BA SHAN: HIDDEN DUMPLINGS FROM THE BAR SHU PEOPLE

Talk about a soft opening, Ba Shan, the latest restaurant from the owners of Bar Shu (to be re-opened after a refurbishment at the end of May, we were told) is having an opening so soft it could be a fluffy kitten wrapped in feather pillows.

There is no sign above the door yet, still being painted in China we found out, and the only evidence that the building diagonally opposite Bar Shu is an eatery of any sort is the view of laid tables through the small windows and a sign by a buzzer saying “Press this bell for Ba Shan.”

As we peered through the window, a waitress appeared at the door and ushered us in, apparently remembering us from a previous visit to Bar Shu and assuming correctly that we had come to give the new place a try. If she had not, we would probably still have been there now arguing if it really existed at all.

If the outside is a work in progress then the inside is already rather splendid, set out with the theme of a wealthy merchant’s house from Xi-an, with one room representing the “theatre” and another the “tasting room” etc etc

The food on the menu is also inspired by that same city at the end (or is that the beginning?) of the Silk Road and offered up in small plates to be eaten in the same way as Cantonese dim sum, with sharing the order of the day.

Starter plates included “strange flavour” peanuts with the “strange” being the unmistakeable hint of Sichuan peppercorn, with its tell tale anaesthetic properties numbing the tongue. Rather nice and better than a plate of ribs, slow cooked in soy and sugar until soft, and served cold. The dryness was a desired result of the process, they claim, I remain unconvinced as I did by the deep frying of prawns which were oily and saved only by an excellent “fish fragrant” dipping sauce.

So far, so blah, but things perked up immediately with the arrival of a plate of cold buckwheat noodles with a sweet, sour sauce and tofu and a procession of Xi-an style dumplings, which reminded me of my visit there, where I was told of a local saying

“If you have visited Xi-an and not eaten dumplings, you have not visited Xi-an”

The ones at Ba Shan are delicate and elegantly presented and the quotie in particular, equivalent to the Japanese gyoza, were delicious with the tell tale crust on the underside that comes from adding water to the pan while frying.

In fact, all of the dumplings we tried were spot on and even the vegetarian versions deserved a few raised eyebrows for their soft casings and fresh innards of crunchy vegetables. Points removed for not draining them properly so they sat in a puddle in the bottom of the serving dishes, but they did not last long enough for that to matter.

Best of all, were two versions of roujiamo, otherwise known as Chinese Hamburger. A Xi-an classic and here at Ba Shan served in bite size versions with a filling of cumin-scented beef a nod to Xi-an spice trail heritage.

Finally, a dish not yet on the menu, but which we were urged to try, small rounds of puff pastry, stuffed with more gently spiced beef, which broke open to release a pleasing waft of steam as they had come fresh from being deep fried.

With tea and a charge for lovely service, the bill of £70 made us sit back a bit, but represents an attempt to work our way through the entire menu and the way these small plate meals always tend to build up to more than you anticipate. A sensible meal for two here should come to no more than £60, consistent with dim sum at one of the better places.

Ba Shan wont please the purists, of course, just as its sister restaurants fail to stifle dreary moans about lack of authenticity, but by my limited experience of the region it celebrates, it does a pretty decent job and, what’s more, it’s a nice place to have lunch, which, I have to say, in London, is becoming an increasingly rare thing and worth trumpeting, even if they owners don't feel that way yet about the existence of the restaurant itself

SHANGHAI: STALE DUMPLINGS IN DALSTON

There are certain words you will never hear either of DH say.

“Make mine a half”

“Well done, please”

“I’m catching up with my Jane Austen”

Most unlikely of all, however are those three special little words every one likes to hear across the dining table

“You have it”

It just doesn’t happen. In fact so determined are we to make sure that all things are fair and square when it comes to divvying up food, that I am pondering on buying HP a micrometer for Christmas to be used when portioning out the rashers of bacon atop the turkey.

