One of the most difficult questions at the moment is when a friend asks for a recommendation for what should be commonplace: a fun place to go with family and friends, to eat interesting food -but not too exotic food as everyone has to like it, for a reasonable price – say £50 a head or thereabouts including a few drinks, in a central location and which looks and feels cool.
Exotic and obscure Malasian – easy; high end pushing the boundaries of culinary skill (and price) – can name several; great place for a full English – please see my list. But fun, cool, great cooking in a central location for a reasonable price. Now that’s tricky.
Not any more. Enter stage left P.F. Chang’s, which is a fantastic pan-asian restaurant in the central but slightly no-mans land-ish area between Chinatown and Covent Garden. At first you might pause, as it is part of a very successful group with restaurants across 22 countries. But do not for one moment think restaurant chain in the way we do over here. These people insist on every restaurant they own producing from-scratch with local ingredients, right down to the pasta for their dumplings.
P.F. Chang’s has actually been here for a few years, but has undergone an extensive refurbishment which has transformed it from the odd American bar vibe into an elegant and bewitching black and gold den. The furniture is elegant and the flow of the room works, with a long bar down the side and an open kitchen at the back. It’s very inviting and quite cleverly done – you could come here for a date, or a birthday party or with college friends on a get together. Everyone will love the place.
And they will love the food even more. Pan-Asian is one of those terms about which dedicated foodies can be superior, but which in reality we all know that if done well means a greatest hits collection from some of the greatest cuisines in the world. The kind of thing that everyone loves. Hence the term crowd pleaser. Which this certainly is.
First up was a plate of handmade chicken dumplings, pan fried and with a great sticky chilli sauce (£10.50). The filling was very generous, there were a lot of them, more than enough for two, and the (handmade from scratch) pasta was perfect. The dish had to be snatched away from me before I eat the lot.
Next was the dynamite shrimp. £15.50 secures you the most enormous cocktail glass of huge, juicy shrimp coated (but not wallowing) in the most unguent, piquant, sticky sauce imaginable. I guess they would use a phrase like finger licking good if someone else had not already done so. The shrimp were perfectly cooked – still firm but moist. Completely delicious and moreish. I can see why they sell them by the bucketload.
Then what for me was the best dish, Mongolian beef with a sweet soy glaze, garlic and spring onions (£15.23). Goodness me this was so delicious I can taste while writing this. The glistening beef was from excellent cuts of meat, soft and with a proper, er, beefy flavour. Which worked perfectly with the measured soy sauce and in particular the firm green shoot ends of the spring onions. I strongly recommend eating this dish with plain rice – the flavour is so good you don’t want to confuse the taste buds with anything else. Apparently about 70% of their customers order this dish. I find that improbable – it should be 90% or whatever 100% less people who don’t eat meat comes out as. It’s a fantastic plate of food.
In fairness I did try the Chang’s fried rice – jasmine rice (yes!) with soy, egg, carrots, beansprouts and spring onions (£6.75). And very fine it was too, as was a superb vegetarian dish of stir fried aubergine with a sweet chilli soy glaze, spring onion and garlic (£13.50). If you like aubergine, and I do, then this does the thing you’ll love of lightly charring the skin leaving a soft gooey, garlicky centre.
At this stage, my eyes were still keen but the tummy was beginning to feel the strain of the (very) generous portions. So a final dish was a chicken pad thai (£13.75). Made the traditional way with rice noodles, thai spices, tofu, spring onions, peanuts and coriander. But best of all, and almost epically, was the omelette on top. This was no Chinatown egg patty filched from a freezer. It was a properly thick freshly cooked omlette, browned by the grill on the outside, yellow and gooey and thick on the inside. A closing reminder that this place has standards and proper ones. They source ingredients carefully, they make every element of every dish from scratch in the spotless, vast open kitchen with a well drilled brigade of chefs.
I should also mention that the drinks are superb. I had a great old fashioned, which theatrically had a cap removed to reveal a whisp of actual smoke. Then I asked, as ever, for a dry martini. Problem was they were temporarily out of vermouth. They offered to make one with Martini Rosso. I demurred. They insisted. Er, ok… and it was astonishingly delicious and even tasted like a proper martini. How on earth they did that I will never know, but I’m impressed.
P F Chang is, as I said earlier, the very definition of a crowd pleaser. It looks great, tastes great, is great. And for prices that, as you will have noticed reading through this, are, in modern London terms, a bargain for this quality and quantity of food. It may not be authentic, micro-region specific cuisine, but it’s a fantastic offering of dishes that you and everyone will know will love and will want to eat whatever the time of day or occasion.
It’s real downside is it’s location. Great Newport Street is bang central but no-one goes to Great Newport Street so much as through Great Newport Street. Usually on their way from Soho or Chinatown to Covent Garden or vice versa. But hang on a sec, that is a huge advantage. Because you can go now and stand a decent chance of getting a table. And I promise you that once people properly discover P.F. Chang’s you won’t get a table for love nor money.
P. F. Chang’s Asian Table, 10 Great Newport Street, London WC2H 7JA – www.pfchangs.co.uk – open daily from 12:00 to 23:00