June 2010

Chop Chop - To this Chinese

I didn’t intend to review this new branch of Chop Chop in Leith. Bite wrote about the Haymarket branch last year just before it was picked as a finalist in Gordon Ramsay’s “Best Local Restaurant of the Year” search. However, I went along on opening night and the food was just so good that I couldn’t help myself.

The restaurant is spacious with outdoor seating and glittery red tables that reminded me of Dorothy’s shoes in The Wizard of oz.

Familiar with Chop Chop’s famous and extensive dumpling menu, I boasted to the waiter that a friend and I had eaten 18 each for lunch once. He promptly shot me down in flames by revealing that the record was 180 between four. Wowser!

Tonight, myself and my companion decided to go for the unlimited banquet for two (£36.55). You still get eight pork and coriander boiled dumplings, and four prawn dumplings but also pan-fried aubergines with fresh garlic and Chinese spices, cucumber salad, crispy northern beef, lamb with cumin and two boiled rice. You can re-order any dish you like. We also ordered sweet and sour pork ribs (£4.35), on the side.

For the dumplings you mix a dunking sauce of soy, chilli, vinegar and garlic. Our prawn dumplings were pan-fried and utterly delicious. The pork ones were boiled and slippery on the sticks, aromatic little parcels of juicy minced pork.  The cucumber salad was refreshing and sweet. The lamb was chopped into mouth-friendly pieces, was fatty and so flavoursome and had just the right amount of seasoning.  The aubergines we soft and sumptuous with plenty of small lumps of fresh, juicy ginger and garlic, the sticky beef was fruity and the ribs richly-coated. Each dish has its own distinct flavour and lots of serotonin- inducing 'umami'.

There are however, abundant vegetable dishes on the Chop Chop menu also and I would easily recommend the restaurant to vegetarians.  There is a fine selection of noodles, salads, soups, vegetable dishes and dumplings.

If you have already experienced Chop Chop you will no doubt be returning shortly and if you haven’t. Why not?