Restaurant HE — Restaurant in London

I've been enjoying discovering new regional Chinese cuisines over and above the usual, predominantly Cantonese fare we have in the UK. I'd particularly enjoyed Shaanxi cuisine, and so was excited to learn there was a restaurant representing another regional style I had yet to try: Jiangsu cuisine.

As a vegetarian though, this voyage of discovery can have its ups and downs, and the sense I get (admittedly just from a single visit to a single restaurant!) is that Jiangsu cuisine probably isn't that well suited to vegetarianism.

Or maybe a little work on the menu here might help. Having it available on their website would be a good start, then I could have studied it in more detail beforehand. I was left a bit unsure what to visit, there were a few vegetable dishes, but the descriptions made them sound a bit more like side dishes to me, and that's sort of what I felt I ended up with - a meal composed of side dishes.

The "Nanjin Vegetarian's Delight" was a sort of salad, composed of shredded tofu skin and wood ear mushrooms with some carrot and greens. There wasn't really any discernible sauce on it, which made for rather bland eating.

I had also ordered the "Palace Beans", apparently a dish eaten by Chinese royalty when fasting. I love broad beans but was a little hesitant to order a dish priced at a little over £10 which was primarily just broad beans (with some garlic, chilli and I presume a predominantly soy sauce based sauce). The quantity was quite large, but then surely this is intended to be a side dish shared by a table of people, or a snack (again shared by a group of people) to accompany beer. They were presumably wok fried given the texture and the appearance of the shells, which was interesting to begin with, but after a while eating them became a bit laborious given that you can only really pick up one or two at a time with chopsticks, and they were also overwhelmingly salty, so I couldn't finish them.

I also ordered a dish of greens (sorry I forget the name, it was something slightly special sounding, not just the generic "Chinese greens"), and they were really beautifully cooked and presented, which shows there is some real craftsmanship at work here... but still I got to the end of the meal feeling I was lacking something.

So there is definitely potential here, but as a vegetarian I felt the menu really needed a bit of work to help me construct a rounded meal, and not end up feeling like I was having a collection of side dishes...

0 stars. Absolutely horrendous experience with staff just oblivious to the appalling running of the restaurant (not sure if on purpose or have a low EQ). A summary: Came in and managed to get a table in the busy evening (probably the only bright spot). took 20 minutes to actually get their attention to order (yes there’s two staff for running the whole restaurant of around 30 diners) whilst the table next to us already had food server. table next to us were clearly more direct and shouted the orders (even after they were served) to add some drinks to which the staff responded to when we had our hands up to order which were ignored for 20 mins. the staff would just say “please wait” in Chinese every time I asked if I could order. most outrageously, the table next to us had all their food and drinks finished when we had not received a single dish. Table next to us even asked if they can get their last dish faster so they can finish and leave. I complained to say that the table next door came in at the same time and they had almost finished, especially when the final dish was served to them before we had a single dish served. As usual the staff ignored my complaint. once we finally had the good served, it was average. The squirrel fish was just pre made and heated and the seafood had sand in it. Not to mention half the food, particularly the salted duck (the dish that the restaurant brands off) was not even available to order. when we asked for the bill they just gave us a scrap paper with the number to pay without showing us the breakdown of the cost and no chance for me to even dispute or ask for the service charge to be removed (which is illegal - you need to show the breakdown of the cost).

Absolutely horrendous experience - borderline reportable to the consumer conduct authorities and regulators.

Please avoid this place at all cost. Poor service is okay is you actually can make your order and the food is decent - but not in the case of clearly being mistreated and ignored.

Save your money and go somewhere else. This is not a good representation of true huaiyang cuisine anyway. Don’t be scammed. I’m going to post this on Xiaohongshu too so that the Chinese disapora read this and avoid...

Visited yesterday for a second time. Noticed a few things:

1. thé male waiter was audibly rude / sarcastic towards his female colleague (another waiter), as well as imo “shouting” down the food escalator towards his colleague in the kitchen - he was friendly towards us but witness of his attitude towards his colleagues made me comfortable.

I appreciate it’s stressful working on a sat evening, although I think being considerate /polite with each other goes a long way to create a relaxing environment for the guests.

2. I feel the restaurant is more efficient with its cold / salad dishes, I guess these can be prepared beforehand. The quality of hot dishes can be a bit “hit and miss”.

We didn’t have to wait for very long time for hot dishes, although one of the hot dishes Green Peas Tofu Pork (毛豆香干肉丝）hardly had any meat in it, instead of having supposed shredded pork listed in the menu, it’s more like very very tiny pieces of minced meat.

Overall still a very positive experience as it’s rare to eat jiangsu food in London, but marked down for...