Min Jiang

I seem to be going on lots of quests recently. I guess I get bored unless there is something driving me forward. As a child, I was always enamoured by the legend of King Arthur and his knights of the round table, always honourable and totally committed to the cause. Well, that's what I am, a knight of the dinner table and totally committed to the cause, eating my way round London so you don't have to.

My current search for the best roast pork and duck rice in Chinatown is going well. Five destinations down and we have some good entries whereas others have fared less favourably. After a recent discussion with Carla from Can be bribed with food, the focus veered away from pork (sacrilege!) and focused on duck. Where can we get the best Peking duck in London? Aromatic duck is a firm favourite of mine and I always gravitate towards Mandarin Kitchen for my fix, but Peking duck has never really been on my radar. I was lucky enough to sample the Peking duck at China Club in Hong Kong and that exemplary version has become my benchmark. 

So, I was tasked with finding "the best" and after a few tweet related calls for help, I settled on a reservation at Min Jiang. As restaurants go, Min Jiang has everything going for it. The interior is stunning, heavily influenced by wood, ceramics and the colour red (lucky in Chinese folklore) with some of the friendliest staff I have had the pleasure to be served by. Located on the 10th floor of the Royal Garden Hotel, it has a quite amazing view to boot, it's vista taking in most of London, including the London Eye and the BT Tower. On the edge of Kensington Palace gardens, I already want to come back for lunch, just so I can see the view during daylight hours. So far, so very good. Onto the main event.

Peking (or Beijing) duck is a specially prepared roast duck (wiki is your friend, check here for more details) which is traditionally prepared in three stages. Firstly, slices of skin from the neck of the duck are carved and served with some sugar. An odd combination, but I was informed that the sugar is meant to balance out the taste of the fat. I know, an even odder explanation. Either way, eating cooked skin is rarely going to be an unpleasant experience and although this was lacking flavour, it was definitely a pleasurable experience.

The second duck "course" are thin slices of the duck breast served with pancakes and an assortment of fillings. Firstly, we were presented the pancakes in a "traditional" style, with thinly sliced spring onions, some cucumbers and some hoisin, fillings that I am used to with aromatic duck. Slightly boring, and unfortunately exposed the fairly one dimensional flavour of the duck. We were then served the pancakes Min Jiang style, filled with garlic paste, radish and tientsin cabbage. Whilst the previous pancakes seemed devoid of flavour, this variation really brought out the flavours of the duck and the more "traditional fillings" were relatively ignored for the rest of the meal.

The third and final part to this long drawn out affair involves using up the rest of the duck in a dish of your choice. We opted for some fried noodles and although most of the rest of the duck seems to have waddled elsewhere, the noodles were still delicious and peppery. A fine end to an enjoyable meal.

Alongside the duck, we ordered a few other miscellaneous items. Some tasty and well made Xiao Long bau (if a little on the small side), a rather large vat of Ma Po Tofu and some excellent deep fried squid (light and grease free).

I was really impressed with Min Jiang. The surroundings and service were spot on, and the food was good without necessarily sparking off fireworks. Mind you, with the view, fireworks were not required. I know there is a popular adage that any restaurant with a view is often making up for inadequacies in the kitchen, but with a certain Pierre Koffman embarking on a project up the BT tower and Galvin at Windows (located on the 28th floor of the Hilton) having just earned its first Michelin star, I think it is places like this that are making this adage redundant. Great view, great food, I can't wait to come back and visit during the day when I can peer out the window in daylight.

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As rules-of-thumb go the one that says that the quality of the food in a restaurant is in inverse proportion to its view is not a bad one. You can’t really moan – you, the diner and the restaurant are usually complicit in the unwritten agreement that the latter’s responsibility starts and ends by providing a fabulous vista.

This doesn’t apply so much in London where, to be honest the views, especially from elevated positions are, well, a bit crap – the city as a whole being a bit of a dog’s dinner architecturally.

It was a bit of a surprise then, that my Dim Sum lunch at Chinese restaurant Min Jiang, situated at the top of The Kensington Gardens Hotel, was so enjoyable. Certainly because of the food which I already knew about –
DH’s visit a year ago confirmed that this was a very capable kitchen – but the fact the view over Kensington Gardens was really rather pleasant. Lots of green stuff (trees I think), not too many cranes. That sort of stuff.

Min Jiang is, of course, well known for its Roast Duck, of which they sell an astonishing twenty plus per day but I was here to try their Dim Sum. I already knew about their excellent Xiao Long Bao, Shanghai Dumplings filled with a savoury stock, which had piqued my interest about their other “bits of the heart”.

I had my answer as soon as I started nibbling at a little bowl of lightly pickled vegetables. The veg had been marinated in vinegar together with a little salt and sugar. Simple, sure, but light and tart and delicious.

