Leong’s Legends

Update 19/11/2008: Charmaine and Chowhound confirm that Leong’s Legends is open again!

Update 06/11/2008: Not sure what’s up with this restaurant lately but I’d heard they’re closed for renovations and now I’ve heard they’ve closed completely! Will update again when I find out what’s happening. Here’s the review anyway!

There was a queue outside Leong’s Legends when we went to visit one weekend. If we had known beforehand that the wait would be long, perhaps we would have gone elsewhere but we stood there and waited and waited and eventually, after about 45 minutes, we got a seat in this small restaurant. We were given menus while we waited and so by the time we finally sat down, I was ravenous after reading all the menu items and we knew exactly what we wanted to eat. We placed our orders and then contemplated the low hanging lamp (if we leaned too far forward, we’d hit our foreheads on it). Table sizes were also nice and large, providing plenty of room for the dishes we ordered.

First to arrive was the xiao long bao, those famous Shanghainese soup-filled meat dumplings. Bizarrely, the bottoms were too thin while the tops were thicker which meant that we lost almost all the soup while trying to pick up the xiao long bao as the thin bottoms stuck to the steamer, tearing holes in the dumpling skins. A shame it was as the flavour of the dumplings was fantastic.

Next was a Shanghai style fried pork chop with noodle soup. I was so happy when I tasted this as it had the same flavour as my beloved Taiwanese fried pork chop! The coating wasn’t as crispy as it could have been but the flavour made up for it.

As a small dish on the side, we had a braised pork belly bun, something I’d never seen in London. Though the slice of pork belly was not as melt-in-your-mouth as that I’d had at Momofuku Ssam Bar in New York, it was still tender and paired well with the crushed peanuts, pickled vegetables and soft white steamed bread.

I had ordered one portion of dim sum just to see how it would be and the little dish of my choice was one of my favourites, fried turnip paste. It’s not really turnip but daikon radish shredded and steamed with rice flour into a cake that’s then sliced and panfried. Quite good but from other reviews I see that I should perhaps have tried the shredded turnip roll – next time!

All this food plus a large glass of fresh soy bean milk came to about £20 for the two of us. Service wasn’t terrific, which sadly I’ve come to expect of all Chinese restaurants in London’s Chinatown. Just after I’d put my last bite in my mouth and placed down my chopsticks, the waitress swooped onto our table and cleared everything from it, including my napkin. I couldn’t even wipe my mouth! That’s just ridiculous and it definitely needs improving – and I hope it does improve before my next visit for the excellent food.

Leong’s Legends
4 Macclesfield St
London W1D 6AX