The start of this excursion began with a text that somewhere along the lines got muddled and compressed into an alternative vision of the original intention. In the mood for burgers a message was sent out. Maybe my counterpart was in the mood for Chinese, but somewhere in the data field, the lines blurred and the smart-ass reply came asking for Chinese Burgers. They must exist in some shape or another and after a little googling, a blog post had mentioned Chinese style lamb burgers at a place called Silk Road in Camberwell. So forward we marched…

The epic fail came upon ordering, met by a blank stare and a confidently vague answer, there were no Chinese burgers. But in this busy little place, you could sense that plenty other things would prove to be just as rewarding. I was picking up a good vibe here: relaxed, almost like it was not a restaurant but a takeaway with picnic tables bolted down, people chilling, drinking beer and socialising. A place popular with the young’uns/art students all experimenting with with life and tripe.

On first view of the menu, there seemed to be a large amount of shredded dishes and the meal would have went 100% shredded if not for the restraint of my counterpart, because I wanted to shred it all up and put it in a big bowl. The hot/cold shredded potatoes came cool but with a garlic n’ chile sneak attack.  Calmly satisfying, not a flavour out of line or too egotistical, just bare naked slivered potatoes.

Meat dumplings, were all dough: hearty and wheat tough, with a solid moist chew. The dishes were arriving as they were prepared. We didn’t have to follow the age old here’s your starter, now here’s your main. It adds to the relaxed dining atmosphere. A Kidney shish  displayed three textures; smooth, then sharp, then a little bit wobbly.  Dry hot powdered spices made the lips burn and the grilled kidneys left an aftertaste akin to melting plastic – good or bad, take your pick.

Then the belle of the ball arrived. Hand pulled belt noodles; density-chew with a follow through, and in a broth that was a flavour surprise every bite. A building wave of flavours played out as you took the next slurp: szechuan pepper subtly built itself up and then flipped in the next sip to an aromatic burst of lemon grass. But, beware stay conscious and don’t slip into a food coma, the broth will seduce you and next thing you know the heat will burn your throat and you will choke. Concentrate on your breathing and you will be well rewarded – a mid-section of chicken wing was a highlight bite. The skin still on, which left the flesh tender and containing nodules of residual broth flavour.

We had gone on a mission to eat Chinese burgers and had ended up in a world of textures. Beers sunk, bellies full, minds blissfully content. This was our first taste of Xinjiang style food and we would gladly follow the Silk Road from east to west any day of the week.

Silk Road
49 Camberwell Church St, SE5 8TR
tel: 020 7703 4832

Random Disclaimer
We don’t know nothing or at least next to nothing about true Chinese food. We are fixing to learn a little bit more on our adventure and at the same time find some good spots for all of you out there! If you want to drop the info bomb on us please do so – gn@thebrokenspork.com
Read this to hear how it all started ‘The Legend Begins‘

It was a shaky start, we had hit gold with our meal at Yipin China, my eating co-pilot was looking glum when I tardily walked through the door. He was flicking through a green, sad looking laminated menu. The bowl of prawn crackers uneaten. His beer more than half sunk. I slump down and automatically go for a cracker. It was the silver age comic version; created in the 60′s and had probably been sitting in somebodies attic ever since. Musty and not the brilliant white it used to be, yellowed and brittle.

Something needed to be done, the excitement had leeched out of us and the second place on our Chinese-Takeaway tour looked  like it was going to leave us with a bowlful of generic, colour saturated, iconoclastic anti-culture jamming junk.

“You specialize in Shanghainese cuisine don’t you?” quizzically asked by the ever hopeful yours truly.
“Yes we have a different menu,” came the unguarded reply of the waitress.

The anxious eyes of my dinning companion lit up as the new menu arrived, a whole new world had just opened up for us. All of a sudden our cutlery was replaced with chopsticks, and a neglected wobbly table sturdied.

It had looked like it was going to be a dire situation, but turned into a real treat – a meal we nearly missed. The restaurant had a non-permanent look to it: A few bits and pieces nailed to the wall, tables constantly re-sized and shuffled about the room depending on the number of covers.  The rudimentary requirements for establishing atmosphere came from the red lanterns that raged subtle warm pink hues all over us and the Chinese Women’s Institute(author’s imagination) that sat motherly round a large circular table, clapping as their dishes were brought out. They made us excited, although not enough to make us clap when our dishes came.

First we went for fried prawns in soya sauce(Shanghai style). They were slippery fried  buggers that blasted  shanghai style sauce all over my shirt. I exacted my revenge by sucking out their juicy head flesh- nutty and sweet. Our prawns came with a disclaimer that they had shells, and with our next dish we were warned of the bones that lurked within – basically we are dumbos and the dynamics for dining here are different.

As for the dangerous bone riddled drunk chicken, it was hands down the best dish that night. The drunk part, not your basic rice wine, but a house recipe; home-brew that came with long lasting flavour and a hint of fermented barley. Now I just couldn’t figure out if I had become addicted to the booze or the chicken, let’s call it a draw.

That Drunken Chicken

Pork shards with Chinese celery looked pretty plane Jane but with one bite of the celery you could see that it played a big part in the dish; not a stock base or a trinity, but a player, a long lasting mustard follow through of a player. The pork shards a secondary support unit for layer transference.

The one dish we could not get our heads around, was sweet dates and sticky rice. You become accustomed to ordering a rice dish when getting takeout. So, preprogrammed to do so we ordered this expecting a bowl of rice with dates, but instead received rice stuffed dates sitting in a puddle of greenish liquor. The rice compressed to a resilient texture and toughness, the dates like ancient crumbled armour and the liquor, sweet with an undetermined flavour follow-through.

After years of looking at the same menu, this will perk you up. Chinese food is such a broad statement. Look for things out of the ordinary. Could this place make money on just serving Shanghainese food, or survive on serving up the classics from all regions of China? It is their choice to make but surely two faced dinning must be expensive and with a huge array of dishes on the combined menu how do they pull it off? Book your table now and find out at this duality of an eatery.

Red Sun
2A New Quebec Street, London, W1H 7RD
Telephone: 020 7723 5350
Web: http://redsun.foodkingdom.com/SupplierWebSite/Template/Default.aspx

Random Disclaimer
We don’t know nothing or at least next to nothing about true Chinese food. We are fixing to learn a little bit more on our adventure and at the same time find some good spots for all of you out there! If you want to drop the info bomb on us please do so – gn@thebrokenspork.com
Read this to hear how it all started ‘The Legend Begins‘