Young Cheng, 76 Shaftesbury Avenue, W1D 6ND, Chinatown

Some people might complain that there aren’t many fancy restaurants in Chinatown, or that the ambience and service is not so fantastic in most of the restaurants.

I, however, am of the opinion that there aren’t enough frill-free, order-to-eat type restaurants in Chinatown. Most of the restaurants I’ve been to there require a minimum order to eat-in, have long queues and are just too fancy for a quick meal.

There are exceptions to this, however, and being the kind of diner who prefers cheap to fancy, I have been to most of them. The winners for best cheap-and-cheerful restaurants are:

Jen
TPT
Rasa Sayang
Young Cheng

There are about 3 restaurants called Young Cheng in Chinatown. I’m not sure if these are all owned by the same person (not that creative person), or if they’re 3 separate restaurants, each trying to capitalise on the (possibly) famous brand name. One of them is a buffet restaurant, while the other two are actual restaurants.

The one reviewed here is the one on Shaftesbury Avenue, across from the theatres.

Stir-fried kailan with beef £8.50

When we sat down to order, I had a look at the menu and most of the items came with rice or noodles, and as I wasn’t that interested in having a heavy meal, I just asked the waitress (who was very nice) if I could have a dish with just vegetables and some meat, without anything else. She said, sure, and what was dished up was this. It tasted good, the beef was soft (could be more tender) and the vegetables made this dish almost exactly what I was looking for.

Wat tan hor (Seafood noodles with egg sauce) £5-ish

Ever since the bf had a taste of this dish in Malaysia, he’s been counting this as one of his favourite dishes. However, it’s not one that is easily found in Chinese restaurants here. Having had a chat with the chef at Young Cheng a while ago (while I was waiting for the Roast Pork rice for takeaway), he mentioned that the restaurant could cook most dishes even those which weren’t on the menu.

Thus, we ordered the beef version of this noodle, but the kitchen got our order confused and we ended up with the seafood version instead. The waitress was most apologetic, coming to the table several times to convince us that this version was just as tasty and possibly even better than the beef version.

Would we return to this restaurant? Definitely so, one of our favourites for quick and fuss-free meals.

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