It has been a hard week at work, its August and everyone is zipping away on holiday to some luxurious location or another *sigh* (I was one of those that disappeared off on holiday earlier in the year to a few fabulous destinations) my holidays seem like a distant memory now… to make up for it and take advantage of what is left of the summer weather we headed on over to Yautatcha City- sister restaurant to Hakkasan. I have only ever been to Yauatcha Soho so lets dig in and review how the city faired vs its longer standing sister restaurant…
On arrival you are greeted by very friendly staff, though they made a point to say our table was only available for two hours- it was a Friday evening so that’s fair and we were planning to go out after so no problem! We had the choice of outdoor/indoor seating- and opted for indoor as it was a little nippy outside- so far so good!
Layout wise, its nice, very spacious lots of tables- staff appear to be available when required. We had a few drinks to keep us going, the Tokyo cooler mocktail was delicious, the taittinger champage also a treat- cool and refreshing, light and bubbly- just what we needed.
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- Succulent beef dumplings- let them cool a little before tasting- youch they were hot!
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- Meaty transluscent scallops
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- Chicken Shumai- yes please!
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- Prawn Cheung Fun! yummm
Now to the food- we ordered a range of dishes, including from the left… wagyu beef dumplings, scallop shumai, chicken shumai, prawn cheung fun (yes I had to look this up- some kind of prawn and spring onion dumpling doused in a light soy dressing- absolutely delicious), Chinese vegetables (bak choi), kung pao chicken and the duck rolls with a side of jasmine rice. Dessert wise we went for the classic signature yauatcha- raspberry delice- more to come on this…
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- Kung pao- could have done with more pow!
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- Meaty, filling duck rolls
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- Rasberry Delice- if you’re lucky you can try it- signature dish!
There was a LOT of food year, dumpling wise I would say the scallop shumai and the prawn cheung fun were probably my favourites. They are not a touch on those I’ve sampled from Novikov- now that is a place to go for our dumpling fix and they are plentiful in each portion and halal for those of you looking for somewhere that is. The kung pao chicken was note bad either, well flavoured, decent sized portion- we had plenty left over! Could have done with a bit more POW For my liking.
Now on to dessert- we decided to go for the signature raspberry delice- but were told by two servers they had ran out- LIES! We saw several float passed our table, and finally got hold of a server who placed the order for us. We raised this with management and they resolved the issue- we got our dessert but the lied to get us to leave the table 30 mins before our allotted time ran out. I was not impressed, having been to a number of high end eateries and the sister restaurant in soho this was not great. The manager obviously apologised and we had our dessert, which was then removed from the bill because of the inconvenience- lovely chocolate and crunchy filling with light and tasty vanilla ice cream and tarte sauce- but it sort of ruined our otherwise great evening.
Tokyo cooler and Taittinger Nocturne!
Price wise- it was ok- 120 for two (in GBP- dollars I guess would be slightly more…). Would I go back again? Based on the experience we had, I would think twice- but the food was good so maybe, though I would be inclined to head to Soho as the menu and range of dishes was much more plentiful.
Location: 10/10 (3-5 min walk from Liverpool Street tube station)
Service: 6/10
Food: 6/10
Atmosphere: 7/10
Overall rating 7/10
