Elusive chicken and a show at Dumplings' Legend
There is a bouncer on the door, which seems excessive for a restaurant that I’ve been told serves steamer baskets of xiao long bao and cheap Tsingtao.
The bouncer makes us wait while he speaks to someone over a walkie talkie to determine whether there’s room for us. Eventually we’re allowed in, and told to head up to the third level.
It all seems a bit off. The stairwells are painted forest green and mahogany red. There’s mood lighting and I can hear the kind of music you’d expect to hear in a natural wine bar in East London.
I tell Phil we’ve definitely come to the wrong place.
The bouncer gives us a disdainful look as we walk out and I tell him we got the wrong place.
We find the right door, and walk into a brightly lit restaurant with white walls, decorated with neon coloured Christmas lights and a hodgepodge of framed pictures of famous people who’ve graced the restaurant with their presence. Red lanterns are suspended from the ceiling. Tables are set with white tablecloths topped with another disposable red paper cloth. The seats are covered with black and white chequered covers. They have a speedway look about them. There is a large fish tank in the middle of the room. We’ve found the right spot. Dumplings’ Legend.
We’re ushered to our table, separated from the table next to it by mere inches. We’re sitting not far from a group of about 14 who’re sat at a big round table wearing pointed paper party hats in different shades of metallic.
Our waiter quickly appears to take our order. I’m impressed that he can remember two bottles of Tsingtao, cucumber salad, cold spicy marinated chicken slices, sesame prawn toast, classic xiao long bao and egg and spring onion fried rice with pork chop without writing anything down, and I tell him so. He responds by saying, “I won’t remember.” We all laugh.
Shortly after the waiter has disappeared, he comes back to ask if we wanted the classic pork xiao long bao, or the spicy ones. I confirm we wanted classic. Perhaps it does pay to take notes.
Our bottles of beer arrive, and soon after the fried rice arrives. I’m surprised that the couple at the table next to us, who ordered just seconds before we did, got their bowl of cucumber salad at the same time they got their fried rice, and we didn’t.
A few minutes later our sesame prawn toasts arrive and then the xiao long bao.
Our waiter comes over and counts the number of plates on our table - three - and comments that two dishes are still missing. He asks us what’s missing, and when we tell him, he tuts and assures us he’ll get us our cucumber salad and cold marinated chicken quickly.
Our waiter appears from the kitchen carrying two steamer baskets of dumplings. A dumpling in each basket has a candle stuck into it. He starts sitting Happy Birthday, re-lights the candles as their flames flicker out, and winks at me while circling the lighter round like a lasso as he heads back towards the kitchen. He’s pleased with his work.
He appears moments later with our cucumber salad. It’s delicious - fresh slices of cucumber dressed generously with a sauce full of golden, finely chopped garlic and lots of stems of fresh coriander. He sighs loudly, “You’re still waiting for the chicken!”
A few moments later another waiter appears at our table with a plate of deep fried chicken with a dipping sauce. We tell him that’s not what we’d ordered, that we’d ordered slices of cold, spicy marinated chicken. He looks confused and beckons the waiter who has been dealing with us over. Our waiter rolls his eyes, puts the deep fried chicken down on our table and says it’s on the house, but that he’ll go and find our cold chicken for us.
I prong a piece of the deep fried chicken with my chopsticks and dip it in the small bowl of sauce before eating it. A third waiter appears at our table, picks up the deep fried chicken, and, without saying anything, takes it back to the kitchen. I hear the woman next to us comment that when she was a waitress, if you dropped the wrong plate of food to a table they got to keep it.
Our waiter comes back, and asks where the deep fried chicken has gone, and whether we’ve got our cold chicken yet. “Something has happened in the kitchen,” he says, rolling his eyes and slumping his shoulders dramatically. “More like something has happened because you didn’t write our order down,” we both say to one another as he disappears.
Our waiter comes back and plops two more bottles of Tsingtao on the table. He tells us these are on the house because of all the issues. I tell Phil to quickly take a big gulp from his bottle before another waiter comes and takes the bottles away from us.
Our waiter appears again, this time carrying our cold chicken, beaming. “FINALLY!” he announces loudly, as he pops the chicken in the middle of our table, before giving us a little curtsey and heading off again.
The chicken is also delicious - boneless, juicy, tender, and beautifully garlicky and spicy. The chicken is arranged on top of a row of delicate little batons of cucumber swimming in a pool of chilli oil.
There’s a man sitting next to us on his own. He’s ordered prawn dim sum, steamed beef balls and a pot of Chinese tea. His order arrives, and he’s given a basket of xiao long bao. He says to his waiter he wanted the prawn dim sum, the ones with translucent wrappers. The waiter heads off to find the man the right dumplings. The man proceeds to eat the xiao long bao that have been left with him. I wonder if they’ll be snatched from him momentarily.
We ask for our bill, and our waiter comes bounding over with it. He tells us he’s taken the deep fried chicken off the bill (he had obviously loaded that into the system, as I can see it itemised on the receipt), hasn’t charged us for the cold chicken, and has only charged us for two bottles of Tsingtao. I give him a wad of notes, and tell him he can keep the change, to which he responds, “Oh my god, you’re so kind.”
On the way out, our waiter says, “thank you darlings,” and I tell him he’s my favourite in London. Dinner and a show.
Next time I’ll give him a wad of paper and a pen.