I hate Mondays. Greedy Sheep. 10.3.25

 

I hate Mondays. 10.3.25

 

Greedy Sheep.

8 Little Newport Street,

London WC2H NJJ

Opening Hours: 12:00 – 22:00

All dishes cost less than £20.

 

 

 

Greedy Sheep is a small and unpretentious noodle shop, somewhat on the outskirts of London’s Chinatown. There are a lot of noodle shops in the area but this one looked quite interesting. I liked the name; it had an uncomplicated pungent quality that befitted the establishment. It boasted of having the finest Chinese style lamb and beef soup. I thought it was a bold but reasonable claim to make. Noodle shops tend towards truncated menus, a few simple noodle dishes with rice ones as an alternative, simple starters and maybe one or two desserts for those with a sweet tooth and an inclination to prolong an already pleasant experience. It’s not a complicated formula and does not require a Michelin starred chef to execute. What could go wrong?

 

 

For starters, I went there on a Monday. As anyone who’s ever read Bourdain’s Kitchen Confidential, or, I guess, has any experience of the restaurant trade will realise, this is a slow day. The footfall is low, staffing minimal and inexperienced and the ingredients likely less than fresh. People tend to eat out towards the end of the week and in the evenings. That’s when the A team is in attendance. The most experienced kitchen crew and front of house team. You could make a reasonable argument that if you want to give a fair review of a restaurant, you should show up at a day and time when the great majority of the customers are likely to show up and experience when they are then going to sample. The counterargument, of course, is that if the restaurant in question charges its Monday lunchtime customers the exact same prices as it does the Saturday night ones, then the customer is entitled to the exact same quality of food and service. No discount was received by me, the Monday lunchtime customer. On that basis, I don’t think it’s reasonable to expect any slack in relation to any aspect of the restaurant experience.

 

 

 

The waiter was bespectacled and Chinese, friendly and helpful. After mulling over the options on offer, I settled on the spicy Nanchang beef noodle, and a couple of skewers of meat, namely one of chicken and another of beef tendon. After some hesitation, I passed, with some regret, on the beer and decided on Chinese tea. No skewers were available according to the waiter and the beef tendon balls was my choice of substitute. So, how was the meal? The beef tendon balls were on the right side of chewy but bland. I had a suspicion that they had been microwaved straight out of the fridge. The microwaving was fine, it’s a Monday and it’s a noodle bar. I didn’t expect a team of cooks to be huddled in the basement kitchen forming them by hand. The blandness, on the other hand, the beef tendon balls literally tasted of nothing. The beef noodle tasted of neglect and reeked of mediocrity. The individual ingredients had potential. The noodles were perfectly cooked, as you’d expect from a noodle shop. The slices of beef were warmish, the peanuts were crunchy and fun, and the pickled chillies were sour and nicely firm. It’s just that the sum of the parts failed to cohere for me and the overall result was one of the less enjoyable noodle dishes that I had ever eaten. It did not help that the waiter forgot to provide any cutlery. Bear in mind that at this point, there were no one else to be served. I later had to request a spoon as well. It all added up to a sub-par dining experience. The total bill came up to £20.40 including the 10% discretionary gratuity.

 

Hard pass.