I was given the opportunity to write a blog post for Ping Pong. Ping Pong are group of restaurants serving Dim Sum, cocktails and Chinese teas. The essence of Dim Sum culture is sharing among family and friends.
I’ve only dined at a couple of Dim Sum restaurants before and they are featured in the Michelin guide (if you’re familiar with my posts you’ll know I’m a sucker for Michelin recommended restaurants) so my Dim Sum standards were set high. My dinner guest adores Chinese food and this was her 4th Chinese meal in the space of a week.
We were quickly seated in a very busy restaurant. The branch I visited is located on the Southbank I could see the London eye from my seat. This is an extremely popular restaurant, people who had walked in on the off chance of getting a table happily waited for a table to become available, this is always a good sign. Fortunately I had a reservation, I’d highly recommend booking prior to visiting, I went on a Monday evening and it was very busy.
We were sat down, tables are quite close together, which is a good way to get a sneak peak of the food on offer. As it was our first visit the menu was explained. Dim Sum is prepared as small bite-sized food. Plates are small and Ping Pong encourages sharing so dishes have been created for this purpose. It was recommended to order 3 dishes each. I got my pencil and ticked off all our food choices.
Nibbles and sauces I ordered black sesame seed prawn crackers with spicy mango sauce. Although surprised by the colour they were delicious and not at all greasy like the usual ones you get free with a takeaway.
From the soups and salads I ordered the classic chicken wonton and noodle soup. Not the most elegant dish to eat with chopsticks! We had an abundance of sauces on the table so I added some chilli sauce to this dish to give it a kick. When I managed to get hold of the slippery wonton I really enjoyed it.
From the rice dishes I ordered honeyed chilli chicken and mushroom rice pot. This was one of my favourite dishes the sauce covering the chicken and mushrooms was lovely and sweet and sticky and very comforting.
From the special and signature dishes I ordered fire cracker chicken roll. These really were like little fire crackers! The pastry was so crisp and the filling was certainly fiery as was the dip. The touch of pomegranates gave a pretty colour to the dish and a slight relief to the chilli.
Fried and grilled was a tough choice but I went for prawn toast with sesame seeds and chilli beef parcels. The prawn toast was amazing! A huge juicy prawn on toast beautifully presented in a sesame coated done. I could have eaten a whole plate of these to myself, but it wouldn’t be very Ping Pong like to hog them all.
The beef and chilli parcels were really good too, lovely and crispy.
From the steamed I went for the char Sui bun and chicken and cashew nut dumpling. The bun was not a bun as I had imagined. It’s a little gathering of clouds encasing a delicious honeyed BBQ pork. I don’t think I should have ate the backing paper though?!
The chicken and cashew were an accidental choice as I ticked the wrong box but I’m glad I did as they were lovely.
I was really impressed with all the food. The service was quick and the food came as and when it was ready, which was good for us as there wouldn’t have been enough room for all our dishes. The servers were great too, really friendly and helpful, even though I did knock almost an entire bottle of soy sauce over! Sorry!
I arrived at Ping Pong with the dim sum bar set high and they definitely reached it. There is so much more on the menu I would love to try. So I’m considering revisiting for LAZY SUMDAYS – ALL YOU CAN EAT DIM SUM!!!
Ping Ping offer Unlimited dim sum for just £22.95 per person, or £11.50 for your under 12s. Available on Sundays and Monday bank holidays only. Drinks, seasonal specials, set menus, special dishes and desserts are not included in this menu.
With Easter Sunday and a bank holiday Monday coming up its a perfect excuse to go back.
Thank you to Ping Pong for inviting me to write this post.
Food Obsessed Sam 