Barshu Restaurant — Restaurant in London

The Michelin guide included restaurant was really crowded and people were lining up outside when I got there. There's a good reason for thr busy sight. Their yuxiangqiezi (eggplant sauteed in spiced garlic sauce) is probably the best you can get around fitzrovia or even Chinatown. Many restaurants overuse vinegar for this dish, which makes it into a completely different dish and for me that ruins the totality of it. Here the sauce is thick and flavoured, well combined with soft-textrued eggplant, the entire dish is like a mildly spicy paste and is mouth watering especially with some rice. The same commentary could go to their suancaiyu (picked fish in soup) as well, easily beats the nearby restaurants. A lot of the restaurants make this dish as if the whole dish is soaked in oil, and fish is usually cut thin. Here ud get fairly firm yet tender fish cutlets with delicious vermicelli in a well balanced flavourful soup.

The hongshaorao ( soy-sauce pork) is mediocre. Not nearly as saucy or flavoured as it should be. Probably because the owner here isn't from southern China as reported by my two friends from the northern part, and probably just like the owner they had no idea what this southern dish should be aiming at. It's acceptable if it doesn't call itself with that name. And same comment could go to what I post below. The biggest disappointment of this month has unfortunately been found here at barshu, namely their suannibairou (pork belly with mashed garlic). You might say the photo down below looks alright. It might even be a good photo to showcase if I spent a good time editing it. I would say you are not wrong. But this dish. Is simply not what it says it is. I won't call a pork dish a pork dish when 90% of the dish is in fact carrots. When I make a saltimbocca I wouldn't say this is sage leaves with pork on the side. might go easy on the soy-sauce pork but not for this one. Also this dish is Hella sweet. The sauce it uses is already sweet and the carrots are sweet also. So it's just sweet on top of sweet. Im almost totally convinced that this dish is for the Michelin guide person to be impressed. Well this is not impressive to me at all. And I wouldn't pay 9 pounds (or whatever price it was)for this. I'd rather have it authentic with actual combination of good flavours. Call it whatever you like. Bitesize Carrots in sweet sauce with thinly cut pork may doesn't sound good but that's what it is.

The seats we got were in a karaoke place looking room and unlike our neighbors we didn't have a service calling device so my friend suffered a lot of running to get bills and orders etc. We joked about not paying the service charge cuz he was allegedly half our server but I'm not being picky here it's a small restaurant with loads of work to do. Only mentioning this so just in case someone else get the seat and feel frustrating.

Anyhow I think the restaurant is absolutely capable of delivering good food but sometimes they just make confusing choices in my opinion. For now I wouldn't highly recommend it cuz it's not cheap at all. It's an alright choice but I'd like to see it presenting it's...

Second really disappointing experience here - I won't be coming again.

I used to live in Sichuan for a few years and wanted to come here for a special occasion (my birthday). We let them know in advance.

They ignored us throughout the whole meal and failed to bring the dishes we ordered despite us asking multiple times. Funnily enough, all the tables with Chinese customers were regularly served.

The food was a mix. The specials with sizzling sauce was really good, as was the bean curd and chives. For the rest - the classic tomato and egg dish was far below par with the eggs totally overcooked and the dumplings were just OK. The dan dan noodles, which is why we booked the place, were never brought but billed for, and when we let them know, they just shrugged. I had let them know specifically about the dan dan noodles in advance as they are my favourite. No offer to bring them.

It was over 30 degrees outside and we asked for water THREE times. It came at the very end of the meal, when we had headaches from the MSG and felt dehydrated. Rice, again which we had ordered, we had to ask for three times. Our waitress rolled her eyes at us when we asked her to please bring it. So we had nothing to soak up the spicy sauce until halfway through the meal.

I'm not sure how there can be so many mix ups as we literally wrote the order down on a sheet of paper.

At the end I actually got up to ask for the bill because it was impossible to get the attention of the waitress.

They then marked us as a no show on our reservation. My boyfriend wanted to pay as it was a special occasion and it was close to £100. If it had been me, I would have requested to have the 12.5% service charge removed. He didn't want to make a fuss and just get out of there.

I had been here before 3 or 4 years ago, but I thought maybe I had just come on a bad day. I will not be making the mistake to go back.

It's a real shame. We have never spent £100 on a meal to feel so completely unimportant to the place. And there did seem to be a couple of nice waiters, they just weren't ours. It seems they really did not want us there, we will not make the mistake of coming back.

Not Sichuanese but I regularly go to TaoTaoJu instead now, they have much better service and actually make me feel like a valued...

So unprofessional staff and just awful experience! I came to the restaurant on Monday evening and tried to get a table for me and my partner. We were waiting inside for the table (already for around 5 minutes) when some people who known owner/manager went at the front of us and got the table which was in preparation for us. I looked and my partner and she was also confused. When my partner asked how long it will take to get a table for us, we got response "it should be in a minute because someone else got your table, sorry for that". After next 5 minutes we got our table. Not great start to not trait your customers equally. First red flag.

Table was located on the first floor just next to the stairs. When I sit there my chair was literally in the middle of the beginning of stairs. In 5 minutes 3 my chair have been kicked/hit by staff and other customers which was really annoying. Staff came to our table and started speaking to my partner in Mandarin and explaining the rules of the restaurant. Staff said that we have 1 hour to leave the table. My partner felt that staff is putting the whole pressure on her so she started translating in English to me that we have just an hour to order and eat. We were both not happy with it (never heard of just an hour for a table in the restaurant). Response? "OK OK, it can be 1.5 hour then". Second red flag.

My partner mentioned my chair is just bad located and asked if we can get a new table next to us. Staff was a bit confused but agreed that it's alright and we can move. After 5 minutes someone else from staff came to us and said, quoting, "you can't sit here, these are booked tables!". Really rude, isn't it? The third red flag. We started explaining that we asked staff if we can pick that up and it was fine and that the original table was bad located. Guy said "no one complained about the location of that table before". I said "Does it matter? Is this just my imagination that hit my chair 3 times in 5 minutes?" after that he said "You can leave if you want then". Of course we wanted to leave at this point.

Absolutely awful...