Guizhou Restaurant Maotai Kitchen - London's China Town Off The Beaten Track

Hidden away just off the main road in London’s China Town is Maotai Kitchen. A welcome change from the Hong Kong diners and the Beijing Ducks, it offers food from Guizhou in South China to culinary travellers. According to the restaurant website it is "the only Chinese restaurant in UK specialising in the regional cuisine from Guizhou Province of China". A hidden gem in the middle of Chinatown, then?

If you can make it up on to the first floor, you should. The atmosphere is a lot cosier and quieter up there, so you can enjoy your food while taking in the decoration. Calligraphy paintings of beautiful Southern Chinese landscapes fit wonderfully into the red – and – black colour design, giving the location a fusion feel of tradition and modernity.

黔西啤酒鸡

Overall the food was excellent. We had special South – Western beer chicken 黔西啤酒鸡, black pepper beef with chillies 杭椒煸肥牛 and the braised aubergine with shrimp and soy bean paste 顺德烧茄子。I felt the beef was a little bit too dry for my taste, though admittedly I am very picky in that area. The chicken dish was an utter revelation , since it reminded me strongly of Sichuan fish boiled in chili oil 水煮鱼 and its incredible tenderness only enforced this impression. The aubergine, as usual the toughest test for any restaurant I try, was splendid, with little pieces of mashed shrimp wedged  in between it.

顺德烧茄子

Food great, atmosphere great, restaurant great? Well, what I was thoroughly disappointed with at Maotai Kitchen was the service. Having showed up with a voucher it took almost ten minutes of discussion to convince them we could use it; not a great start. That might have been forgotten, if not for the waitress being completely distracted  while taking our order, peaking over and chatting with a table at the other end of the restaurant. As if we needed proof that she wasn’t listening, of course she promptly brought the wrong dish.

Due to our voucher, we ended up at £40 for two people, which was good considering the great food and okay considering the service. Had we been asked to pay the full £53 though, I would have mourned the loss a lot more.

In the end, the bad service is simply something to be aware of, but I would suggest just accepting it in light of the great, out-of-the-ordinary food you get. 

Maotai Kitchen

12 Macclesfield Street

W1D 5BP

中国好声音欧洲站伦敦决赛 The Voice of China Europe Auditions Final

Sunday marked the grand finale of China's The Voice Europe tour 中国好声音欧洲版.Thousands of eager Chinese born and/or living abroad plus the odd white 'Laowai' competed for a ticket to China to compete in what is probably the biggest singing competition on earth.

The excited finalists from London and Manchester, Paris and Amsterdam had three things in common: Their love for music, the Chinese language and the dream to become Chinas next voice.

All contestants are definitely tremendous talents when it comes to singing.  As far as performance is concerned it became clear that many of them still have a thing or two to learn. While almost pitch - perfect, often the performances were a bit stiff and did not manage to convey the emotions of the song.

What became very clear to me as I was watching all these lovely, hopeful talents was that either I am getting old or today's music is just not as catchy as it used to be. My favourites were a Mandarin aria delivered by 武赫 in a splendid robe. She was elegance incarnate and imho the strongest voice in the entire competition. Her performance was one of the two that gave me goosebumps.

Wu He, sheer elegance and splendid voice

Goosebumps number two was  suprise star 16-year old 陈伟康s rendition of good old classic "Beyond the Sea" in Mandarin. I never imagined such a young dangly teddy bear could be the Asian Sinatra.

Tall boy center: 16 year old wonder boy Chen Weikang

I was very pleased with the judges choice for the 5 finalists as they were definitely the strongest contestats vocally and on a performance level.

Overall, the Voice Europe finale in the Shaw Theatre was a highly entertaining show with hit music spanning an extraordinarily wide net of time and genres. I wish the European finalists all the best for their trip to the big battle in China!

Super Three Restaurant 巴山蜀水 @ All Saints, London - Genuine Sichuan Cuisine

If you think that Sichuan cuisine is Kong Pow Chicken and anything with a lot of chillies, then Super Three restaurant, 巴山蜀水 might be able to teach you a thing or two. Their genuine Sichuan chef dished out some exotic combinations I had never seen before.

