Won Kei, Soho, London

  Out of Towner Review

This is one of our Out of Town reviews, sometimes if we eat outside of Hitchin but feel the place is worth a mention it makes our Out of Towner section. However there still must be 2 of use reviewing it. In this case Maurice and Mick

Total Team Rating

We love this place, not sure why! From the outside it’s nothing special, and when you walk in the ground floor looks like a cheap cafe, and the greeting of a mean Chinese chef shouting how many, before promptly pointing at the stairs can be unnerving. Once you have walked up the stairs of what gives flashbacks of school corridors and enter the restaurant its pot luck where you sit. It doesn’t matter how busy the place is you often find yourself sitting on a table with a bunch of strangers, I used to find this unnerving but now it’s all just part of the fun. With a pot of complimentary Chinese tea dumped in front of you, you’re left to choose your food. But be warned if your order to much, they can often refuse to serve you. The menu is a wide selection of your old favourites like Sweet and Sour Chicken to the more rare dishes like Deep Fried Intestine. We are not going to comment on every dish we had we will be here all day, so this review will be a summary of courses.

Starters

Half a crispy aromatic duck, (or as we like to call it “Skin up duck”), this was great, superbly cooked, and just the right level of crispiness.
Sticky Thai Spare Ribs: Great sweet sauce, but not very meaty
Prawn Crackers, these have to be done, but with their house chilli flake oil, which just blows your head right off.

Main Course

Crispy Chilli Beef with Egg Fried Rice, this was a sweet and sticky spicy flavour but very tasty, one of my favs and you can’t go wrong. Sliced Belly pork with Pok Choi salad, this is not for everyone as a cold meat dish, but I love the crunch of the crackling. King Prawns in Mushroom sauce, not a great deal of colour to this, but a strong taste, but probably the more disappointing dish.

This was accompanied by two bottles of house red, well it was a lads day out so why not.

Value for money: Well the bill was £76 for 2, but this did include half a duck and 2 bottles of red wine, the only other thing I would say is the portions are huge. 

Service and venue: 2/5
Food and drink: 4/5
Value for money: 4/5