YiQi, Chinatown

As any self-respecting 2024 London restaurant-goer knows, the trend in Asian cuisine is towards regional specification. You're not just Thai, you're Northern Thai/Isarn. You're either selling Tokyo ramen or Sapporo Miso or Kyoto-style Kaiseki. And if you're Chinese, are you Shaanxi or Xinjiang or Sichuan? No of course you can't mix and match. You wouldn't want people to think you don't know what you're doing, do you?

It seems YiQi didn't get that particular memo. Unashamedly - in their words - "Pan Asian", the influences on the menu at this busy little Chinatown spot skit from Indonesia to Thailand to China, with brief stops in Japan and Malaysia along the way. And when they do settle on a style, for example pork with preserved beancurd, they are likely to zhuzh it up with Iberico pork, or elsewhere make use of premium USDA beef. It all has the potential to be a complete and utter mess.

And yet, it isn't. And that's because everything we tried at YiQi, despite or because of the lack of regional coherence, was at least enjoyable and often extraordinary. The kitchen team are, I'm told, ex-Hakkasan and Yauatcha, which means they have a pretty solid track record in making the kind of food London likes to eat (and, it has to be said, at prices to make them wince). And the very first dish to arrive meant serious business - a "Cordyceps" (there's one for the Last of Us fans) flower chicken salad, arriving prettily in a tube of bamboo and tasting of rich chicken and silky mushroom.

Stir fried clams came with the kind of punchy, salty sauce that would have made the telephone directory edible, and we had a great time polishing them off despite the slightly troubling knowledge that had we been paying this small plate of what is usually fairly inexpensive seafood would have cost £20.50. And to be frank, the yuzu-chilli sauce they came with was so powerful, the dish would hardly had been any less enjoyable if it had only contained stir-fried vegetables - the clams were a bit overwhelmed.

Charcoal-grilled chicken wings were at a slightly more normal price point of £13.80 for 6, and had an absolutely superb texture - a good bite inside, and a delicate crunch to the skin. Just touched by the grill enough to give them a good colour without being overwhemingly smoky, they were a short masterclass in how to prepare chicken wings and I enjoyed them very much.

It's worth stressing - again - that all of the food was at least good, and in the case of this bowl of "Hometown Four Kings" vegetable stir, fry, genuinely impressive. I'd never (to my knowledge at least) tried "stink beans" before, pulses the size and shape of broad beans but with an amazing deep vegetal flavour quite unlike anything else, and were a real revelation. In fact the whole dish was extremely good, a thick miso-enhanced (I think) sauce coating pieces of aubergine, green beans and okra (amongst others) which I would consider a must-order if you make your own trip to YiQi.

Whether or not you do head to YiQi of course rather depends on your attitude to their menu pricing. Malay lamb chops were superb - sous-vided to a yielding chew but flame-licked on charcoal to give them colour and texture - and cost £25.80 for four. Maybe complaining about restaurant prices in central London in 2024 is a bit like shouting into a hurricane but I can't help feeling that you don't quite get your money's worth. Plus our menu was stamped ominously with the words "SOFT LAUNCH", hinting that these numbers could eventually creep even higher.

Anyway, look, their restaurant, their rules. They deserve plenty of credit for using the words "Pan Asian" not attached horrifyingly to the word "buffet", and for a genuinely innovative and exciting menu that draws influences from all over the place and still has a certain style and coherence. London certainly could do with a few more spots willing to stick their neck out and do things differently, and I very much wish them the best. This city is a more interesting place to eat thanks to their arrival, and you can't ask for much more than that.

7/10

I was invitied to YiQi and didn't see a bill.

Xu, Chinatown

Trishna, Gymkhana, Hoppers, Bubbledogs, Kitchen Table, Lyle's, Bao. If at least one of those restaurants isn't in your top 5 in London then you almost certainly haven't eaten at them yet, and in fact I'd go further - there will be a number of committed foodies in the capital whose top five spots are all taken by members of the above list. The JKS group is known not just for the astonishing quality of the places they manage but for the sheer variety, running from smart Indian to Sri Lankan via seasonal fine dining and Taiwanese street food. Everything they turn their hand to is in some way notable, unique and brilliant.