碧绿肉松卷 Dark Green Meat Floss Rolls: The cucumber rolls topped with a thin slice of omelette filled with shredded pork meat remind you a lot of sushi in form and taste, in my case a full success, since I am a sushiholic. I would live off the stuff, if my wallet could take it. Anyway, I digress. The rolls were a succulent combination of sweet and savoury, crunchy and soft, a very light dish. 

Dark Green Meatfloss Rolls

冷锅鱼 Cold Pot Fish: This dish is very easily confused with Sichuan poached sliced fish in hot chili oil 水煮鱼. As the chef will tell you, there is a difference in spices in addition to the preparation. This dish is brought to the table cold. The flame is switched on at the table and it slowly cooks the fish in front of your eyes. It also has many more of the infamous Sichuan peppercorns than its brother. There is no way you can get through this meal without getting a numb mouth. I did find the taste slighlty different to my surprise, it tasted more fragrant and diverse compared to the hot chili oil fish, which does tend to be slighty overpowered by the taste of chili. 

Cold Pot Fish

橙汁冬瓜 Wintermelon with Orange Juice: Super Three has this special dish on offer, an unexpected combination of cold winter melon soaked in orange juice is sweet and tangy, crunchy and juicy. Definitely a surprising combination of ingredients, I could not quite make my mind up about this dish.

Wintermelon with Orange Juice

白灵菇扒菜心 Mushrooms with Chinese Cabbage: This was probably the most unspectacular dish ingredient- wise but the taste was truly exceptional. It just stood out from the spicy dishes and the oily ones. The mushrooms we were told are from Tibet, I am still not sure whether that was what made the whole ensemble so delicious. Seasoned perfectly it was light and fresh but not bland. 

Mushrooms with Chinese Cabbage

This is just a small selection of Super Three's offer. If you are of the more adventurous type you can get beef tripe and tongue. I can also recommend the pumpkin cakes 南瓜饼 with evaporated milk dip as dessert.

Pumpkin Cake

Beef Tongue

A visit to Super Three 巴山蜀水 will leave you around £20 poorer, which is a little cheaper than Chinatown. However, the problem with this restaurant is getting there. Located at All Saints DLR there is no direct tube connection and a lot of changing lines involved, unless you live there already. Still, I found it worth a visit. Just book a table, I have heard it can get quite busy.

Super Three 巴山蜀水

207 East India Dock Road

London E14 0ED

Tel: 02075158700

Ping - Kitchen, Bar & Ping Pong @ London, Earl's Court

We chose this funky place in Earl's Court for a fun work-do. What an experience! We were told that at Ping you eat pizza and play ping pong, which sounded like an unusual proposition. Still, I thought I had it all figured out. Was I wrong.

First off bouncers checked our ID - that should have been the first clue that this was not what I had been expecting. The telltale stairwell leading underground was the second. What I had imagined to be a restaurant where all the sporty people go to hang out is actually something a lot more akin to a club. It was Thursday night and the best of the noughties was blasting from the speakers while the hip urbanites celebrated the approaching weekend with a drink in one hand and a bat in the other.

A club that is also a restaurant with Ping Pong - I grew suspicious. Can a place that attempts so many different things at once really be good? The short answer is: It can.

In Germany you are spoilt for choice when it comes to genuine Italian Pizza, it is quite simply everywhere you go. Many an experience in London has shown me that American style Pizza can be slightly dominant. I half- heartedly ordered a Parmigiana Pizza with mozzarella, Parmesan and aubergine. It was the most divine real Italian pizza that I have had in London. A tiny little too crispy around the edges for my taste but a pizza cutter came with it and so all was good in the end.

The cocktail list is very innovative, a welcome change from your cosmos and your daiquiris. If their Vanilla Peach Bellini is any indication their drinks are splendid.

Innovation seems to be what Ping is going for - new drinks, crazy desserts (pizza dough topped with fresh and sweet ricotta and mascarpone, covered in candy, fruits, pistachios and chocolate chips) and ping pong tables in the middle of the club with people dancing around it.

It's a great place for a fun night out and affordable prices (9£ per pizza) but be aware that this is not a place to sit down for dinner and a chat as you barely hear your seat neighbour over "Whenever, wherever" by Shakira. If its not-so-sober ping pong your after book a table for dinner and you will automatically get booked into a half hour slot. You better start practicing that sidespin!

PING. Kitchen, Bar & Ping Pong Rooms.

180-184 Earl’s Court Road.

London

SW5 9QG

Phone: 02073705358