London Dining - Hakkasan / F&M / Three Greyhounds / Golden Dragon

The following is a summary of my culinary adventures in London last November (2004). There are scattered travel, site seeing and theatre notes as well, but mostly it is all about the food.

Hakkasan
We went to Hakkasan for lunch (though we skipped breakfast, so it was technically a dim sum brunch). Hakkasan Very cool lounge scene - thank you to everyone who recommended that we make it here for lunch, not dinner. I can see how this setting would easily devolve into a velvet rope nightmare after dark. We ordered chive dumplings, Har Gau, pork shumai, Singapore vermicelli, Chinese broccoli in oyster sauce and chrysanthemum tea - all of which managed to both adhere to our traditional notions of what they should be while exceeding any we had ever had before (if that makes any sense). The chive dumplings were unique - with the actual dumpling wrapper incorporating the chives, as opposed to the filling (picture a green dumpling). The Har Gau was another standout - we could easily have eaten 2-3 orders of these they were so good. The dumplings in particular stand out not only because the ingredients were so fresh, but also because you could identify all of the individual components. Rather than being a grey ball of pork-tasting meat, at Hakkasan, you can identify individual peanuts, bean sprouts, etc. The service was attentive without being too overly burdensome and the total bill of 37.50 pounds, while steep, was very worth it. NB - the bathrooms are an adventure. From there we headed out for more shopping and spent a good bit of time on Jermynn Street before dropping into Fortnam & Mason for tea.

F&M
Mind you, we opted to order a pot of tea with a side of scones from the restaurant on the ground floor as opposed to the 19.95 pounds per person variety of tea that was being served upstairs. An average pot of tea with scones that I believe came from a frozen package, but I doubt the tourists who were just so delighted that "the Queen shops here" even noticed. Skip it - I would go back to Liberty any day. From there we did some more walking / window shopping through SoHo and then wound up at the Three Greyhounds pub for a few pints before we went to see The Woman in White (quite good show actually, despite a score that is somewhat less than original - as my wife said, "if you liked Sunset Boulevard, you'll love Woman in White - you already know the songs").

Three Greyhounds
We drank at Three Greyhounds, but I was dying to order a bit of their Colcannon - it smelled absolutely divine. Not sure if anyone knows about this pub - it is tiny and seemed remarkably free of tourists, especially given its proximity to so many theatres, etc. After the show (BTW - when did they stop selling Magnum bars in the theatre? I had been looking forward to that post-intermission guilty pleasure all during the first act and absolutely could not find one anywhere), we decided to wander into Chinatown, with no particular destination in mind. After passing a bunch of old favorites, we finally settled into Golden Dragon - for no reason other than it was still open (it was 11:30 on a Monday night).

Golden Dragon
Lots of post-theatre folks here, lots of cigarette smoke and quintessential china town decor, but it reminded me of just how good your average Chinese restaurant in London can be. Seriously, I had forgotten how bad the stuff is in the States. We had a hot & sour soup, a wonton soup and a kung pao chicken - how generic can you get? It didn't matter - all were quite good, and at that hour of the night, completely fit the bill. Still, nothing to write to Michelin about. After dinner, we raced across the street (Gerrard) to the little Chinese bakery (I forgot the name), where we caught the owner just as he was about to close and persuaded him to sell us some sesame balls. We devoured the gooey, greasy, lotus root filled dough balls as soon as we got into our taxi and loved every artery clogging moment of it. You should definitely check this place out - those sesame balls are addictive!