immediately and explained that we were in a bit of a time crunch.
The food came quickly, and was tasty. It’s not conventional dim sum by my standards, a bit more high end in terms of presentation and the combinations of ingredients, but good enough. Since we were struggling with the service, they brought us a few drinks on the house, which was kind… mind you, that was without us actually expressing anything about our frustration, just because they picked up on that… not many restaurants are that astute and observant.
Other than that, it’s a nice enough place… probably great for a date or something like that. We had good food and strong drinks and spent a pretty reasonable amount. I was certainly full, though I know dim sum isn’t often enough for everyone.

I do love me some dim sum and this restauraunt typically has a ‘city feel’ about it. It’s sleek, chic and designed so that you spend the minimum amount of time within the restaraunt.
Saying that, I love dim sum. I do enjoy the dim sum here but I sometimes find it lacking. Recently the £9.95 fixed menu per person has been the best value for money as you get a bit of everything without spending an extortionate amount. Plus when the lunchtime rush hits, it’s so quick to be in and out of there by choosing this option.
BUT it does not fill me up! I can eat and eat and eat at Ping Pong but everything is so tiny and small it feels like I have starters on my plate and I’m left longing for a main!
Just a note, the service here is good, the waiters are very plesant, efficient and smiley but you pay for it. The service charge is not optional! Generally with 2 people eating plus a non-​alcoholic drink, & service charge, it easily comes to £30.
Try the pineapple and coconut coolers though because they are ay may zing!

A perfect place to start your Dim Sum tasting if you have never done so. For 9.95 you can have the Ping Pong set menu with 10 types of different dim sum. (Vegetarian option is also on the list).
Maybe not the BEST dim sum place in London, but good for a cheap value. Portion sizes are not really huge and I will encorauge you to take any of the main dishes like rice fox example, as they are almost like a little starter and quite expensive.
If you have not tried yet dim sums and you do not like experimenting with food, just do not go. One on my group was quite picky and ended up eating nothing!
The local is big and there are plenty of choices of tables for groups, couples, etc…

Quick glance:
+ large venue, short wait time
+ interesting cocktails on offer
— portion size is very small
I have been here twice for lunch as I work nearby. The first time I went as a couple and thought the food was decent (being Chinese myself I have a high expectation of what dim sum should look and taste like!)
However, the second time I returned a few months later (January 2012) as a group of three and thought both quantity and quality have deteriorated. The dim sum was soggy (for example, har gau skin was limp, not bouncy like they should be) and all the dim sum seemed to have shrunk in size. Most of the dishes came in groups of three, but one dish only came with two and plated as though someone had taken the third one away from the plate.
The venue is big so wait time, even on a workday lunch, is short especially if you don’t mind sharing a large table with other patrons. And I think Ping Pong first and foremost is a bar so they have an interesting selection of cocktails on offer (although I must admit I haven’t had a chance to try).
Overall, if you are desperate for dim sum near St Paul’s there isn’t a whole lot of other options, but there are definitely better tasting dim sum in London.

Ping Pong is to dim sum as Chevy’s is to Mexican and P.F. Chang’s is to Chinese. Ultimately, it’s a decent quality mall restaurant.
Everything looks nice and slick but there’s nothing particularly cosy about the place. And the inevitable menu explanation of what you’re eating — complete with instructional photos — is never a good sign (why does this happen so much in London? Lupita, I’m looking at you.)
THE GOOD
— Char sui bao was something I’d get again. Delicate bun, flavourful filling.
— They have a pretty wide range of interesting steamed dumpling options.
THE BAD
— They throw in some fusiony stuff that should raise your eyebrow:
Vietnamese spring rolls
Chicken with cashew nut dumplings
Chocolate and banana spring rolls
— Vinegar was not available when we requested it. Wait, what? No vinegar in a dim sum place?
THE UGLY
— Flavour was good but the skins on the steamed dumplings were too thick, and slightly gummy. Also the fact they were wrapped tortellini style rather than traditional dumpling style was a turn off.
— Tea was served in an extremely poorly designed manner (a glass) which made it all but impossible to drink for the first 10 minutes or so.
In sum, Ping Pong’s decently solid but if given the choice between this and a dodgier spot in Chinatown I’m taking the latter every time.

Went there for dinner on girlie night out on Thursday and had fantastic time, the atmosphere was amazing was delish and cocktails out of this world.
Staff are so friendly and efficient and very eager to introduce us to some new dishes. Simply I am looking forward to going back.