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Cha Cha Moon
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Budget choice
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RUNNER-UP - BEST DESIGN
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By Charmaine Mok. Photography Michael Franke
Hong Kong is a city of discerning diners and top-class restaurants. But it’s also where, in a metropolis full of food-loving nomads, a simple bowl of soup noodles is king. It’s a telling sign when some of the most humble street-side mein dong (mein = noodle; dong = stalls) rank alongside glittering fine-dining hotspots in popularity. One of my favourites is my local family-run caff on a side street in Shau Kei Wan, in the Eastern district of the island, that does the best fish ball noodles in town. Likewise, over in the grubby end of the glamorous Central district’s Soho lies a filthy little joint (that nevertheless attracts crowds at all hours of the day) that profits from its legendary beef brisket noodles. All over the city there are hole-in-the-wall noodle shops that only do one dish, but they do it damn well.
Cha Cha Moon is Hong Kong-born restaurateur Alan Yau’s take on a mein dong. But instead of focusing on the myriad of noodle dishes found just in his home town, it’s a culinary journey careening around all corners of China, plus neighbouring Singapore and Malaysia for good measure. There are beef noodles from Taiwan and prawn noodles from Penang, while Sichuan dumplings and Singaporean char kway teow sit alongside spring onion pancakes from the north. To the moon and back, indeed.
Six months ago, Yau claimed that the inspiration behind opening Cha Cha Moon was a lack of decent Chinese soup stocks in London. So, to test the waters, we sampled two classic varieties from the soup noodle category: roast duck, and wonton. The former had an unctuous and flavoursome broth; while not helped by a somewhat ghastly greyish hue, it was full of the umami taste, punctuated by the surprising medicinal aroma of tiny red wolfberries. Fresh, al dente noodles were spot-on, transporting us back to the noodle bars of Hong Kong.
The benchmark dish, wonton noodles, was a let down. Far from the delicate dumplings their name suggests (‘wonton’, in Cantonese, literally means ‘swallowing clouds’), ours were filled with stodgy chicken and had thick, heavy wrappers. If the menu had made the distinction that these were Shanghai-style wontons (which indeed are heavier than their Cantonese-style counterparts), it would have been easier to understand.
Things picked up, though. Zhajiang mian (a northern dry noodle dish) had us picking at every last little morsel of minced pork, mushrooms and bamboo shoots, while the kitchen’s take on chicken fen pi, a Shanghainese cold noodle dish, was inspired by the use of jasmine tea-smoked chicken. The traditional sesame dressing, while slightly too watery, was spiked with hints of wasabi and sweet red onions – elements certainly reminiscent of Yau’s trademark culinary cunning, where the results are neither too shocking nor bastardised, yet different enough to delight.
With all dishes currently priced at a mere £3.50 (Update: the prices have risen at both branches, with dishes averaging around £5), we seemed to be guinea pigs for this new opening. Yau was omnipresent during the first few days; he stuck to the kitchen pass, observing diners and rattling off both compliments and criticisms to his battalion of chefs.
It is certainly admirable of Yau to throw the door wide open on Chinese noodle culture, and he hasn’t merely recreated a quintessential Hong Kong-style caff. That’s fine with us, but we feel the eclectic nature of the menu hinders the restaurant from truly delivering the best of these well-loved classics. There’s a lot of potential in this hip and cheerful operation, but for now, it has nothing on my local mein dong.
FEBRUARY 2009: The second branch of Cha Cha Moon, located in the Whiteleys Shopping Centre, is now open.Time Out Issue 1971: May 29-June 4 2008
Time Out reviews restaurants anonymously and pays for meals. Of course, we cannot guarantee the accuracy or independence of user reviews.
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Details
- 15-21 Ganton St, Soho, W1F 9BN
- Area: Soho
- Tel: 020 7297 9800
- www.chachamoon.com
- Category: Chinese
- Travel: Oxford Circus or Piccadilly Circus tube
- Times: Open Mon-Thur 12noon-11pm; Fri-Sat 12noon-11.30pm; Sun 12noon-10pm
- Price: Meal for two with drinks and service: around £30
- Credit cards: MC, V, AmEx
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Natalie_80
It's hard to know what to say here; how can I be original, charming and funny?!! So maybe best to just go for the bog standard approach. a bit...
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there was a long queue to get in, and the menu is very odd.
Nearly everything seems to have prawns in it! I'm not vegetarian, i just hate prawns, and it was very hard to find a chicken dish without the lurking shellfish serves alongside. I asked to have them removed and the waitress looked at me as if i was asking for ketchup on my noodles!
I went for a duck dish in the end which was very enjoyable and the whole meal was a bargain... but i'll probably not go again as i've never felt so poorly catered for as a meat eater in a chinese restaurant!
'Twas a great meal with friends. Quick and easy and quality taste. Feels like your in some sort of middle school dining room it is that packed at times. But all around bueno.
Excellent food, awesome prices
Food is cheap and portion is big consider you only have to pay £3.5 per dish, but you have to be prepared to wait long for the food to come.
In terms of quality of food, it varies. Some dishes are tasty (beef soup noodle) and some are very salty (beef ho fan).
overall its not bad. i will give it a 3 star
Quickly-served, nice tasting food in a cool setting with great prices. Although, some dishes seem heavy on salt and sugar.
I ate here last night for the first time and found it a crashing disappointment. The food was practically inedible (cold, dry duck and greasy dumplings) and the service was abysmal. We had to turn away three or four plates of food that we hadn't ordered and had one plate whisked from under our noses to be given to the group seated next to us! Terrible place.
My fist time at Cha Cha Moon, as I have been eating at Busaba since they opened.
Things didn’t go well at all at Cha Cha Moon today, it was 4pm when we arrived, the place was empty, the waitress sat us at one end of a table, we placed our order like normal, 3mains and 2 side dishes, the dishes came one by one, the last one almost never made it, as we saw they delivered to the table behind us who came way after us, then wrong order came to our table, I had to tell the waitress 3 times, we didn’t order it, she kept saying we did, at the end, I had to wave for our server the tall Chinese boy - whom was very helpful, I explained & chased up on my mom’s dish at the same time, me & my husband were half way to finish our food, mom’s order finally arrived, that was about 30mins for a beef ho fun.
We finished our food & I wanted to place a second order, one of our dish was a Szechwan Wonton, my husband had his first bite, he was unable to chew through the meat, it was cold/raw pink and I mean RAW, as usual we had to go through 2 waiters before the person who in charge showed up, he claimed the chicken in the wonton meant to be pink, it was made with baby chicken, it wasn’t raw…. He then gave us a fresh order, this time, thank god it was all cooked. It didn’t stop there, the bill came, the manager had double charged us on the Szechwan Wonton, I don’t understand why we need to pay for our replacement order?? Again, we had to ask for the manager …God knows how many times I had to wave for help in Cha Cha Moon.
Surely, what we had experienced today was utterly unacceptable, I fully understand the fast food concept, that all dishes are £3.50, customers still expect the food is cooked properly.
Mr. Alan Yau if you see this, it would be nice to rectify with your staffs.
Very quickly seated considering the enormous queue. Pleasant staff, great quantity/flavour food (especially considering the price) and fun atmosphere all round. Highly recommended for lunch or a quick dinner rather than a proper sit down meal.
Terrible service with clueless unmotivated staff. Food is great for the price. Alan Yau is great at bringing Chinese food to London.
Have visited Cha Cha Moon twice now and both times the food was wonderful and the service excellent. It reminded me of distant past meals in Chinatown before it became so commecial.. Well worth a visit. I will be going back again and again