House of Ming, an opulent Chinese restaurant with branches worldwide, was established in India in 1978 and has now opened close to Buckingham Palace in London. This is incredibly handy should you need feeding after a long stint of watching people in tiaras wave at you from balconies. Or after enjoying Westminster Abbey and so on, especially if you’re staying in one of the numerous fancy and not-so-fancy hotels around the St James’ Park area. Millions do each year, and feeding them is big business, which is why opening a House of Ming in the Taj hotel makes perfect sense. House of Ming markets itself as luxurious, in much the same vein as Hutong at the Shard does, or the boldly bizarre Tattu off Shaftesbury Avenue. House of Ming’s shtick is not earnestly recreated, authentic Cantonese and Sichuan food, but more catch-all Chinese food, in this case by way of India and now transplanted to London. Come and be wowed, it seems to say. Come and experience the fantasy, the decadence, the splendour …
The interior designers Atelier Wren have clearly thought much longer about the place than anyone involved with the menu, creating a space inspired, they say, by the Ming Dynasty, with hand-painted ceilings, lush, velvet booths, red lacquer, green hues, plush golden “love seats” for two, pretty brass pendant lights and elegant group dining rooms. All very well, unless you’re a solo diner, as I was, on an un-busy weekday lunchtime, when they dispatched me to an unlovely corner, where I was seated looking at the toilet door, the Epos till system and the area where they leave the dirty plates. I ordered a bottle of sparkling water – twice. The first one never materialised, and the second they insisted on serving formally, possibly to remind me that I’m in a “posh place”, but then the service dried up, so I just resigned myself to being thirsty and consoled myself with the “Summer Daytime” Spotify playlist made specially for them by Gok Wan. It’s cold in a restaurant’s no man’s land.
House of Ming’s menu kicks off with 20 to 30 dim sum and small plate options, most of them priced between £12 and £15, regardless of what they actually contain. Smashed cucumber in spicy peppercorn oil: £15. Scallop with caviar: £15. Edamame beans: £12. Duck bao: £12. And so on. I chose the crispy fried seafood rolls, which turned up in a floury tempura that had a texture similar to fried bread. The insides featured an anonymous pink and grey goo that was not particularly shrimpy, scallopy or crabby, or indeed seasoned with anything resembling even white pepper. They cost £20.
Rooms at the Taj start at upwards of £400 a night, which in the wacky world of London accommodation right now could possibly be regarded as “a bargain”. So, by the time you’ve budgeted for about £3,000 to spend a week here, £28 for a plate of perfectly inoffensive king prawns with string beans in XO sauce or £110 for a peking duck may seem reasonable, too. Still, for me, there was something disappointing about the likes of a bowl of thick, gelatinous mapo silken tofu in a wobbly chilli bean sauce that hung about in a way that suggested it had been bought in bulk.
A side of Sichuan aubergine arrived, its skin removed, the white flesh chopped, deep-fried and swimming in a rather sweet, unlovable pool of pale-brown chilli bean sauce that was the texture and shade of Bisto vegan gravy, and had about as much vibrancy.
At this point, a male waiter rushed to my table and began serving all of my food on to my plate in great big hefty spoonfuls. Meanwhile, another solo diner out here with me in singleton Siberia gasped for the cocktail he’d already ordered twice.
“Would you like dessert?” said a passing server, albeit without offering me a menu.
“What have you got?” I asked. “I think I saw a date pancake?”
“No,” she said. “We have ice-cream.”
“But I don’t want ice-cream,” I replied.
“Tea or coffee?” she said.
“Tea!” I said brightly. “A jasmine tea.” Soon after, a delicate, pretty, small pot of tea arrived with a tiny beaker. It was by far the highlight of the meal. So I paid up and left, slightly gobsmacked at how I’d managed to spend almost £100 with no alcohol, and hardly any water, for that matter. Closer examination of the bill on the tube home revealed that I’d been charged £25 for that pot of tea. Plus service.
House of Ming: you might be very popular in Delhi, because you’ve been a pretty big name there now for more than four decades, but in London I think you might just struggle.
House of Ming St James’ Court, 54 Buckingham Gate, London SW1, 020-7963 8330. Open Tues-Sun, lunch 12.30-3.30pm, dinner 6.30-11pm. From about £60 a head à la carte; three-course set lunch £35; five-course set lunch and dinner £80; all plus drinks and service
