Address: 395 Edgeware Road, Cricklewood, London NW2 6LN.

Note, the only way to get to this place is to go north on A5 and take the first left turn after the Murco garage. From the north circular, you have to do a U turn at the Murco Garage or the Shell Garage as there is a central partition at the north circular end of Edgeware Road.

Telephone number: 0208 452 2333

Website: N/A – the wing yip website carries no information on the restaurant

Date of visit:  18 February 2010

Approximate cost per head: From £18 for a set meal for 2. Starters at around £5-8 per dish. Main courses at around £12 plus.

Comments on wine list/beer: Very basic but at a reasonable price

Summary:

This is my second visit.  This time it is for a full blown evening meal.

First of all, this is part of the Wing Yip supermarket empire and it shares the same building. There is a huge car park – above and below ground – sereving the supermarket and the restaurant.

The restaurant is in a single huge room which can easily do over 200 covers. On one side is the usual chinese BBQ stall – ducks, char sui etc. There is some sort of stage along one wall with a golden phoenix and a golden dragon and the word “happiness” in the middle. Further along the wall, they are a number of NUMBERs all with 8s in it. 8 sounds the same as making money. For example 128 sounds the the same as “sure to make money”. This could be the place to eat on Friday 13 but then you will have to travel there.

The menus are confusing as there were 2 different a la carte menus. One has the set meals in it and the rest are similar but not identical – prices are the same – between the 2 menus. Then, there were 2 specials cards and finally, a Chinese New Year Menu in red. On top of this is a “grill meat” sheet – char sui, roast duck etc. Besides the usual “cantonese” fare and crispy duck, there are several dishes not normally found in Soho chinese restaurants.

We started with crispy sea weed (deep fried greens with sugar and scallop powder), prawn toast and spring rolls. They were all ok but the prawn toasts were a bit thin on the filling – could be what they sell in the supermarket freezer.

Next, we had roast belly of pork and char sui, dow mew (mange tout greens or pea shoots), salt and pepper fish, chicken in black bean sauce, steak in peking sauce, paper wrapped porkchops with fermented bean curd, egg fried rice and chicken chow mein.

Lets take the dishes one at a time. On the up side were the chow mein – could be slightly crispier, fried rice and the dow mew – fresh and served with a garlicky sauce.The steak in Peking sauce which is essentially a sweet and sour sauce without the sour (vinegar) was excellent – bang on in terms of the quality of the meat and sauce.

The char sui and roast belly of park were ok. However, the salt and pepper/chilli fish was as good as it comes – succulent pieces of fish fried in batter then stir fried with onions, chilli and salt.

On the down side, the worst was the pork chop in fermented bean curd – my unusual dish. Now, most people do not realise that fermented bean curd is an ingredient in the making of char sui. The bean curd reacts with high heat and turns into a sort of burnt caramel coating which tastes completely different from the original uncooked fermented bean curd (tast like cheese that has gone off). Unfortunately, instead of wrapping each pork piece in its own envelope of greaseproof paper and deep frying it – the traditional approach, the whole lot was wrapped in a single sheet of paper and baked. So, you get a saucy anaemic version rather than the char sui effect as the temperature was not high enough.

Next, the chicken in black bean sauce had fairly strong shreds of chilli in it but very few black beans. This is probably because they used bottled black bean sauce rather than the actual beans. All bottled black bean sauces are more sugary, more runny than the traditional black bean sauce made from actual beans – you should not be able to pour this sauce.

The meal came to around £170 with a bottle of Chablis (£28) and several bottles of tiger beer.

On the whole its not bad – especially, the ease of parking. But, its not at the top end of the market in terms of cooking.

In my first survey, I had the dim sum which were fine. 

Eddie