They are, in short, some of the finest restaurateurs the city has ever known. The closest contemporary comparison is Alan Yau, who also instinctively "got" what people wanted from a restaurant and had pockets deep enough to make his visions a reality, but there was always a sense, particularly at lower-end concepts like Busaba Eathai but also at flagship Hakkasan and certainly at latest Soho "Chinese gastropub" Duck and Rice that atmosphere and attitude came first, and food (an often distant) second.

Not so with JKS, and certainly not at Xu, where a gloriously opulent interior, all dark carved woods and plush, intimate booths, is merely the perfect setting for some of the most exciting and inventive Chinese/Taiwanese food to ever hit the capital. I'm intensely aware I'm on very shaky ground talking details, as my knowledge of high-end Taiwanese cuisine is only slightly more developed than my understanding of the rules of American Football, but I know good food when I taste it and this "tomato and smoked eel" was great, the soft cubes of fish sharpened by a commendably punchy tomato/chilli sauce, topped with crisp daikon for extra crunch.

Girolles vermicelli was no less interesting for being the vegetarian option, containing a well-seasoned mound of fresh mushies and nice defined glass noodles. I think there were squares of something else in there too - perhaps egg, although don't quote me on that. Look, I did warn you I wouldn't do very well with the descriptions.

The beef in "Numbing beef tendon" was sliced into neat flat circles, covered in Sichuan peppercorn-spiked chilli oil, and topped with various herbs and finely chopped spring onions. At its heart this was a smartened-up version of the "sliced beef in chilli oil" you may have enjoyed in your favourite Sichuan restaurant, only more subtle, more attractive and that much more rewarding.

Between the starters and mains we snuck in a snack from the main menu, "Xian Bing", pastry puffs containing robustly-flavoured pucks of aged pork and accompanied by a saucer of quite lovely vinegar. One of the highlights of a meal at Bao in the early days was a dressing of aged white soy sauce that came with the beef rump cap, and it's clear their attention to detail to sauces has been carried over to Xu. In fact, the sense of every element of every dish having been lovingly crafted and tested to perfection will be familiar to anyone who's ever eaten at Bao.

The only main that didn't completely knock us over was the seabass, so let's start with that. Though cooked perfectly, and certainly a generous portion, there was something surprisingly one-note and - dare I say it - boring about the dressing, both the inoffensive coriander (presumably) side and the sledgehammer punch of the chilli side, most of which we ended up scraping off. Still, as I say, the fish was good, and was all eaten.

Much better was Mapo Tofu, set in a thick, silky layer and dressed with a rich concoction of herbs, greens and spices. Though onstensibly the "vegetarian option", there was absolutely no sense that this dish compromised anything of the punch and power of the meaty dishes; in fact it made a case for being the best dish overall.

Well, perhaps apart from the beef. Oh lordy, the beef. I have to admit to a twinge of disappointment when this dish was placed on the table, as it looked quite far from the immaculately manicured row of sliced cow I'd been led to expect from press releases, and indeed the art on their own website. But that disappointment lasted no longer than the moment I placed one in my mouth. With a delicate crust from the grill, and a meltingly tender flesh blessed with just the right amount of aged funk, this was a supreme bit of beef cooking, impressive at any price point never mind as part of a £20 pre-theatre menu. Whoever their supplier is (I wouldn't be surprised if it's Warrens who they worked with at Bao), they should be very pleased indeed that their product has been given such a glorious showcase.

Desserts continued the theme of exhausting attention to detail at a seriously reasonable price point. "Ma Lai Cake" is a delicate sponge, steamed to order to a beautiful golden dome, alongside two cute pots of condensed milk and orange-spiked butterscotch. Perhaps these are eaten after every dinner in Taiwan, but I'd not seen one before and was delighted.

And it would be easy to raise your eyebrows at the fact that Xu don't make their own ice cream, until you learn that they get theirs from Gelupo Gelato from just around the corner, who make what most consider the best in the capital. Topped with a dense, salty slick of black sesame, this was a clean, clever and beautiful thing.

So yes, of course I loved it. I loved it the moment I walked through the door, through every carefully-considered, intelligently-constructed dish of fire and flavour, and I loved the bill at the end which at £42 a head with plenty to eat and drink is about as close to a bargain as you're going to find in central London these days. No, not everything was perfect, but even the bits I wouldn't order again were clearly made for the right reasons, and could have easily been someone else's favourites.

