Restaurant A. Wong, London Victoria

Raise your hand if you like dim sum. No, the prawn toast doesn't count. Put the prawn toast down. Good.

Aahh...dumplings. Now we're talking :D

This dim sum post kicks of a series of restaurant related posts I've got coming up. I haven't found the time to bake very much in the lead up to this exam I have in June (I've somewhat called it a "baking ban" I'm going on but I think that's just a paraphrase of "gotten a bit lazy and time constrained"). However, I have remained to find the time to eat, whoop whoop! Which, you know, is great.

Moving on to restaurant A Wong. It's a small restaurant just off Victoria station which, in my opinion, looks a bit takeaway-ey from the outside, but in the inside it's an oasis of dim sum related well cooked and beautifully presented upmarket Chinese food. I came here with my boyfriend a few weeks back after hearing some pretty damn good reviews. We were not disappointed, hurray!

Kicking off which this yummy scrunched soft boiled quails egg creation. Actually called 'quails egg croquette puff', it was definitely puffy and we loved it. Like melt in your mouth loved it. Along with the gingery dip thingy.

I think this was the scallop puff with XO sauce, because it was... scallopy...and.... puffy. The scallop was actually rather minimal but, it was crunchy!

Foie gras sticky sesame dumpling - a kind of deep fried mochi ball with sesame around the outside and foie gras on the inside. This is actually really popular as end of meal petite fours in Chinese restaurants. I remember once being served them when I was 16 and eating the whole bowl (yes, all 12)... Felt a little sick after bit totally, totally, worth it.

And moving ok to my favourite. Xiao Long Bao (with fish roe on top? For show I suppose?) literally meaning "little dragon buns" (I don't know why either...) The trick is to pick it up and eat in one go so the soup oozes out in your mouth, and it's just amazing and totally satisfying.

If you really like these I would recommend Leongs Legend in Chinatown, which specialises in Xiao Long Bao at about 2/3 of the price. 

Chinese New Year celebrations next in the form of filled tofu skins, and a soy sauce "pipette". 

It was okay. But it was novel. Very novel. Well done. 

We also had the gluntinous rice parcel with mushrooms and chicken but I forgot to take a photo :( I don't think it's on the menu anymore but not to worry it was our least favourite dish anyways :P was too smokey with all that smoking they used to smoke it. And it was schmoking hot when it arrived. Schmoookeeee.

Um, moving on to dessert.

Snow ball meringue, lychee granite, mango puree and lime sorbet. It was refreshing! I mean, not as good as the dim dim but that's a mean feat to beat.

This lunch was a special treat from my boyfriend :) We paid about £45 for the dim sum, a beer and service. These guys also do a tasting menu at dinner too, but for a good value high quality Chinese lunch in Victoria, I think it's worth it. Plus it's just around the corner from the Apollo theatre ("It's time to try defying gravity, and you can't pull me down!")... yes I'm looking at you, Wicked fans!

Restaurant A. Wong

70 Wilton Road

Victoria

London

SW1V 1DE

(Dim sum a la carte at lunchtime only)

http://www.awong.co.uk/