Er Mei — Restaurant in London

Whenever you are given suggested “things to do in London” one is always to visit Chinatown! With so many restaurants in Chinatown you are ridiculously spoilt for choice! So, where do you start?

Well on a beautifully sunny Thursday, we visited Er Mei, located on Lisle Street, which is a Sichuan cuisine restaurant. The food we were about to try was slightly different to what we were usually used to with a standard Chinese meal.

We walked into the restaurant and immediately felt the relaxed, laid back atmosphere watching the beautiful water feature at the front of the restaurant with some pretty fish swimming around in the pond/ We were greeted by a very friendly and helpful waiter who was great throughout the whole meal.

There was a great choice on the menu, from lots of beef dishes, chicken dishes, seafood and vegetarian to choose from. We decided to go all out and try several different dishes and went for the Kong Pao Chicken, Fried Noodles with Mixed Vegetables, Stir Fried Beef with Chilies and Crushed Peanuts, Sea-Spiced Three Vegetables (aubergine, red pepper and potatoes), Stir Fried Pak Choi and Egg Fried Rice. Although this menu is a little on the pricey side (dishes around £12-18), the portions are very generous and with so much flavour going on, you just will not be disappointed.

The Sea-Spiced Veg was one of our highlights and I definitely recommend this dish if you are a veggie. Packed full of flavour, the potatoes, pepper and aubergine were cooked perfectly within a thick tasty sea-spiced paste. For meat lovers, the Kong Pao Chicken was delicious with small pieces of succulent chicken in a perfect salty, sweet, sour and spicy sauce!

The stir fried beef was incredible -extremely crispy on the outside and succulent on the inside amongst chilies and crushed peanuts. This dish had a great kick to it so perfect for anyone who likes their food on the spicier side. For anyone who has a love of noodles, you must get the Fried Noodles with Mixed Veg: Thick tasty noodles with succulent veg – I actually found myself continuing to eat this even once I was full!

The food was so good we even bagged the leftovers up to take back to the office.

Overall this is a cute and quaint little restaurant in the heart of Chinatown, with a great variety of amazing food. They are also having a refurb in May so I recommend giving them a visit once they have had...

The Emei group is really awesome! ! Right in Chinatown! It was delicious the last time I ate it, and it was so delicious today that I must share it! ! And they were just a few random dishes without any reference to what anyone would recommend. Every dish was super delicious! ! This store is really up to par! !

🥘Golden round hoof, I ordered it when I saw it was a new dish! The tender pig's trotters melt in your mouth, and the sauce is neither salty nor bland. Every bite has the same texture as eating tofu and rice cakes. It's a bit too fragrant, and one hoof has more than a dozen complete pieces. It's really so much. Can't eat it!

🥘Secret beef and radish stew is also a new dish. It’s super delicious just by looking at the picture. Hurry and arrange it! There are potatoes, green peppers and carrots in it. The radish is harvested very well and the soup is very delicious! The spiciness level is two chili peppers. Even though the chili peppers are extremely spicy, they are really refreshing! The sauce is also great when paired with rice, so you can enjoy three bowls of it!

🥘Crispy chicken with secret sauce, this is a very fresh chicken! The chicken is diced and then wrapped in a layer of sweet sauce and deep-fried. Every piece is crystal clear. It looks like spinach and walnut kernels, but the chicken inside is soft, glutinous and juicy! The secret sauce outside is so sweet and salty, I really like it!

🥘Preserved egg and spinach soup, light and light, but unique! In addition to fresh spinach, there are also preserved eggs and green onions. The soup is very sweet. After eating spicy beef brisket and devouring pig's feet, having another bite of spinach soup is so happy!

Overall, their food is really, really delicious! ! The boss said that they have been open for 13 years. After all, they have a lot of regular customers (I am already ready for the next thing. I nodded hard! There were many foreigners in the store when we ate~ It’s really good! I hope they will The better you make it, everyone, hurry up! Let’s go eat hot pot and...

TERRIBLE. AVOID AT ALL COST.

Bunch of scammers.

We got seated quickly as the restaurant was not busy. We ordered a dish each and food arrived not long after; however they arrived separately, which we didn’t mind. After we’d finished, we quickly asked for the bill. The waiter came and said to pay at the counter and demanded that we give him tips before leaving, bear in mind we were aware that 12.5% service charge were being added. We thought this was odd. I went and spoke to the manager and said we’ll pay for our food but won’t pay for service charge as the waiters didn’t seem to care about us or even asked if the food was okay.

The manager demanded that we needed to pay at least £15 per person and that we were told the minimum spend per head is £15. We were not informed nor saw anywhere on the menu or the table that it was £15 minimum per head. She then walked to my friends, which were sat at the table, and told them that we all need to pay £45 to cover our bills. I said to the manager that there are no laws to say, us as customers, MUST spend a minimum amount at a restaurant, she insisted further that there are laws about this. She argued and cornered us into our table and further said that “we have lots of expenses we need to cover”, which to me this is not my problem. If you can not afford to rent a place in a big city, simply don’t.

As we were leaving the manager shouted “do not come back” across the restaurant for other customers to hear. To me, I will not be going back and I hope that this behaviour does not continue, unfortunately being in a touristy area, this business will continue to scam tourist which would eventually give SOHO a bad reputation. It’s a shame that this behaviour is not being addressed and that many tourists will fall...