Another JKS restaurant, another triumph then. It would almost be possible to take umbrage at these irritating over-achievers, with each new venture better than the last and gathering armfuls of awards and accolades as they go. But for birthdays at Trishna, family meals at Gymkhana, drunken evenings at Bubbledogs and happy long lunches perched at the bar at Bao, I feel I owe these people so much of what I've enjoyed about eating out in London over the last decade, and I have nothing but gratitude for their considerable accomplishments. And now there's Xu, just the latest in a long list of reasons why London is safe in their hands.

9/10

Shuang Shuang, Chinatown

If you've ever been lucky enough to spend your evening using little wire fishing nets to scoop beef balls and sliced spam out of a vat of boiling animal stock, you'll know that the Chinese Steamboat, or Hot Pot, is one of the most enjoyable ways of having dinner. But the amount of preparation required, not to mention the large amount of specific kit you need, means it's generally impractical to really make the most of with even two people, never mind the solo diner, and most hot pot joints in London (for example the rather good Little Lamb) are geared towards tables of four upwards. You order what you hope is enough food - huge plates of curled wafer-thin beef, neat rows of raw prawns, as much tofu as you can carry - and dump it all in the broth. Then generally lose a few bits for a half hour and come across a manky overcooked bit of grey matter just as you're ready to pack up and go home. It's all part of the fun.

But a few doors down from Little Lamb is a brand new way of eating hot pot that can cope just as well with the solo diner as the large group. Shuang Shuang, it has to be said, is a very clever concept. The bar that snakes organically around the bright downstairs dining room has, at regular intervals, a sunken receptacle for the traditional hot pot tins, divided into two. So couples can share a single pot, or the solo diner can just have one half to themselves. Running along the top of the bar is a Yo! Sushi-style conveyor belt carrying along little starter-sized portions of the usual hot pot ingredients which you're charged for - again in the Yo! Sushi way - at the end by totting up different coloured empty plates.

The concept, then, has every chance of being a roaring success. The question is whether Shuang Shuang can run the nuts and bolts of the service and other details well enough to make that success happen. And I have to say our evening didn't get off to a fantastic start when we were ignored for a good ten minutes after being seated and forced to watch another party just to our left get seated, served and begin enjoying their dinner before we'd even had an opportunity to gasp for water.

But then we started spotting interesting cold dishes travelling past on the conveyor, and a couple of early choices instantly made up for it. Smacked cucumber and a pig's ear salad were two superbly-constructed Sichuan staples that had just that addictive play of heat, texture and colour that makes food from that part of the world so endlessly rewarding. And at barely a couple of quid each (as far as I can make out; the menu only bears a vague resemblence to the dishes on offer, as do the prices), pretty good value.

For the main event, we decided to split our pot between the "Mala" broth, numbing with a serious amount of Sichuan peppercorns, and the rather more subtle (in fact a bit bland at first) "Black Bird" made from rare breed chicken. Into these we divided beef balls, pork mince, two different types of noodles, and I think a couple of other selections from the travellator, pork & prawn wontons and tofu. And yes, it was all pretty good. These are cheap ingredients of course but after they'd all been bouncing around in the broth for a while they took on that familiar rewarding hot pot flavour, of mystery meat and animal stock, and we had very little cause to complain.

Well, there was one thing. "Wagyu" beef, ordered from our rather elusive waiter, arrived completely frozen solid. I'm not naive enough to think that Japanese Wagyu isn't usually frozen as it travels halfway across the world but I do think if I'm paying £9 for a plate of it in a restaurant in London they could at least bother defrosting it first. It didn't taste that dissimilar to the "normal" conveyor belt beef anyway, once it had been given a few minutes in the hot pot, so maybe that's just nature's way of telling me not to spend money on Wagyu beef in Chinese restaurants.

Anyway, snaggles with service and frozen beef sticks aside, we did enjoy dinner. And if the plan is indeed to roll it out into airport departure lounges and shopping centers up and down the country then, well, I guess it beats Café Rouge. Our bill came to £40.28 for two, which is incredibly reasonable, and given its very handy location and and despite the no-reservations seating policy (which makes sense really) I can certainly see myself popping back. Shuang Shuang deserves all the credit for coming up with a genuinely new way of serving traditional Chinese food in London, and you can't say that very often.

