Just near to the heart of London is the first UK restaurant of the US chain PF Chang. The location is a former jazz club on the edge of Chinatown and has been designed like an upmarket New York restaurant with exposed pipes zigzagging the roof overlooking a large bar occupying the lefthand side of the room and high tables on the right. A little further down the restaurant there are lower tables for a more romantic meal, and at the end there is a spacious open kitchen where the chefs buzz around weaving their magic.
We visited on a Wednesday night and despite it being early in the evening the bar, high tables and lower tables were full of people and there was a lively buzz of people having a good time. We were led to our table and once seated selected a cocktail from their ‘Bar Lab’ whilst perusing the menus. PF Chang prides itself on the quality of its ingredients and that it is sourced locally and the selection makes choices difficult.
We started with a PF Chang special the Original Dynamite Shrimp (£13.5), which is described as ‘always imitated, never duplicated’ and is a very generous portion of crispy tempura battered shrimps, spicy Sriracha aioli and spring onions, served in a cocktail glass. The prawns were fresh and smothered in a lightly spiced sauce and it took all my restraint not to order another one! I can’t imagine how many they produce each evening, as we saw cocktail glass after cocktail glass pass our table throughout the evening, so I am sure the reputation of how good this dish is has got around!
We followed this up with the Original Chang’s Chicken Lettuce Wraps (£9.5) where you take the finely diced rich wok fried chicken, mushrooms, spring onions and water chestnuts and wrap them in lettuce cups to form a healthy pancake. The chicken and mushrooms are well seasoned and the spring onion gives some texture and it is lovely that something so healthy tastes good as well. The next stop on our journey through the menu led us to the indulgent Handmade Lobster and Shrimp Spring Roll (£14.5) where the sweetest lobster claw and knuckle meat, shrimp and chives are lovingly hand rolled and fried. This is all served with a lightly spiced Thai curry aioli. The batter was light and crisp offsetting the soft lobster and crab and the aioli was delicate enough to enhance rather than smother the lobster and crab flavour.
I am now a convertee to sushi and I would recommend the Black Truffle Rainbow Sushi Roll (£10.5) and the Dragon Roll (£9.25). Both are special, and the strong flavours of tuna and salmon encased in perfectly sticky rice was a delight to our taste buds.
After a pause to enjoy our surroundings and a lovely fruity South African Chenin Blanc (£29), we tackled the mains and finally selected the Mongolian Beef (£11.5), rich and tender chunks of Flank Steak caramelised with their signature dark soy sauce and garlic served with spring onion, and the Kung Pao Chicken (£10.5) along with fried rice (£5.25) and Wok Seared Tempura Cauliflower (£4.25), which although being really tasty, was slightly disappointing as it wasn’t in batter which I would expect a tempura to be. The Mongolian Beef was rich and succulent and the Kung Pao sauce nicely piquant without being overpowering.
PF Chang has its own pastry kitchen downstairs (they call it a pastry lab) and it was this kitchen that created our desserts. It is unusual to have such a specialised kitchen but the results are proof that more should as my dessert, the White Chocolate Bomb (£7) was lovely, but my wife’s selection of the deconstructed Lemon Meringue (£6) was spectacular. I am of the opinion that there are too many chefs that deconstruct classic dishes just for the sake of it, and unless the ‘deconstruction’ improves the dish it shouldn’t be done. In this case the deconstruction truly improved the dish and the two types of meringue one soft one crunchy, the balls of lemon ice cream, shortbread, white chocolate and popping candy just danced over our taste buds. We couldn’t tell the staff enough times how delicious we thought the dish was!
PF Chang offers quality food in a modern stylish environment right in the heart of London, and for lovers of Asian food we highly recommend the restaurant - don’t forget to leave room for the desserts as they are worth the visit alone.
10 Great Newport Street, London WC2H 7JA - Telephone: 01923 555161 - Website: pfchangs.co.uk