Don’t trust Trip Advisor Reviews. The Golden Phoenix 21.5.25

 

 

The Golden Phoenix.

37-38 Gerrard Street,

London W1d 5QB

Opening Hours: The usual

 

 

Had a friend visit from Brighton and we fancied dim sum. My go to is Plum Valley which is pretty much across the street from Golden Phoenix. I fancied a change. Also, I had a post to write and it would have been boring to write about the same restaurant over and over again. It’s one of the unexpected pleasures of writing a fortnightly food blog – exploring new restaurants. At first, I was a little hesitant about this aspect of blogging fearing that it would turn out to be something of a slog. Also some awful meals made me feel quite discouraged about the whole process. But overall, I’d say that it has been a pretty positive experience. I’m discovering new restaurants that I like as well as paying much more attention to what I’m eating. Eating can be a pretty mechanical experience, stuffing your face whilst looking at your mobile or reading or talking. You get the idea. It’s important to me to give a fair review of the places that I eat at and that means paying attention.

 

 

‘We’re going for seven dishes.’ I announced. ‘Four old favourites and three new things we wouldn’t normally have ordered.’

‘How about I eat all the old favourites and you try the new things?’ My friend suggested. Not going to happen. The exterior – what you’d expect. The usual shopfront and signage. The interior – clean and fresh. It is early summer and bright sunlight streamed in through the huge plate glass window. Service was brisk and professional.

 

 

In the end we ordered six dishes: siu mai, seafood and asparagus dumplings, char siu bao, diced duck meat and seafood dumpling, noh mai kai, and deep fried calamari. The first to arrive was the deep-fried calamari. I admit that the first thing I noticed was that the portion size was generous. It was hot crunchy and tasty. The dipping sauce was the right level of sweetness. Going to say right now that I do not expect the average Chinese restaurant to make its own condiments and I’m going to guess it came out of a bottle. Still a great start to the meal. The rest of the dim sum came all at once in stacked bamboo baskets. The siu mai was on point. It also settled one question that I’ve been chewing over for some time – does the average Chinese restaurant simply buy the dim sum staples from Wing Yip or some other Chinese supermarket? I guessed that they probably did except for the stuff that’s new and made by the chef. As one HK friend said, good dim sum restaurants come up with new variations all the time to keep the regulars coming. I also recall taking a cookery lesson from a Chinese chef who told me that he once went to Singapore for a dim sum making course. Essentially, he spent a week making hundreds of dim sum over and over again until he nailed it. The point I’m making is that a professional dim sum chef can probably knock out hundreds of immaculate dim sum in the time you and I would struggle to make a few dozen mediocre ones. The siu mai served up looked different enough for me to accept that it was made in-house.

 

 

The seafood and asparagus dumplings were purple and a palpable hit. Friend and I really enjoyed them. When you bite into one, you get a subtle whiff of asparagus. The minced seafood portion of the dumpling was adequate in size and honestly not that remarkable but the combo was great. I nearly ordered another portion.

The noh mai kai was again different from the ones I’ve had before. They were smaller and wrapped slightly differently. I know it’s just glutinous rice with mixed meat but it was different enough to satisfy me that it didn’t come from a supermarket. All the flavours were present and correct. The diced duck and seafood dumpling was just one big dumpling with a seafood stick,  and some green veg nestling in a small bowl of broth. You could both taste and see the duck. I finished off the broth. The char siu bao was good but not amazing.

Overall, it was a positive experience and I would have no hesitation going there again. Which brings me to the Trip Advisor review. I mentioned how much I enjoyed the meal to a friend who looked up the Golden Phoenix on Trip Advisor. It got a measly 3.5 stars. Google Reviews gives it 3.6. It clearly deserves more. Not sure how Trip Advisor aggregates and averages out reviews but I’m starting to think that for rating purposes, no review score should be used if it’s more than 6 months old. That’s a very long time in the restaurant business. Finally, a customer came in to order a bowl of soup and a large amount of takeaway. The waitress told her that she would get two bills because there would be no service charge for takeaway orders and it would cost her less. It kind of makes sense when you think about it but not all restaurant staff would have suggested it and some customers would have suffered in silence and not return. 

 Update 13.7.25: Went back to the Golden Phoenix again and realised that some of the dim sum at the Golden Phoenix is identical to that available in Plum Valley across the street. I also noticed a shorter menu that was offered in addition to the main menu that had other dim sum items that look to have been conjured up by the chef. It reminded me of something a HK friend told me many years ago. That in HK, any decent dim sum restaurant has to come up with a regular array of new offerings to keep the regulars happy. So, I'd hazard a guess that a lot of the stuff on the main dim sum menu might well have come from Wing Yip but not all of it.  

 

Cost: for 6 dim sum, a coke and some tea: £47.