Between seeing Dennis Severs’ House and meeting at the Science Museum, five of us decided that Chinatown would be a good place to while away a couple of hours, not least of all as we had Tony with us. Chinatown is a small area to the south of Soho, very near to the Pillars where we’d met the previous night.
Needless to say, all the shops here sell Chinese food and goods, and of course, the only problem we had was which restaurant we should choose to have lunch. We perused a few menus until Tony’s nose began to twitch outside of the Golden Dragon restaurant at 28-29 Gerrard St. As it appeared to be full of "locals", this was a good sign, so in we went: Tony, Steven, Chris, Joanne, and myself.
Dim sum was order of the day, and within a few minutes, various small plates of very appetising food began to appear at our table, none of which I know the names of but which nevertheless were delicious. Prawns, beef, chicken, vegetables, rice, noodles, and goodness knows what else were all washed down with some Chinese tea.
It was a good opportunity to talk about our travel experiences, and this was kicked off by Tony, who told us that he had been to Greece last year for his honeymoon.
We sat, talked, and ate for almost two hours, and a great time was had by all. The restaurant was certainly busy, but we weren’t rushed and finished the food courses off with some delightful and very tasty custard tarts, Chinese-style.
Of course, chopsticks are order of the day here, and try as I might, I couldn’t (and never have) master the art of using them. I did feel a bit of an nerd using a fork as my four table partners were at ease with the more traditional utensils, but no one cared, and it certainly ensured that my lunch ended up inside me rather than all down my front.
All in all, it was a very enjoyable meal in truly authentic surroundings.