Teachi

With its sunny yellow logo and smart interior blending '30s-style chinois glamour with super-sized digital watercolours, Teachi's an eyecatchingly bright spot for dark nights along Parkway. Young, cheerful staff look sassy in their black shirts, low-slung aprons and 'designer' bumbags that could have been picked up at a Hong Kong street market. They walk up and down the aisles checking on customers; add a prompt kitchen and the result is swift service, making this an ideal spot to visit pre- or post- cinema or pub.

The menu's a punchy stir-fry of Chinese cooking methods and pan-oriental ingredients - here wasabi and miso sit fairly happily alongside Macanese-style chilli sauce and satay. There's a short but appealing list of popular dim sum, plus soups, and various small dishes based on noodles, barbecued meats and fish, and so on.

Laughing Buddha - fine, crisp slices of deep-fried lotus blossom, like vegetable crisps - are a light, simple nibble to enjoy with glasses of Tsingtao beer and sugarcane juice (there's wine, too, and they'll happily bring tap water to the table if desired). Tasty xiao long bao (Shanghai pork dumplings with a soupçon of hot soup cleverly encased in the pastry wrapper) were not as fine or expertly pleated as you'll get in Hakkasan, but at £2.80 for three were great value. Teachi gives the old takeaway favourite sweet and sour pork a modern twist with pine nut stuffing and a sauce including fresh strawberries and melon - memorable but not outstanding. Best was a basket of deep-fried soft shell crab with finger-licking salt and chilli.

Desserts try hard but we'd happily give the jasmine-studded Chinese tea jelly, and green tea pudding with chocolate sauce, a miss next time. Still, overall the standard of cooking here is superior to Chinese-inspired chains such as dim t, and with friendly, intelligent staff like this Teachi could confidently consider expansion.
Jenni Muir

Time Out Issue 1940: October 24-30 2007

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Latest user reviews

Fantastic little eatery in the restaurant crowded Parkway in Camden Town. I'd been meaning to pop in here since it opened and I wasn't disapointed. Great service, cool ambience, tasty food and a price that won't hurt your pocket. Can't ask for any more really... Probably not somewhere you'd... [More]
Edward Taylor  Mar 19 2008

Nice enough twist on the usual Pan Asian delicacies, bbq meats were very nice as was the soup, alas the king prawns tasted a little of cleaning solution, creams and sauces can be very sweet on the palette. The over-attentive service was a little off putting, a meal for two under £50 without... [More]
Anonymous  Feb 4 2008