Royal China
24-26 Baker Street
London W1U 3BZ
Nearest Tube: Bond Street or Baker Street
4.5 Yummy Stars
Price £££ £3.80-£5.50 per dim sum (at time of writing)
Scallop dumplings at Royal China Baker Street
Buzz Factor 4.8/5 stars
Food 4.5/5 stars
Value for money 4.2/5 stars
Part of the Royal China Group with other branches in Queensway, Fulham, Canary Wharf and Harrow with fine dining at Royal China Club (which is a few doors down from this site).
This is a very popular place especially for dim sum lunch over the weekend. At peak times for lunch, the place is heaving with crowds of people waiting by reception and continues outside the restaurant. No reservation for weekend lunches. Best to come when it opens on the weekend or much later – like 2 or 3 pm. Nope – no chance of jumping the queue – not even if you try and beg. Strict number calling queuing system. You are not allowed to get a table until everyone in your group is here.
The place is elegantly decorated with black and gold walls. It is big and airy and resembles a sophisticated dim sum restaurant in Hong Kong. It is popular for Chinese wedding banquets and parts of the restaurant towards the back can be partitioned off for private dining.
Staff are really friendly and service is generally good, though it can be hard to get the waiters’ attention during peak times. Certain headwaiters are allocated to taking orders and serving food with separate waiting staff bringing the food for some reason. A bit annoying sometimes when you are dying to get to the food.
The food has been consistently good over the years. In fact, the dim sum is comparable with some top dim sum restaurants in Hong Kong.
My favourite dim sum dishes include: Har Gau – juicy prawns wrapped in a translucent pasta-like dough; Crab meat dumpling soup – my favourite dim sum – crab meat with shitake mushroom in a thin wrapper sitting in a yummy clear soup with goji berries; Turnip Paste – they taste a lot better than the name! The panfried turnip is slightly sweet which goes particularly well with the saltiness of the bits of Chinese cured sausage and crunchiness of the dried shrimp; Shanghai Pork Dumplings (Xiao Long Bao) – to relish this properly, I suggest eating it from a Chinese spoon. Take a little bite and suck out the soup first. The soup is the best part – enjoy every drop of it inside the dumpling. The soup can be piping hot – don’t burn your tongue. Unlike other places, the wrapper here is pretty thin; Panfried Gyozas – minced pork in a slightly crispy shell. They are best eaten, having been dipped in vinegar with slivers of ginger; Vietnamese Spring Rolls – super thin wrapper containing shrimp. These rolls are deep fried and best eaten with the sweet and spicy vinegar dip provided dripping all over them; Steamed Lotus Paste Buns – lotus paste in pillowy soft dough; Egg custard tarts – these little gems have the flakiest of pastries. Some of the best around; Baked/steamed custard buns – I prefer the baked ones – the buns have a slightly crunchy shell with egg custard inside.
Royal China has recently introduced a range of new more sophisticated (and more expensive!) dim sum. Worth trying eg Beef rolls with Enoki mushrooms.
