Phoenix Palace Chinese Restaurant
5 Glentworth St
Marylebone
London NW1 5P
Nearest Tube: Baker Street
3.6 Yummy stars
Price ££ £3.90-£5.90 each dim sum dish; Appetizers £5.90-£11.90 (at time of writing)
Wasabi Prawn Dumplings at Phoenix Palace
Buzz Factor 3.5/5 stars
Food 3.8/5 stars
Value for money 3.5/5 stars
Phoenix Palace is sumptuously decorated in a very traditional Chinese style. You are greeted with a huge wooden Chinese throne-like chair when you enter through the automatic doors. The place is big and dimly lit with numerous Chinese red lanterns hanging from the ceiling. Some sections of the sides of the big room sit on a raised platform and give you good view of the whole restaurant.
Service was adequate. The waiters were attentive and took away empty plates soon after they have been finished. Quite bemused that one more experienced staff was heard telling off another less experienced staff across the room in Cantonese .…. Perhaps they thought no one would understand what was being said?
The dim sum menu is huge here, covering the usual ones and more with a long list of specials as well as other specials available over the weekends. They have on offer variants of the regular dim sum eg steamed wasabi prawn dumplings (which are essentially har gau – prawn dumpling – with the wrappers slightly flavoured in wasabi), lamb dumplings in a Peking style spicy sauce (minced lamb filling tasting like the usual beef ball dim sum), lamb fried dumplings (like gyozas), crispy onion pancakes and crispy mini dough sticks. Some were better than others. The Shanghai dumplings had a delicious soup inside (which you just suck out before it leaks everywhere and disappear), though the way that the dough was gathered made the top of the wrapper way too thick. The Vietnamese spring rolls had a tasty filling though the skin was similarly too thick. The accompanying dipping vinaigrette sauce was good though. The best dim sum for us was the egg custard tarts, which came in well-baked puff pastry.
If you are interested in learning more about dim sum, do take a look at my Dim Sum Guide under Yippie Blog.
