Restaurant Review: Leong's Legend

I've been wistfully reading many reviews and tweets about Leong's Legend over recent months and been meaning to visit for quite some time. So I was really pleased to be able to make my first visit with regular customer, Helen, the lady behind one of my very favourite blogs, World Foodie Guide.

Leong's Legend, Macclesfield Street, ChinaTown, London

We met for lunch on the first Friday in October, just as autumn finally barged the last days of summer well and truly out of it's way. We quickly got to ordering, eating and chatting.

Braised Pork Belly Rice (£4.80)

From the price, we assumed the pork belly rice would be a smaller dish than was delivered. When the huge pile of meltingly soft belly pork pieces, mound of rice and rich dark sauce arrived, we knew for sure we'd over ordered! This one dish would be a hearty lunch on it's own! Definitely not one for the diet-conscious, the fatty pork was spoon soft and cooked in a delicious, sweet savoury sauce. One of my favourites!

Taiwan Spicy Beef Noodle (£4.80)

As with the pork, the noodle soup was a much larger dish than we'd expected for the price. This was filling but nothing special, a little bland and boring.

Beef Noodle Soup and 2 Taiwan Mini Kebab with Pork (£2.60 each)

Even though we had far too much food, I'm glad Helen suggested ordering one mini kebab each - "far too tricky to divide", she said. "And far too delicious to want to", I thought! I loved these! Inside the soft pillow of dough was an explosion of tastes and textures including soft pork, supple pickled vegetables and crunchy peanut sauce. I's going to be hard not to pop in for one of these every time I'm passing!

Legend's Siu Long Bao (8 pieces £5.00)

The sui long bao were just as good as I'd been lead to believe by the various food bloggers and twitterati in the know! That said, I've never before had sui long bao - a steamed dim sum dumpling containing hot liquid alongside the regular meat filling - so I can't compare with other examples. Extra care is needed in order not to burst the delicate parcels and lose all the tasty broth, though it's an equal challenge not to burn one's mouth on it either!

Prawn Dumplings (4 pieces £2.50)

Perfectly acceptable, fairly ordinary prawn dumplings. No better or worse than those I've had in many other places.

Roast Pork Cheung Fun (£2.80)

Both Helen and I agreed that the cheung fun was disappointing. The rice noodle roll (wrapper) was flabby, the roast pork bland and the dipping sauce somewhat insipid. I would not order this again here, though it's something I have often elsewhere.

Iced Pearl Tea with Milk (£3.00)

We washed down as much of this feast as we could manage (and believe me, we crammed in a lot) with Iced Pearl Tea with Milk. I love the big black tapioca pearls often served with fruit juice, smoothies and iced tea and coffee. Leong's Legend tea was made as it's commonly drunk in India - brewed very strong with lots of milk and sugar. I couldn't drink it hot, but it worked well with ice and pearls.

As you can imagine, we didn't manage to finish it all, but we gave it a good try! Our bill was about £17 each, with service. You could eat a generous lunch here for a tenner or less very easily.

Whilst I won't be abandoning my longtime China Town dim sum haunts (the cheung fun was disappointing and, of course, many dim sum dishes were not available here) I have certainly added Leong's Legend to my shortlist of places to pop into for a tasty, inexpensive lunch in town.