Dining in a hotel restaurant is one of my favourite things at the moment, i think you can get more of an experience out of it. Waltzing in through the lobby, round some spiral staircases with art work across the walls, and then of course the restaurant itself. I also find the service to be much more polished. Le Chinois is clearly advertised on Sloane Street offering high quality chinese food, which won’t break the bank. It’s the younger sibling of award winning restaurant Hua Ting in Singapore.
If you get a chance to dine at Le Chinois of an evening during the week, then book through Toptable for a 40% discount off your food. We sat down and were warmly welcomed by a very lovely (and very camp) restaurant manager, who couldn’t do enough for us. We toiled through the extensive menu and decided on a dim sum platter, which surprised us with including some vegetable spring rolls and sesame prawn toast. The dim sum was good, well flavoured with a prawn, and vegetable offering (though i’ve had much better). The spring rolls were crunchy and well filled, but nothing more than average. It was the delicate prawn toast which took us by surprise, quite delicious, and very fresh.
The star dish of probably the whole meal was the crispy soft shell crab tossed in a garlic, spring onion and a chilli flake dressing. The sauce itself was heavenly and beautifully balanced but the batter just made it. Barely a sign of oil in the dish, it was as crunchy as an ordinary batter, but with the lightness of tempura. There was plenty of crab meat and we were very close to ordering a second helping. One of my favourite examples of this dish in london, and certainly rivals the version at Hutong – though they are very different, with Hutong focusing on burnt chillies.
Mains were again good, but a little more varied. The sizzling venison which came serving on a cast iron plate had a sauce of ginger and spring onions. The flavour was good but perhaps venison wasn’t the right choice as it quickly became overcooked on a hot prolonged plate like this.
Singapore noodles were fantastic. Not too heavy on the heat, or the curry flavour but instead focusing on the ingredients in the dish such as succulent strips of chicken, juicy prawns, lots of vegetables and a good coating of sesame seeds. A perfect accompaniment to our food, but also a meal in its own.
The next dish was a real oddity for us, and we couldn’t work out if we liked it, or loved it. The dish, named golden sand prawns was a well portioned plate of seven huge prawns which had been cooked with buttermilk, deep fried and served with chilli, curry leaves and a sort of buttery crumb. The first mouthful is delicious, a huge juicy prawn, buttery and rich – but then it hits your insides, i managed to get through most of them but they are so incredibly rich (and buttery) it can be hard work, its definitely not a dish for those who are health conscious, or watching their weight.
The prawns had killed us over, but we still wanted to squeeze in a dessert. The restaurant manager insisted we try the banana fritter, which i wasn’t too keen about. How wrong was i to doubt him, by far the best banana fritter i have ever experienced – mostly down to Le Chinois having mastered the perfect batter recipe, with all the crunch, loads of flavour and lightness. A soft gooey and caramelised banana was waiting inside and a sweet syrup to soak it all up. The ice cream on the other hand felt like it just came from a vanilla doused value pack at Tesco. These fritters are so good it was a travesty that they serve this ice cream with it.
A strange addition to the menu was a dessert more familiar with French cuisine. Apple tarte tatin, which had been cooked earlier that afternoon and was served cold (either that or they left it on the side to long). The flavour was nice, but far too heavy on the sugar which overpowered it and let it down slightly. That ice cream made another appearance as well.
Le Chinois was, and is an unexpected dining experience on Sloane Street which apart from the hotel guests, i think the locals are blissfully unaware of its existence. Quality is of a high standard with lovely ingredients used in its cooking (apart from the ice cream) and a place which i would happily return to. WIth a 40% discount during the weekdays (when booked online) its an absolute steal which with cooking like this, it really should be much busier.
7/10
