Randomness Guide to London - Differences between Version 4 and Version 3 of Baozi Inn, WC2H 7JS

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Comment added by James: I've eaten here a lot and have always found the food (I usually order soup noodle and a pork baozi) to be flavourful, filling and excellent value. Unfortunately when I last visited in mid 2010, the peace and happiness noodles were off the menu due to difficulty importing some of the ingredients.
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summary='Small Chinese restaurant in Chinatown, offering Sichuan and Northern Chinese specialties.' summary='Small Chinese restaurant in Chinatown, offering Sichuan and Northern Chinese specialties.'
website=''		 summary='Small Chinese restaurant in Chinatown, offering Sichuan and Northern Chinese specialties.' website=''

Small Chinese restaurant in Chinatown, offering Sichuan and Northern Chinese dumplings, noodle dishes, and "small eats". Note that as of May 2010 they don't take cards or cheques, and there's a £8/person minimum charge.

Inside, two rooms offer seating for around 35 people at small, blocky, square wooden tables and matching stools. Plastic vegetables and garlic garlands hang from the walls, flanked by pictures of Chairman Mao (the Chinese name of the place, 人民公社/rén mín gōng shè, translates as "people's commune").

Kake and doop visited on a Saturday lunchtime in May 2010. Arriving very soon after they opened at 11:30am, we were the only customers for the first little while, but it was over half full by the time we left an hour later.

Three-sliver salad (涼拌三絲/liáng bàn sān sī; £4) photo consisted of bean thread noodles mixed with long thin shreds of carrot and kelp, served cold in a spicy but well-balanced sesame oil dressing. The textures of the three ingredients all worked well together, but it wasn't just a textural thing — the flavour was good too.

Spicy cucumber salad with chilli and Sichuan pepper (炝黃瓜/qiàng huáng guā; £4) photo was light on the Sichuan pepper, and the pieces of dried red chilli tucked among the cucumber pieces were more decorative than flavour-enhancing — still, although the flavour was subtle, the dish was both pleasant and refreshing. The dressing was a little too oily for doop's taste, but Kake thought it was fine.

Chengdu crescent dumplings in chilli oil (鐘水餃/zhōng shuǐ jiǎo; £5.20) photo had silky skins and a nicely-textured filling of pork and Chinese chives, well complemented by the slick of chilli oil they sat in. They also came with a very generous serving of minced garlic, sensibly situated as a pile in the middle of the dish, allowing the diner to choose how much to brave.

We'd planned to have some plain rice on the side, but the sour and hot "flower" beancurd (酸辣豆花/suān là dòu huā; £4.50) that we tried to order wasn't available, so instead we went for one of the rice plates — red-braised aubergine with rice (紅燒茄子飯/hóng shāo qié zi fàn; £5.80) photo. doop really liked this; Kake felt it was competent but nothing special, though the texture of the (deep-fried) aubergine was good. Included free with this dish was a small bowl of soup photo, a simple affair of shredded seaweed in pork/chicken stock. doop liked the depth of flavour in this, though it was underseasoned to Kake's palate.

Along with Chinese tea, our final bill was £22 (service not included).

Kake's verdict: Reading other reviews, I suspect we may have been lucky in our choice of dishes. There are a couple of other things on the menu I'd like to try (the lotus root salad, the Chengdu cold noodles, and the flower beancurd we missed out on this time), so I would pop in again if I was passing, particularly if I was on my own, since the small size of the dishes means a solo diner can try several things without wastage. I wouldn't plan to linger though — those stools do get a bit uncomfortable after a while.

Accessibility: One step up to get in. Another step down to get to the toilets and some of the seating. A step up from there to get into the toilet cubicles (which are also fairly small).

See also:

Last visited by Kake and doop, 29 May 2010. Opening hours taken from the November 2008 Time Out writeup.

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