An Exciting New Restaurant Opening

Saturday, December 04th , 2021

Royal China Club is the flagship of a small restaurant group that includes a regular Royal China a few doors down from this on Baker Street. It is a large venue with a slightly posher menu that the regular Royal China, but you can still get regular staples like hot and sour soup, steamed sea bass with ginger and my favourite gai lan with garlic. The cooking was consistent as it almost is at these restaurants, and now that Royal China Queensway appears to have closed for good, this is the nearest one to me.

There have been a lot of new Indian restaurant openings recently but their standard is quite mixed, as can be seen from my blog last week. By far the best of the new openings is Black Salt (pictured) in East Sheen, the sister of the superb Dastaan. The menu is almost the same as Dastaan and the better news is that the cooking is nearly as good as the original. I actually went twice within a few days and tried a fair proportion of the menu. Dishes such as red pepper prawns, methi chicken, chaat and mixed vegetable bhajia were absolutely superb, and all at a modest price. Black Salt outperforms all but a couple of Indian restaurants in central London right now. It is a delight.