Window Shopping

Unless you know about this place specifically (which, in a minute, you shall do) it might take some browsing in order to find it. You might be strolling round Chinatown in search of somewhere to fill your belly, slowly giving up hope as nothing is taking your fancy. Round the corner from nearby Leicester or Newport Street and there, in the front window, stands a chef rolling and kneading the pastry used in making these glorious little balls of Beijing excellence.

Tucking In

Once you sit down this comparatively clean restaurant, you'll be waited on attentively and politely. The menu offers the tastiest dumplings, and remember those chaps you saw in the window? You can continue to watch them as they prepare your order too. Rolling the pastry for the dumplings to such a consistency is a real art (they need to be wafer thin, but still strong enough to retain the soup and meat inside). You can get a plate of eight dumplings for a fiver which, in our opinion, is an absolute steal. But it's not just dumplings they do here. You can also get seafood platters, several varieties of noodles (dan dan and Uden included), and side selections.

With waiters who speak Mandarin, you get that feeling of trust and confidence and, at the risk of repetition, the open-house style of preparation really seals that theory off. Beijing Dumpling doesn't exactly stick out like a gleaming pile of gold along Lisle Street. Rather, it sits proudly and quietly shines, until you get inside and it explodes with satisfaction and surprise.