So, when I heard these unlikely little words coming out of his mouth on Sunday’s excursion to Shanghai, a well-regarded Chinese restaurant in Dalston, I knew that all was not right with HP Dim Sum wise.

We had been before, a number of times, but not for some years. Our first visit saw us enjoying remarkably good, fresh and imaginative Dumplings which confirmed the reviews we had read claiming this was where many of London’s off duty Chinese chefs came to eat on their days off. A second visit was pretty dreadful and we never bothered again. Until yesterday, that is, when after reading some half decent recent reviews we made another trek up for an early pre-football lunch.

Little has changed. The room, a former pie & mash shop still looks great with all the old fittings and the same manager is still greeting people. Unfortunately, the food was more like our last visit than our first with little to distinguish the dishes we were served from the bog standard bought in versions of Chinatown.

There should be a prompt but definite progression to eating Dim Sum. First the baked, then the fried, then the steamed with the pre-requisite plates of roast duck and belly pork coming out whenever they damn well like. About five minutes after we ordered, our table was covered with nine of the thirteen dishes we has chosen, with the others following soon afterwards. Bamboo bowls stacked up and plates of cheung fun sat congealing nicely as we worked our way round to them. The treasury pork pies, always our first port of call, were stone cold, a bad sign when there is no one else in the place and the roast meats slid around in a slick of grease.

It was all pretty depressing stuff and the almost rank air of stale food and shoddy cooking confirmed our view that their low turnover meant we were experiencing the previous day’s leftovers brought back to life. Only the har gow and a plate of crab meat fried in noodles escaped the withering opinion of HP and when he uttered those three little words “you have it” about the last pork pie, I knew it was time to get the bill.

At £42 including service, it was cheap enough to last less in the memory than the nausea caused, for the remainder of the day, by the food in the stomach, but was still as big a robbery as The Arsenal’s snatch and grab we saw later on T.V.

Oh, and in case you are wondering, yes I did eat the last pork pie. Mainly because I am greedy, but also because I have no doubt it will be a cold day in Hell before I hear those words issue from the mouth of HP again.

HERMANO SEGUNDO LOST IN LA LA LAND: DAY THREE

OK, before we go onto food, another in our series of irregular pop culture quizzes.

Who can tell me why the stairs in picture No1 are amongst the most important in movie history? Well, they are to me and brought back happy memories of childhood and even caused this hard hearted SOB to shed a little tear of Saturday afternoons remembered.

Now we have escaped the clutches of bad imitations of French food and delved into some of the city's ethnic offerings, LA began ot come into its own. I joined Sybil and a motley assortment of her friends for a quick lunch at Din Tai Fung, one of the best and most popular Shanghai dumpling houses. There was a huge line when we arrived, but fortunately Amanda, one of Sybil's chums had staked a claim near the front allowing our party of seven to snaffle a huge table for the next hour.

I left the ordering to others for once and just sat back to take advantage of my guest status as bowl after bowl of steaming soup dumplings were passed to me first. Very impressive they were too with the pre-requisite sag as you lifted them and the soup threatened to leak out in a hot torrent of stocky goodness. The trick is to bite the top off, douse with a little vinegar and then drink the contents before eating the meaty or seafood filling. I must have got through about twenty until I looked up and realised the others were looking at me with a mix of admiration and disgust.

Add to that some impressive fried rice, green beans spiked with garlic and some rice cakes and the bill of $16 seemed like a bit of a steal. It also meant that Sybil's suggestion of a two hour hike up to The Hollywood sign and back seemed less of a good idea than it had in the morning. Still, I am pleased to say we made it, as the picture proves.

L.A is beginning to grow on me.

Now, about those stairs............. anyone?

