Ping Pong Dim Sum Celebrates Chinese New Year

Last night I was invited down to Ping Pong's flagship dim sum restaurant on Great Marlborough St in Soho to sample the dishes that they've devised for Chinese New Year, and to try out the rest of their range. What an interesting evening it turned out to be...



Although the restaurant on Marlborough Street was their first outlet, Ping Pong now operate 11 other dim sum restaurants across London, and they even have three further afield (in Washington DC, Sao Paulo and Dubai). The first thing that strikes you when walking through the door is how understated it is in comparison to the rest of the Chinese restaurants in town - its elegant as opposed to incredibly gaudy! The restaurant is laid out in an interesting way too - on the first floor you can gather around an open-plan food preparation area or sit at a horshoe-shaped balcony with a view of the dining room downstairs and a huge video projection wall outside which has a big reflecting pool beneath it.



On to the food then. Chatting to their head chef it turns out that a top dim sum chef is years in the making - each of the little steamed parcels can have upwards of ten ingredients in it, like a little meal in itself. We had the opportunity to try the whole range, from more-ish rolls and delicately seasoned ribs to their 'Ping Pong Pure' range of translucent steamed dumplings which, I was assured, will only set you back 500 calories or so for a healthy serving. In terms of the food, what would I recommend? Well, my favourite has to be the sesame-seed covered pastry parcels containing char siu pork smothered in honey, with the white and fluffy char siu dumplings coming in a very close second. The steamed fish wrapped in vine leaves was pretty special too. In fact, I'd be hard-pressed to find fault in anything that we ate last night - it's a good thing that the dishes eventually stopped arriving at our table because otherwise you'd have had to roll me out of there at the end of the evening!



If all those dishes leave you feeling feeling thirsty they also have a vast array of chinese-themed coolers and cocktails and an equally large range of teas to choose from - some of the latter are even specially wrapped so that they unfold like delicate flower arrangements in the hot water as you're waiting for them to cool down...



Just to note that if you're really in a hurry you can grab food to take away, and they also cater for parties and celebrations - apparently there's been a wedding reception or two on the premises in the recent past! If you're watching the pennies at the moment but you've got a big appetite, they also have 'Lazy Sumdays', an all-you-can-eat feast for £18.89 a head. I might try that out myself pretty soon.



I can recommend a visit to Ping Pong without reservation, particularly if like me you're a bit bored of standard Chinese fare. You'll love it!