Luxury Chinese at Chai Wu, Take Two.

I first visited Chai Wu when it opened back in 2014. As you can see from my original review of Chai Wu, I was pretty impressed, but the question always remained – where the dickens was my Passion-fruit cocktail?! Well, two years later I finally got it. And it was pretty darn good. I also tried a few different dishes to last time, including the epic dessert platter. And despite being nestled amongst the men’s clothing in Harrods, just like before it still impressed me…

I was meeting Jasiminne there who had been invited to Chai Wu to review it, and as we still had plenty to discuss after our Gluten and Dairy Free Dinner the week before, she kindly invited me along. Also we had to discuss everything that happened at my birthday that weekend, obvs.

We were seated in a fairly discreet area away from the eavesdropping of fellow guests seated at the dining bar, and began our intense discussions and story-telling while we perused the menu.

The waitress came to take our drinks orders, and straight away I knew what I was having; “A juice passion kiss please!”. Would it arrive this time? Yes, yes it did. And it was so worth the wait!

Jasiminne on the other hand had a Berry Bellini. Give this woman a mix of champagne and antioxidants and she’s happy.

 

Food-wise we tried to select things from the different areas of the menu, starting with the impressive and still very melodramatic dry-ice Mixed Sashimi Platter…

 

I’m not a huge fan of salmon and unagi, and Jasiminne loves them, so she had those and I had the majority of the fatty tuna, yellow tail, and scallops. I knew there was a reason we were friends! 😉

Despite Chai Wu being a Chinese restaurant, they also have a great selection of Pan-Asian dishes, which isn’t completely surprising given that it’s the brainchild of Eddie Lim, the Malaysian restaurateur behind Pan-Asian hot-spots Pan Chai and Mango Tree, and the original menu was overseen by ex-executive chef Ian Pengelly, who is now heading up House of Ho.

Despite being super impressed with the sushi last time I visited, we chose to avoid it and instead went for the Beijing Duck, one of my favourite Chinese dishes. This was one of those dishes that makes you groan in satisfaction…

The dish was served three ways; firstly with mantou buns, then pancakes. The mantou buns were my absolute favourite, they were light and fluffy yet dense enough for us to drizzle lashings of hoisin and duck sauce on them without them disintegrating in our hands as we chowed down.

They were little clouds of heaven and I really bloody loved them. Two each was definitely not enough, and I honestly would have preferred to have more buns and none of the third and final part of the dish; the duck fried rice. As Jasiminne said in her review, the rice just felt superfluous and we didn’t eat it.

Next was the King Scallop, I didn’t try any of this as I was trying to pace myself and left it all to Jasiminne. She said it was an excellent dish, but nothing compared to the incredible scallop sashimi we’d had at the start.

Soon enough one of my favourite dishes of the night arrived – the Soft Shell Crab. If you’ve been reading this blog a while you’ll know it’s one of my all-time favourite dishes and every time I see it on a menu I have to have it. It was perfect, and I’m not ashamed to say I had most of it.

Our final savoury dish was the Steamed Dim Sum Platter. I was incredibly full at this point so only had one, but the little scallop parcel was just delicious. Jasiminne raved about the dim sum, and as she grew up on dim sum at home in Malaysia with her Chinese parents, I trust her opinion on Chinese food more than most of the top London food critics!

Now, the moment I had been saving myself for…the Chai Wu Dessert Platter. This included vanilla, salted caramel, green tea, and pistachio ice-cream scoops, green tea chocolate fondant, passionfruit, green tea cheese cake with berries and meringue, and mini chocolates.


My favourite was the dessert of the day; the green tea cheese cake, and the salted caramel ice-cream. I have no idea what it was about the salted caramel ice-cream, but it was insane, it was the creamiest ice-cream I’ve ever tasted!

We had such a lovely dinner at Chai Wu, and it just reconfirmed my thoughts from the first time I visited; despite it’s location amongst the men’s sports fashion, you would never know you were surrounded by clothing, and the exceptional food is so worth the slightly strange location and high prices.

Oh, and two years later, I finally got my Passion-fruit cocktail!
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Catherine Lux
Catherine Lux

Catherine Lux is a veteran travel blogger by night and the Head of SEO at Havas Media Group by day. Originally from Surrey, she spent four years living in Australia (2007-2009, and 2016-2018), and now lives in London. An ex-party girl sometimes prone to relapses, she loves nothing more than sharing her fine dining and luxury travel experiences with her loyal readers.

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6 Comments

  1. Angie SilverSpoon
    April 29, 2016 / 3:03 pm

    Love dim sum, I can't wait to try Chai Wu

  2. Posh, Broke, & Bored
    April 29, 2016 / 4:20 pm

    I'm so happy that you finally got your passion kiss and, um, the other things too. 😉 And hey, what are friends for if we don't eat the things the other doesn't like – remember the crazy coconut pudding at Sushisamba?!! ROUND 3, LET'S GO! X

    Jasiminne: Posh, Broke, & Bored

  3. Catherine Lux
    April 29, 2016 / 4:30 pm

    Hey don't start giving away my weekend secrets haha 😉 And YES. Please can we have a day soon where we do lunch at Sushisamba, then go upstairs for dinner at Duck & Waffle?

    C x

  4. Posh, Broke, & Bored
    April 29, 2016 / 4:34 pm

    HECK YES. What should we do between lunch and dinner?! MORE FOOD!!!! X

    Jasiminne: Posh, Broke, & Bored

  5. Unknown
    May 1, 2016 / 8:28 am

    This sounds like a restaurant worth diving admidst trousers for 😉

  6. Planes & Champagne
    May 2, 2016 / 3:28 pm

    Harrods is my favourite department store in the whole world yet I never knew Chai Wu existed! I think I've missed this because I've never ventured to the Menswear floors but this is totally on my list now. The cocktails look amazing but my biggest weakness is desserts so I will definitely have to order the Chai Wu dessert platter!!

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