CZECHOSLOVAK NATIONAL HOUSE CLUB RESTAURANT: THE DUMPLINGS THAT TIME FORGOT

It may be fifteen years since Czechoslovakia dissolved itself into two nation states, but walking inside The Czech and Slovak House in West Hampstead you would be hard pressed to find much sign that the two were not still one. Maps of the combined nation line the wall and pictures of the last president, Vaclav Havel still have pride of place (although admittedly, he was also president of the Czech republic for ten years)

The food too is stuck in the past with a menu scarcely changed since Czechs and Slovaks arrived in numbers during and after WWII. It is enough to make a cardiologist quiver in their boots with deep fried bread, cheese, bacon and goose liver on offer for starters followed by hefty portions of roast duck, goose breast, wild boar and schnitzel for the main course, all coming with challenging portions of potato or bread dumplings. This is the food that time forgot, just like The India Club and The Polish Hearth Club, giving ex-pats a taste of a their homeland and us a glimpse of why they probably left in the first place.

I opted to eschew appetizers tempted by the list of desserts and was presented with a main course of goulas, which I was told was less spicy that its Hungarian counterpart and came with meaty chunks of tender beef, rather than pork (also on offer). The sauce was rich and dark and I cleaned the plate with a surprisingly light bread dumpling.

While I waited the twenty minutes it took to prepare my dessert, I read my Boxing News and sipped on a powerful, black Bernard beer before having a plate of apricot dumplings put in front of me. The whole fruit was surrounded by a dense, sweet steamed dough and topped with cinnamon sugar and melted butter before being spread with whipped cream. It resembled a badly performed breast implant operation, but was lighter and tastier than it appeared. I polished it off in short order much to the approval of the young Czech waitress.

A bill of £14 including a 10% tip for two hefty courses showed that their pricing has also failed to keep up with modern times. There is nothing subtle about food like this, but it is tasty enough and decent value, particularly when you consider that, as the beef and dumpling combination sits uneasily in my stomach, supper may be unecessary. But, if I had to eat like this every day, I suspect I would probably go and live in another country too.

BAOZI INN

Jive Miguel
He's in from Bogota

What’s the deal with all this China related craziness ? Nearly every bookshop I went into the other day had dump bins full of books about the country. The countdown to the Olympics is in full swing (does anyone actually give a toss ? ) and every other newspaper article seems to be about how quickly the Chinese economy is growing.

Shame it’s all based upon one of the most repressive regimes going, who are also one of the World’s top polluters. One World, One Dream indeed. So long as that world and dream are China’s, presumably.

Lunch today (coincidentally, more or less 100 years after the firt Chinese restaurant was opened in London) was with HS at new Chinese joint Baozi Inn. Specialising in street food from Beijing and Chengdu it’s the latest offering from the people behind Bar Shu. It’s a tiny place but as we were there at midday there was no problem in getting a table. It’s a quick in and out sort of place - service is pretty brisk – which would be perfect for anyone on their lunch break.

Prices look reasonable but can mount up if you start ordering extras although this is to be expected though anywhere in London’s famous West End.

Noodle dishes arrived first. My Peace and Happiness noodles looked nothing like their picture in the menu, with its big slices of Chicken, Duck and Sausage and I couldn’t locate any of the advertised sweet pickled garlic. It tasted ok but the soup lacked depth and complexity. The whole dish became a bit of a chore to eat – too much dull stock - so I swapped with HS half-way through.

His Sichuanese fragrant and hot pork noodles were much better. Excellent noodles came with a stir-fry of pork with just enough heat. It came on a bit like Spaghetti with a Pork Ragu made by a chilli-lover which is not necessarily a bad thing. There was also some decent Spinach with Soya beans on the side.

The Baozi (buns) and dumplings arrived a short while after the noodles. I liked the filling of the Pork Bun but the Egg one was pretty unmemorable. I found the dough a bit er…doughy for my tastes although HS tells me that they were pretty echt. Nicer were the Chengdu crescent dumplings that had a silky covering and good heat from the pool of chilli oil they sat in.

All in all pleasant enough if not exactly revelatory although this food is supposed to be ‘street’ so I wouldn’t expect it to be. What was good was that I didn’t have a dry mouth for the rest of the day like I got after Cha Cha Moon.

Also, as HS reminded me during the meal, I can at least post the above without any fear of censorship. Those in China are not so lucky. Mind you, they probably don’t attract the attention of internet crazies so I guess we’re even.