Dim Sum (or more affectionately known as Yum Cha back home) can be a relatively expensive meal in London but you will have no trouble finding a restaurant that serves it when in Chinatown. Aptly located in Soho you can find Ping Pong, one of the trendiest and upmarket Dim Sum places around London. If you enter any time around lunch, you will have to wait in a queue, but the turnover seems reasonable and it’s unlikely you won’t be waiting any longer than you would at any other Chinese restaurant.
When you first enter, its most striking feature is probably the restaurant’s seating arrangement. Two huge circular black marble bars provide communal seating for up to twenty (or more) people who come to dine by themselves or as a pair. A separate bar is located between them for people still waiting for guests and for the bartenders to create the spectacular cocktails listed in its drink menu. Downstairs you will find larger tables, but if especially busy, would no doubt be shared amongst small groups of diners as well.
Dim sum is ordered by filling out a piece of paper and handing it to your waiter. Although Ping Pong is supposed to be well known for its Dim Sum, if you really want a proper selection, this restaurant is not the place to go with only about twenty different dim sum offerings opposed to the twice or thrice you would find at any other Chinese restaurant. It is obvious the menu was carefully selected to appeal to a less adventurous palate, with only chicken feet being the most out of the ordinary on the menu. The quality of the dim sum is excellent, both in presentation and in flavour, but at £2.80 each, you would certainly hope it was.
The best thing that we ordered probably wasn’t the dim sum, but the fresh jasmine tea to accompany our meal. Tall glasses arrive filled only with a large flower bud. The waiter pours the hot water into your glass, and in only a matter of seconds, the bud literally flowers and starts to infuse the water. It’s a great novelty but once again, an expensive one at £1.75 per glass.
I had read several reviews of this place before I came and was prepared for the apparently bad service. I wouldn’t necessarily call it bad service, but rather non-existent as waiters were just difficult to locate at times. When you did get their attention, the service was actually quite pleasant and fairly prompt.
If you are a local to London, or even if you want to experience Dim Sum differently, then I recommend you visit Ping Pong at least once yourself and decide if it is what appeals to you. For me, it doesn’t quite represent the same sort of table-messing and noisy yet modest dining that Dim Sum means to me.
Details: Ping Pong
Found on: 45 Great Marlborough Street, Soho, W1F 7JL
Contactable on: 020 7851 6969
Highlights: Trendy atmosphere (good music) ideal for crowd watching and all dim sum is good quality. It provides a refreshing way for presenting dim sum to a greater audience and it’s jasmine tea is something to be seen.
Room for improvement: Dim sum selections were quite small and had a distinct lack of service. Not fantastic value for money.
The Kua Rating: 7 out of 10
Since I’ve got to the UK, I seem to have amassed a ridiculous number of cards. Other than the credit/debit variety I now have a few library cards, a few more general ID cards and plenty of supermarket program cards. I joined most of these things half heartedly, just to see if, during my stay here, I would get anything from them. As I was purchasing some items for lunch at Somerfield on my way to work this morning, amazingly a coupon was printed off with my receipt saying that I won £200 of groceries! I have to send in the coupon to get a voucher redeemable at any Somerfield store, and although I’m still not too sure if it’s all legit, I’m keen to see what comes of it. 
Last week’s attempt at checking out the British Library had been thwarted by the fact that you need to join as a reader before you could enter any of the reading rooms. This week I was more prepared with:
If you are ever near the Angel tube station, I highly recommend you drop into the Crafts Council to check out the current exhibition showing entrants and winners to the the Jerwood Applied Arts Prize 2005: Metal. Admission to the exhibition is free and some of the sculptures and effects that people can create out of different metals is quite amazing. I found that the gallery is not large enough to occupy lots of your time but it is still a nice thing to peruse nevertheless and has a magentised wall for you to attach floating comments to. 
