Meal at Joy King Lau

London has a few Chinatowns. The one is Leicester Sq is oldest and arguably the largest. It is here that places like Wong Kei have earned their stripes. Off the main Chinatown street is Joy King Lau. I’ve fond memories of their salt & pepper pork chops (Chinese style pork chops) and Fujian fried rice.

The latter is actually my fav type of fried rice - a very Canto dish. It’s actually egg fried rice base with a seafood, diced chicken topping on top. We’ve been frequenting this place for the past 3 decades - and the last visit was about a decade ago. Alas this time, the Fujian fried rice did not deliver. Heartbreaking. 5.5/10. It was too bland and lacked the wok hei of old.

As I was dining alone - and it was a quick one - I didn’t get the pork chops. I suspect this dish would have redeemed Joy King Lau. Instead I went for the simplest of stir fries - beef and kailan. Even this is slightly amiss at 6/10 - the usual HK kailan is always tender, and this dish also lacked the shaoxiang finishing dashes. 6/10

Disappointing after a 14 hour flight. Total GBP36.80