[london.food] [REVIEW] Jenny Lo's Tea House, 14 Eccleston Street, SW1W 9LT

[prev] [thread] [next] [lurker] [Date index for 2003/8/21]

From: Simon Wistow
Subject: [london.food] [REVIEW] Jenny Lo's Tea House, 14 Eccleston Street, SW1W 9LT
Date: 17:12 on 21 Aug 2003
Jenny Lo's is a favourite among Yahoo! employyes, partly because it's
one of the of the only decent places to have lunch round by the
godforsaken wasteland that is Victoria Coach Station (ok, so that's over
exaggerating, still, the nearest good sandwich shops are too far a walk
to be worth the stalke ciabatta and manky chicken/mayonnaise mix they
sell) but also cos it's damnably tasty.

Opened in Febuary 1995 by the eponymous Ms Lo on the site of her father,
Ken Lo's cookery school, Jenny Lo's (or JLo's as it's inevitably known)
sells noodles and various herbal teas from a short and simple menu.
Despite that, the dishes are subtly different from what you'd see on a
normal noodle house menu.

Starter's are a bit more conventional - ranging from about 4 to 6 pounds 
you can get Guo Tie (pan cooked dumplings), spare ribs, honey roast 
pork, wunton soup and delicious salt and pepper tofu, squid or prawns.

Vegetable side dishes are 3.50 UKP each for which you can get either 
stri fried pak-choy, stir fried french beans with garlic or spinach with 
garlic.

There are 5 kinds of main dish - soup noodles come in a large, almsot 
huge,  bowl. To be honest I can't really comment on these because soup 
noodle's aren't really my bag. There are also wok noodles (egg and 
hofun), beijing (white) noodles adn vietnamese (vermicelli). There are 
also a number of rice dishes.

I have an awful habit of sticking with my favourite dishes when I'm 
there. Although I'm always tempted by different things I tend to only go 
when I'm craving either the pungent Black Bean Seafood noodles with big 
chewy lumps of squid, prawns and mussels, Lamb with Spring Onions and 
Rice which is sticky and slightly sweet or, my all time favourite, Gong 
Bao Chicken with pine nuts which is tangy, tasty and pleasantly spicy.

Other good items are Sichuan Aubergine (delicisusly sticky), Beef Hofun, 
Long-cooked Pork with Chesnuts and Vegetarian Ma Po Toufu.

Main courses range form about 6 pounds to 7.50. There are usually 
specials - the only one of which I've had has abeen a crisply light Stir 
Fried Cod Fillet with Chinese Mushrooms.

The teas are about 1 or 2 pounds depending on whether you go for a 
normal chinese tea (jasmine, green and something else) or a Therapeutic 
Teas (blended by one Dr Xu apparently).

The atmosphere in the restaurant is friendly and communal - it's a small 
property and you get wedged into a bench where there's room - the 
waitresses have been known to rearrange people mid meal.

A typical meal with starter, main coruse and tea will fill you up and 
will bring you in around the 13 pound mark with tip - which is 
reasonable but not quite falling into my definition of 'cheap eats' as 
the Time Out award stuck to the window proclaims.

Still, definitely worth going out fo your way for if you're in the area. 


-- 
act like nothing's wrong

Generated at 10:45 on 03 Jan 2004 by mariachi 0.41