House of Ming in St James is a fine-dining Chinese restaurant that you might not have heard of. It is part of the Taj Hotel but has its own separate entrance. The original House of Ming at the Taj Hotel in Delhi is also the oldest Chinese restaurant in the city.
The lush interior with touches of Chinoiserie is quite timeless. We loved the little curtained-off booth, which feels like you are dining in a Shanghai speakeasy of the 1930s.
We were there for the festive Chinese New Year menu to celebrate the Year of the Snake, designed by Hong Kong chef Dickson Leung.
The menu included a medley of Sichuan and Cantonese dishes that would not have looked out of place on a banquet menu in Hong Kong. Our server, Dexter, who learnt Cantonese after a stint in Macau, had great recommendations from the menu. His top choices were the XO fried rice and the spinach in superior stock, both very Chinese and excellent.
Start off with one of their eye-catching cocktails. We had The Clever Snake and Victory Over Nian which was served with a flash of fire.
For starters, we had the spicy firecracker chicken, seasoned with hot numbing Sichuan spices. Followed by delicate scallop dim sum dumplings and the essential Chinese New Year prawn dish.
This was the full festive menu :
Scallop Golden Garlic dim sum
Firecracker chicken – Dry fried chicken Malha style
Garlic Butterfly Prawn – Steamed, Burnt Garlic
Fortune’s Crimson Treasure -Golden garlic steamed lobster
Ocean’s Prosperity Delight – Smashed ginger sea bass, soya sauce
Good fortune spinach – Poached spinach with roasted garlic & Goji berries
Ming’s Xo Fried Rice
Dessert
Citrus – Lime and Yuzu Mousse, Lemon Compote (Signature)
Mango Sago – Pomelo -Alphonso Mango Syrup, Sago
The Good Fortune Spinach in superior stock is one of the best ways of cooking green leafy vegetables. The superior stock is a healthy slow slow-cooked bone broth with added goji berries. In Chinese, we call these types of dishes “ching” meaning, light and clear, low in oil but still nutritious. Perfect for those who want to avoid oil-laden dishes and want to detox.
Steamed fish and in this case, sea bass is a must on a Chinese New Year menu. Here the light touch with the soy sauce seasoning made this fish dish a delight.
From those 2 dishes, you can tell that the menu, mostly Cantonese dishes, is not what you might know or recognise from your local Chinese.
Chef Dickson recommended the Mango Sago dessert, a very popular flavour combination. The refreshing tang of the citrus interspersed with the creamy mango sauce and the surprising texture of the little sago balls, make this a refreshing end to a meal. This dessert is served like a sweet custard/ rice pudding. I’d recommend trying it if you’ve never had this before.
The chef has distilled the best of a Hong Kong style banquet menu for a London audience, with no apologies. You will find a lot of Chinese restaurant favourites on their ala carte menu too.
What to order:
Scallop dumplings
Ming’s XO fried rice
Mango Sago
The festive menu was ala carte with prices starting at £20 for the dim sum starters. Alternatively, the lunch menu is £50 for 3 courses or a choice of other set menus for different budgets.
House of Ming delivers an elegant Chinese dining experience, masterfully executed in a luxurious setting.
House of Ming
54 Buckingham Gate,
London SW1E 6AF
020 7963 8330
EatCookExplore was a guest of the House of Ming