Everything is freshly prepared and cooked to order by the chef (from Hong Kong) and the results show – this is some of the best Dim Sum cooking in London. Ok, the range isn’t wildly inventive or particulary extensive but there is a preciseness to the preparation and a lightness to the end result which didn’t leave me feeling bloated and harbouring a MSG-induced migraine even after nine dishes.

For the steamed stuff Har Gau and Pumpkin Dumpling were little balls densely packed with seafood. The skin was delicate, if a little thick, but miles ahead of the usual industrial Gau. Xiao Long Bao were still present and correct with a good, scaldingly-hot stock and meaty filling.

Char Siu Puffs – pastry encasing a rich porky filling - were a revelation, all hot and crumbly. Cubes of squidgy Turnip Cake were made into a spicy stir fry. Greaseless Spring Rolls came tightly packed with shredded Beijing Duck with a thick dipping sauce. A special of silky smooth rolls of Cheung Fun were stuffed with nuggets BBQ’d Pork.

Yam Croquettes show the kitchen’s dab hand at frying. In more run-of-the-mill places these will spend most of their last hours sunning themselves in a warmer. Here, at Min Jiang, they’re brought fresh from the deep-fat fryer. Great stuff.

Does the Chinese Custard Tart have its origins in Britain (home of the tart) or Portugal (home of the Pastel de Nata) ? For me it’s of minor interest but the delicate little cakes served here were wolfed down pretty quickly.

Min Jiang’s prices are a bit higher than the norm but then so are their standards. And to make sure you appreciate each dish there’s plenty of plate swapping. Think of it as eating from a tasting menu rather than a er, bun fight where everything is served at once and you all dive in. It’s altogether a calmer and more civilised experience.

You may prefer the hustle and bustle and cheapness of a Chinatown joint or the more modern spin at the disco-like Hakkasan or even the buzzy Yauatcha where you pay for the staff to be snotty and superior to you. It’s probably a sign of age but I was more than happy at Min Jiang - it has great food, friendly staff and a nice view. I may have just discovered my perfect Dim Sum joint.

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The spectacular tenth floor setting of the Royal Garden Hotel in Kensington is now the home of the Min Jiang restaurant, named after the Min river in Szechaun), Gone are the odd disco lights of old and the far wall away from the picture window has displays of Chinese porcelain. Chef Lan Chee Vooi cooked at the restaurant of the same name at the Goodwood Park hotel in Singapore; this was excellent when I last went, though this visit was before Mr Lan was cooking there.

The view on a sunny day is spectacular over Kensington Gardens. The menu has one or two Szechuan touches but is mostly in familiar territory, such as a starter of soft shell crab with salt, pepper and chilli. Starters are £6.50 - £9, main courses £14 - £43 (but mostly around £20) and desserts £6 - £8. There are also dim sum choices at lunch, at around £4 each. The wine list runs over five pages and ranges around the world e.g. Mud House Sauvignon Blank 2007 at £35 for a wine that costs about £10, £29 for the excellent basic Guigal Cotes du Rhone 2004, which costs about £8 retail. It says something about London restaurant mark-ups these days that three and a half times retail price seems somehow not that bad.

The dim sum choices were excellent. Deep fried yam croquette with seafood had a light and fluffy exterior and nicely cooked prawns (4/10). Baked char siew puff was delicious, with good pastry and rich, sweet meat, reminding my knowledgeable dining companion of the baked venison puff at Yauatcha (4/10). Gai lan (or kai lan as they spell it here) with garlic was lightly cooked, but this is a dish that loses heat quickly and needs to be brought to the table piping hot. In this case it had waited a little so was only warm when it arrived, though it was certainly tender enough (3/10).

The speciality here is Beijing Duck (Peking Duck), which needs to be pre-ordered as it takes at least 45 minutes to prepare. This is cooked in a wood-fired oven and served in the traditional way. I should say that I have eaten what I believe is perfect Peking duck at Made in China in Beijing, so I had a pretty good benchmark in my mind when eating this.

First slivers of skin are cut and offered, in this case with the option of dipping in sugar. In the ideal version the skin should be crisp yet melt tantalisingly when on the tongue, and I’m afraid that here it did not: there was a rather soggy feel to the skin. The meat itself was good (as it should be; it is from Silver Hill Farm in Ireland, which is noted for its duck), wrapped in impressively thin packages with sweet sauce, shredded leek and cucumber, and then again in pancakes with radish, garlic paste and bentsin cabbage. These were both enjoyable. Finally there was a serving of stir-fried shredded duck with ginger and spring onion, which had a nice amount of fresh ginger and was cooked well. While this was better than some of the dull versions to be found in Chinatown, I have to say that, pancakes aside, I was not dazzled (3/10). Perhaps I will have to go back to Beijing after all.

A dessert of mango cream with sago pearls and pomelo (an Asian fruit) had good mango flavour and was not too rich (3/10). Service was attentive and friendly, a world away from the brusqeness of Chinatown.

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