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Please note, Shikumen Finchley Road has now closed. Time Out Food editors, June 2018.
Set within the O2 Centre on Finchley Road, Shikumen is an unusually smart spot to grab a Chinese after a trip to the cinema. It’s a large, low-lit restaurant – sit right at the back and you can almost forget you’re in a shopping centre. Almost. The rear window does look out on to a car park.
The food’s mostly good and generously portioned. The highlight was a dish of thin Singapore noodles with juicy prawns and fresh, piquant spring onion. Also good were the aromatic and beautifully porky Shanghai xiaolongbao soup dumplings.
Less enjoyable was a rather soapy dish of pak choi and asparagus; while sweet and sour chicken tasted like something you’d get from a high-street takeaway. Shikumen isn’t cheap either, so these disappointments felt less forgivable. Still, most of the meal was decent and, God knows, you’ll have eaten worse in the O2 Centre. For that reason alone, Shikumen’s worth a pop.