The 7th choice by Annette was A. Wong with 2 Michelin stars and I was so excited about trying this restaurant as this is the only Chinese restaurant in the world that hold a Michelin star and not only 1 but 2.
The restaurant was not easy to book and when I realised the tables were always released at midnight exactly 3 months in advance – I had several trial runs to see how successful I was. At the time of booking you also have to pick the menu you are going for and we really wanted to try the whole Taste of China. However every time I did a trial run – and even if I was on their web site precisely at midnight – I always ended up on the waiting list – so decided that was never going to work. When I was ready to book the real thing – I therefore booked the menu 5 movements, which secured me a table and then afterwards emailed the restaurant and asked if we could change it to Taste of China, which they allowed me to do if we would turn up 15 mins earlier – so all good. Unfortunately a few hick-ups happened before our dinner as a month before I received an email that the Taste of China menu had gone up from £160 to £200 per person – quite a significant increase of 25%. Did think that they should have honour the guests, who already booked when the old price was advertised – but couldn’t be asked to fight about it. A week before I suddenly received another email that my reservation had been cancelled – so I nearly had a heart-attack. Luckily I saw the email straight away and phoned them up. The woman said they received a cancellation email from me, which I never sent – so still not quite sure what happened – but at least she was able to sort me out on the phone and gave me my booking back.
Finally the day had arrived where we were going to try this exotic place so we were all very excited. Wasn’t the easiest place to find but also because I think the entrance was nothing like we expected. Basically we entered via an outside extension, which was really just a tent and turned out that our table booking was also in the tent, which was definitely not where we expected to eat a 2 star Michelin dinner. Tried to ask for a table inside, but it was already full and after seeing how crowded the inside was, we realised we were probably better off in the tent. The other thing that was not Michelin star were the toilets. The toilets were Unisex and not very nice at all – so again a massive surprise – so the look and feel were nothing like any Michelin restaurant we had tried before.
Because the price of the menu had increased that heavily we decided to save money on the wine and just went with some cheaper options that we picked ourselves. However again it was a surprise how slim their wine list was as we thought with 2 Michelin stars you had to have a significant wine cellar – but maybe the rules have changed.
With everything else said – the real highlight and the only thing that was feeling like proper Michelin – was the food. That was for sure an amazing treat and I have never tasted any Chinese food like it. Our first dish – the scallops – were so beautifully done and so tasty. I loved the memories of Peking duck too but my absolute favourite were the ‘Shaanxi pulled lamb ‘burger’ with Xinjiang pomegranate salad’. It was so full of flavours and the meat so tender and delicious as I could have eaten more than one. We basically had 16 dishes and there were nothing I disliked. The other big highlight of the night was of course that Andrew Wong himself was in the kitchen and stayed the whole night – so we managed to say hello to him and compliment him on the food.
If you are going to this Michelin restaurant solely for the food – I can only say you will get one of the best experiences ever. However if you are going for the whole Michelin experience – then this is not a place I would recommend. Cannot help wondering what this would have been like if the restaurant itself have had a nice décor and with a nice atmosphere – then it would have been truly amazing. Not sure how they got away with getting 2 stars in their current settings and also their prices are a bit too steep.
