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It’s easy to get blasé about Chinatown restaurants, as so often they disappoint; but just occasionally you get a nice surprise – such as Haozhan. This modern-looking venue has a contemporary, globally ranging menu, produced by a chef who was at Hakkasan . The techniques here are impeccable, and there’s great attention to detail. Many dishes are textural masterpieces. The centrepiece of our meal was a Japanese-style platter of soft tofu cubes, deep-fried to give them a contrast of texture and topped with firm sweet scallops. This was garnished with puréed spinach and red flying fish roe, for visual flair. Haozhan’s fish soup follows a Malaysian rice noodle approach, though big chunks of fresh cod are used together with the fish-head stock; its coconutty liquid was given added spice by chilli, tomato and spring onion, which masked any fish oil smells. The bowl was big enough to be a meal in itself; Wagamama doesn’t even come close for soup-noodles. There are plenty of other attention-grabbing dishes, but even simple ‘Sichuan vegetables’ wowed us. Our waiters were attentive to the point of being almost chummy, and, importantly, knew a lot about the dishes. And the low bill was yet another pleasant surprise.
Time Out Eating & Drinking Guide 2008
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Great food. Try the Mongolian Beef. I've eaten here half a dozen times and not been disappointed.
Myself and 2 friends turned up at Haozhan on a Friday night, without a booking. The restaurant was full so we asked them when a table would be available. We were told to come back in 30 minutes and our name was put down for a table.
30 minutes later we came back. No table was available, but we were told the wait would only be a couple of minutes. About 30 minutes later we were still standing in the restaurant and waiting (yeah I know we were mugs!) and we asked again when a table would be free. We were told 2 minutes (again).
A table for 5 eventually became free and we moved towards it, hoping to be seated. We were told we could sit and wait there for a table to come available but we couldn't eat there and we had to wait indefinitely for a smaller table to become free.
By that time we'd had enough and left. It was obvious that they wanted to keep that table free for a larger party who could spend more than us. The waiter was rude and dismissive of us and I would not recommend the service and organisation capabilities here to anyone. Unfortunately I cannot comment on the food as we did not get that far!