China Delight
2 Minster Court
EC3R 7FL
Date of Last Visit: Thursday, January 22nd, 2008
The Victims: Echo and 23 others
The Damage: £20-ish each
The Background: In celebration of the impending Chinese New Year, Echo organizes dinner for 24 at China Delight in the City. We're all looking forward to it because it's the first time many of us will meet Echo's 1-year old daughter, Tong-Tong.
The Entrance: China Delight is empty at 7 p.m. on a Thursday night, and it makes me a little worried. However, I am grateful that we're offered the "Special Chinese Menu." You know the menu…the one that's all in Chinese. (One of my best memories ever is visiting my friend Jon in Toronto over Thanksgiving in college and going to the all-night Chinese diner where the entire menu was in Chinese up on the wall. We all picked a number and let ourselves be surprised.)
The Food: I try to put Echo in charge of ordering, but someone decides that we should each order our own dish. I don't know about you, but 24 dishes for 24 people is A LOT of food. We still managed to put a good dent in everything, but I honestly think we could have and should have ordered differently. If you can imagine, 23 people ordered MAINS. I wisely ordered two side dishes instead. (One ma po tofu, one green beans. Both enjoyed by all. But particularly by me, who thought the green beans were about the best thing she's eaten lately.)
I really wish I had taken more photos. These two don't do justice to the feast we had. And really, the green beans were great. Best of all was the whole sea bass, served at the very end of our meal. Stuffed with ginger. Also fantastic was some sort of spicy seafood stew…with a nice big fish head in it. (We gave it to Echo, who loves fish heads, apparently.)
The Service: A bit surly and impatient. Kinda just added to the charm.
The Loos: Really, someone needs to start a power-washing business.
The Verdict: I was glad I visited China Delight with a lot of people from China. Otherwise, I think we would have ended up with a lot of Kung Pao chicken and Sweet and Sour Pork. I would go back here for an honest meal at a decent price, but only with a Chinese-English dictionary.
2 comments
I suffer from this problem every time I go for a Chinese meal with a group of friends – they just don’t seem to quite get the concept of sharing! Still, the place I go to are usually kind enough to box up leftovers for us to take away.
When I go out with friends, we always order the number of dishes for the number of people but we always share. Not sure what you meant by starters/mains as I would consider the mapo tofu and the green beans as just two different dishes.
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