7/10

If they manage to squash a few of the early issues, there's a very good chance Shuang Shuang could make it in to the next version of the app. Meanwhile see where else is good in Chinatown.

Beijing Dumpling, Soho

Eating out as disastrously regularly as I do, I am often accused of asking "higher standards" of restaurants than your average punter. Usually when I am accused of this, it just means that the person making the accusation has a different view of a restaurant than my own, so perhaps "average punter" is shorthand for "me". Anyway, that aside, I still don't think the charge sticks - yes I eat out far more than is healthy or necessary, but that doesn't mean my objective standards are higher, it just means that I have a slightly more comprehensive overview of what constitutes value in a meal out. They may be queueing down Shaftesbury Avenue in depressing numbers to pay £18 for commodity steak frites at Jamies Diner, but how many would be there if they know Zedel Brasserie were doing much better just around the corner for £9? Actually, don't answer that, I don't want to know.

The point is, it is possible to enjoy a vast range of standards in food and service as long as you feel like you're getting your money's worth, and you aren't aware of anywhere doing the same thing either better for the same price, or the same for cheaper. To this end, it's possible I enjoyed my lunch at Beijing Dumpling far more than the friend I ate it with because what I know about the restaurants and food of Chinatown would make a very small slogan inside a fortune cookie, and my friend (Lizzie Mabbott) has written a book on the subject.

So on this occasion (in common with most others), I was playing "average punter" to Lizzie's expert, and happy for once to put aside all thoughts of whether better was available elsewhere for less, I actually really rather enjoyed myself. As the name suggests, dumplings are the thing here, made fresh and by hand in the window of the premises, and available in a variety of styles. First up were the mythical Xiao Long Bao, rarely seen outside the best Chinese restaurants because, not to put too fine a point on it, they're an absolute bastard to make. Each lovingly-wrapped dumpling contains a portion of pork filling and - the clever bit - is itself swimming in a measure of rich stock, meaning the method of negotiating this delicate bag of boiling hot liquid from the steamer to your mouth without it either exploding down your top or dealing third-degree burns takes almost as much skill as that required to construct it in the first place. Lizzie thought the pastry casing was a bit clumsy and thick, and there wasn't enough liquid. I got soup all down my top.

Cucumber salad came in a silky sesame/garlic dressing and was just the thing to help cool burning tongues. It was chopped up and dressed fresh to order, we watched them do it from our table, a detail that surely didn't hurt the flavour.

Next, a generous bowl of spicy chicken dumplings in soup, which wasn't anything much greater than the sum of its parts but still very easy to eat. Well, easier than the Xiao Long Bao anyway.

Perhaps we should have paid closer attention to the use of plurals on the Beijing Dumpling menu but I still don't think anyone would realistically expect "Seafood Supreme Dumpling" to be literally one massive saucer-sized dumpling on its own in a steamer. There it was anyway, like a beached deep-sea creature, and we were baffled as to how to approach eating it. You couldn't chop it in half because you'd lose the soupy insides. You couldn't somehow drain the liquid first without special equipment or perhaps with the use of a straw but thought that might get us thrown out. We half considered forming a makeshift lattice out of four chopsticks and lifting it in a co-ordinated movement onto a separate plate, but eventually decided this too was going to prove impossible. In the end I think we sacrificed some of the liquid and gingerly peeled chunks of it apart using a soup spoon - hardly ideal, but less humiliating than the alternatives. It had a good fresh seafood flavour, you'll be pleased to hear.

The bill came to £37 for two, and at the risk of repeating myself, whether you consider that acceptable depends on how many other better £37 dumpling meals you've had in the centre of London. Speaking purely for myself, in my temporary role as an average punter, it seemed perfectly decent - service could have been a bit better (they seemed to be operating some sort of quota system on ice cubes, strictly one per customer only) but this didn't really spoil anything. Chinatown will most likely never be my comfort zone, but at least now I know where to get some nice, fresh, handmade dumplings. Even if I don't quite yet know how to eat them.

7/10