Tai Won Mein — Restaurant in London

Have visited this place for at least 8 years - and for a few of those years it was every week! It is my 'go-to' restaurant.

The food is ALWAYS good, always made fresh to order, and they try to accommodate allergies/requests. Service and food are fast - there's no waiting for someone to take your order.

Staff are friendly, the meals are enormous, and the prices are extremely reasonable.

Some of my favourite meals are their curries (especially chicken, though the veggie is not at all bad), and I love their mini veggie spring rolls.

The only downside to this place is you have to pay 50p for a container to take home the inevitable leftovers. When I know ahead of time that I'm going there, I take my own reusable ones. Better for the planet...

I love this place so much that I would be devastated if they ever closed down as I rate them the highest out of all of the Chinese restaurants I've been to in London - and that includes all of those in Chinatown too!

UPDATE June 2025: The curry is now inedible and makes me violently Ill. They changed the sauce they use about 9 months back and it now is so hot (spicy) that it's unpleasant to eat (also so hot - temp - that it's difficult to eat without an asbestos mouth) - multiple meals have been wasted by both my guests and myself recently - and my digestive system has a very severe reaction to it. Also, vegetarian options are limited and when ordering veggie curries, the selection of veg is minimal and designed for economy and bulk rather than a pleasurable experience for the diner. Just four-five different veg usually. Finally, on multiple occasions now the plain rice has come out with up to half of it as a stodgy solid mass of 'porridge' - rice where the grains cannot be determined and it's glued into a lump. Most unpleasant.

So. Things have gone downhill - certainly in the dishes I would most usually have. The rest of my review...

Tai won mein has become a regular for us, as we live about 25 minutes walk away. This is honest, quick-turnover food, at a decent price for a generous portion and efficient service. I prefer the soup noodles over the fried noodles, and we usually get a bowl of chilli on the side, but I usually find the flavour of the soup broth really delicious without it (I just have a preference for chilli heat). We also frequently get fried salt-chilli tofu as a starter/side, which is really tasty, but appears to be the only tofu dish on offer: there are "vegetable" versions of every soup/fried noodle main to provide a vegetarian option (unsure if it is vegan), but I wish they would have some tofu/egg, tofu/vegetable mains. There is a disabled access toilet on the same floor level as the restaurant, and the other general use toilets are located up a spiral staircase - the toilets are probably the least appealing part of a visit, as they are cramped and could do with redecoration/renovation, but they are adequate. The staff waiting tables are overall efficiency-minded, and it is quite packed with tables (so if leaving your table, you need to watch out as they whizz around in case of a collision), but we find the ladies - it is almost exclusively women - friendly and good-humoured. This is an often busy, canteen-style restaurant, practically furnished - it can be noisy as any sound reflects off the hard surfaces, so best suited to quickly getting a meal or eating in a chatty group and not the place to come for a quiet conversation or an intimate date. Would be awesome if one day Tai Won Mein could relocate within Greenwich to a larger restaurant with better accessibility, so I wish them...

Portions are MASSIVE so this is a great budget spot for me and my uni friends as we tend to share one between two. The food has always been lovely any time that I’ve been.

The servers can be quite abrupt and rude. It is not somewhere that you feel you can linger - they kind of want you in and out asap and will come and collect your dishes as soon as you’re done. My boyfriend and I went here for a date once and the food was great but we were probably in and out in 30 minutes which wasn’t really the aim of the exercise!

Decor/atmosphere is not very glamorous but I’m attached to it in my own way. They have picnic bench style tables which are good for a big group of uni friends for someone’s birthday etc, but again not very glamorous.

Tap water is free and very readily available which I like - you don’t feel too pressured to buy or judged if you share one between two etc.

In summary I think this is a brilliant restaurant for young people who are perhaps on a budget with delicious food, but I probably wouldn’t bring my parents here for a fancy dinner. I would also recommend it to no-frills foodies who are looking to enjoy some good food at a reasonable price.

I’d also like to add as a Greenwich local that the price for the location (right beside the cutty sark) is brilliant, as a lot of pubs/restaurants in Greenwich massively overcharge for location, and my friends and I end up having to go to Deptford for more affordable food.

It also seems clear that this is a small family run business which is such a nice change from all the chain restaurants that take over Greenwich town centre, and I’d like to see it keep going for many...