The cooking at Angeles is not sophisticated, and lacks the subtle
layering of flavours for which the best Sichuanese cookery is justly
famed. But the restaurant has been a pioneer in offering real
Sichuanese food, and doesn’t hold back on the chilli and Sichuan
pepper. And it’s still, to our knowledge, the only place in London to
offer a real ‘numbing-and-hot’ (ma la) Sichuan hotpot: a bubbling
potful of soup scattered with chillies into which you dip all kinds of
raw ingredients to cook.
Feature continues
Since Angeles opened in 2003, other Chinese restaurateurs have followed
it in offering genuine Sichuanese and even Hunanese cookery. Blue
Thames is a glamorous restaurant on the river at Wandsworth. Its main
menu is unexceptional, but the Chinese-language list includes Sichuan
and Shanghai specialities such as ma po dou fu and gong bao chicken.
The chef is Shanghainese, but he spent several years of his working
life in the Sichuanese metropolis Chongqing, so the flavours from both
regions are remarkably authentic. And out west in Acton, the simply
named Sichuan Restaurant serves a wonderful array of simple, home-style
Sichuanese food.
Some of the Sichuan dishes offered in these places do appear on the
menus of more standard Chinese restaurants, but you won’t find them
authentically spiced. The Cantonese are known for their dislike of
chilli heat and of the lip-tingling taste of Sichuan pepper, so the
Cantonese version of ma po dou fu is an emasculated version of the real
thing. Most mainstream restaurants pad out the gong bao chicken with
various crunchy vegetables: not an improvement on the Sichuanese
recipe.
The food of Hunan province in southern China is well known in the
United States, but until recently the only supposedly Hunanese food
available in London has been at the wonderful Hunan restaurant in
Pimlico. This place, good though it is, offers a Taiwanese take on
Hunanese cooking that bears little relation to the contemporary food of
Hunan province. Now, however, seekers of real Hunanese cooking can dine
at the Shangri-la in Colindale, opened in 2004 and to our knowledge the
only authentic Hunanese restaurant in London.
All these changes on the fringes of the London Chinese restaurant scene
suggest that the capital is heading in the direction of New York when
it comes to the regionalisation of Chinese cuisine. With a bit of luck,
the trend will catch on, and more people will appreciate something of
the extraordinary diversity of Chinese cooking.
Angeles, 405 Kilburn High Rd, NW6 7QL (020 7625 2663) Kilburn tube.
Blue Thames, Dolphin House, Riverside West, The Boulevard, Smuggler’s Way, SW18 1DE (020 8871 3881) Wandsworth Town rail.
The menus
Typical Sichuan dishes
Gong bao (kung po) chicken with peanuts, ma po beancurd in
numbing-and-hot (ma la) sauce, fish-fragrant (aka ‘sea spice’)
aubergines
Typical Hunan dishes
Chafing dishes that bubble away on a tabletop burner, steamed fish with chopped salted chillies, Chairman Mao’s red-braised pork
Key seasonings
Both cuisines make much use of chillies: fresh, dried and pickled.
Sichuan seasonings
Chilli and broad bean paste (dou ban jiang) – a rich, fermented paste
that lends a mellow spiciness and deep red colour to many dishes.
Sichuan pepper (hua jiao) – the dried berries of a shrub related to
Japanese sansho spice, but not to black pepper or chilli. When fresh,
Sichuan pepper berries have a slightly citrussy aroma and an amazing
lip-tingling effect.
Hunan seasonings
Smoked and salt-cured meats (la rou).
Chopped salted chillies (duo la jiao) – brilliantly scarlet and salty preserved chillies that are usually made at home in Hunan.
5 of the best regional Chinese restaurants
Hunan
Ecapital
Rong Cheng
Fook Sing
North China
Time Out London magazine (Issue 1836)
London Eating & Drinking
