The Independent, 31 May
John Walsh visits Cha Cha Moon, London W1
I've heard of fast food, but this is ridiculous. You give your side-dishes order in Cha Cha Moon, and the waiter rushes off to get them pronto, rather than wait to hear your order for main dishes. Everyone seems in a tearing hurry to sit you down, stick a napkin down your neck, take your order, ladle some won ton or ho fun down your throat, tap their feet and drum their fingers while you try to digest it, then bustle you out of the place so they can hurl two other people into your vacant spot on the bench. It's very brisk. If a restaurant could be a person, this one would be a Chinese Richard Madeley.
Cha Cha Moon – Independent review in full >>
The Guardian, 31 May
Matthew Norman visits Mr Chu China Palace, Hull
Before we begin in earnest, may I make a futile attempt to reassure the gentleman who inspired this review that what follows has nothing to do with snobbery? After the Crewe and Nantwich by election, we've all had our fill of retrograde class warfare, so let me state for John Prescott's benefit that I did not arrive at Mr Chu China Palace in a top hat, insouciantly flicking half-crowns towards the malnourished urchins by the front door. Nor is there any link between this public school product's judgment of what Mr P described, in his memoirs, as "my favourite Chinese restaurant in the world", and the 11-plus failure that rankles him still, a mere 57 years after the event. No, it is this, and this alone - Mr Chu's is an absolute shocker.
Mr Chu China Palace – Guardian review in full >>
http://lifeandhealth.guardian.co.uk/food/story/0,,2282585,00.html
The Times, 31 May
Giles Coren visits Hix Oyster & Chop House, London EC1
I had this idea that it might be fun in future always to take a famous TV comedian with me when I go out to review a restaurant. I’ve made about as many jokes about food now as I think I can – the well is finally dry – and I thought perhaps a bit of professional input might breathe fresh life into this jaded page. Obviously, I’m talking about posh comedians. I don’t want to sit there with Jim Davidson pulling ungo-bongo faces whenever a black person gets up to go to the loo, or have Russell Brand slipping off every six minutes to nail another waitress to the lavatory wall.
Hix Oyster & Chop House – Times review in full >>
The Observer, 1 June
Jay Rayner visits The Garrick’s Head, Bath
You are invited to dinner by close friends. Very close friends. The sort of people you can talk utter cobblers to all night and still feel, at the close, that you have put the world to rights. You like being in their house. It's a comfortable place, designed with just enough taste to be interesting without being distracting. And you like the fact that they are always quick off the mark. No hanging around for dinner here. They have an instinct to feed. If only they were a little better at it. They do try, bless 'em. They have shelves of Jamie and Nigella and Nigel.
The Garrick’s Head – Observer review in full >>
areyourreadytoorder.co.uk
Jan Moir visits Cha Cha Moon, London W1
Cha Cha Moon. The name doesn’t actually mean anything. Alan Yau just made it up because he liked the way it sounded. And it does, as I reflect over a bowl of his dan dan mian, have a certain irresistible zing-a-ding ring that is so typical of him. Over the years, Hong Kong-born Yau has emerged, perhaps, as the restaurateur of our times. After helping his parents run a Chinese take away in the Norfolk town of King's Lynn when he was just a boy, Yau started properly in 1992 with Wagamama, the stylish but cheap noodle bar which was an entirely new concept for London, but a smash hit nonetheless.
Cha Cha Moon – areyoureadytoorder.co.uk review in full >>
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