Chinese food is always a winner with me, so when the Chinatown-famous Golden Dragon invited me down to give their newest location a munch through, I couldn’t say no.
For me, the sign of any good Chinese restaurant (also applicable with most specialist cuisines) is seeing Chinese people eating there, which was certainly the case on the Saturday lunch time I visited.
Golden Dragon occupies the ground floor of London’s largest Asian food complex, Bang Bang Oriental. Upstairs there is an extensive food court ranging from Korean to Vietnamese, with freshly prepared dumplings, fried noodles and bubble waffles!
Mum and I had a look around the food hall but we were already stuffed from our spread at Golden Dragon; soft shell crab, salt and chilli squid, Chinese broccoli in garlic, prawn and chive dumplings, crispy ‘Char Siu’ pork puffs and lotus leaf rice. Sounds like a lot of food right? It was.
China has regional specialties and cooking styles; Golden Dragon prides itself specifically on the finest authentic Cantonese cuisine. Golden Dragon are renowned for their Peking duck and dim sum. We didn’t order the duck on this occasion, but the dim sum surpasses my standards for sure. Everything is made fresh so comes as it’s steaming hot and ready, but there isn’t much of a wait between dishes.
My absolute favourite thing to order at a Chinese restaurant are the pork puff. I’ve easily eaten 100 and I think I only discovered them about 2 years ago. Perfectly sweet meat filling in a buttery crisp pastry – what’s not to love?! At Golden Dragon they are so good that we ordered two portions.
I like to end my meal with Jasmine tea. There’s a whole menu at Golden Dragon dedicated to their impressive range of teas if you’d rather a different one, and an extensive wine and fine wine list too.
You could visit Golden Dragon in Chinatown, but you might struggle for a table. The restaurant is open until 10pm every day, so take a pick of one of their 300 seats at their Colindale branch by booking here and order the pork puffs!
