We first got to know of this restaurant in one of Gordon Ramsay’s TV shows, in which they chose 2 restaurants to compete for the best Chinese food in the country. Even though Chop Chop didn’t win, I thought it was pretty difficult to be selected for the final 2. When we were our way to Edinburgh Zoo, we spotted this restaurant from the bus and we thought it would be a great idea to check it out.
Decorated with numerous accolades!
The shop front was decorated with a couple of culinary accolades such as “Best in Scotland” and even newspaper articles. Even though the dishes are quite expensive, we still decided to go in as we had high expectations. There were only a few occupied tables but the staff told me that all the tables are already reserved for the night! Fortunately she did manage to find us a table but we had to leave about an hour and a half. I was thinking there was more than enough time since we only had money to sample the “Jiao Zi” and “Guo Tie” as the other dishes are too expensive for us. What better way to try their food since the restaurant is famous for its dumplings right? Having said that, they do have more than 10 types of fillings available for their dumplings.
After being comfortably seated, we ordered our food and noted that no other Chinese are patronizing this establishment at the moment. Soon afterwards other walk-in customers were turned away by the staff because they did not make a reservation even though there were many empty tables! What a contrast with the experience we had in a good Hong Kong restaurant whereby the place is packed full and even with a reservation you have to wait for a pretty long time.
To give you a general idea about the prices, the Jiao Zi is priced about 4 pounds for a plate of 8 while Guo Tie sells also at about 4 pounds but only for a plate of 4. Guo Tie is almost doubled the price of Jiao Zi. Even though the Guo Tie is stated in the menu to be larger than Jiao Zi, it is only very slightly. However that’s not the problem! I have 2 main complaints about this restaurant. The food is very mediocre when you have all the culinary accolades hanging everywhere in the restaurant and customers expect the food to live up to them. I must say the Guo Tie is disastrous. Only one side is fried! When you eat it, you can taste the 2 very different fried and unfried skins because they don’t mix well. Is that the way it is suppose to be? I think not! Secondly, they provide vinegar but they don’t serve ginger. The waitress tried to get me some but the ginger was very coarsely cut and the skin is still on! I would think almost Chinese restaurants serve ginger “threads” to go with Jiao Zi. Making ginger threads is a basic skill for Chinese chefs and I must say I am already very disappointed even before eating the food.
Plate of 8 Jiao Zi (dumplings)
The only good thing I can say is the fillings is reasonably ok but it is certainly not brilliant. Having this meal gives me the longing for the Jiao Zi and Guo Tie available at the Margaret Drive Hawker Centre in Singapore whereby each dumpling only costs about 20p and they are much larger! Even though the service is good, I must say I am so disgusted about the food that I have to write this post. However being typical polite Singaporeans we gave them our big smiles and said everything is ok. Then we complain behind their back! Haha.
Can a billion people be wrong? You bet!
Sometimes I think Westerners accept the standard of Chinese food in their own countries because they haven’t tasted better. Therefore they didn’t know it could be so much more delicious. Moreover different people have different standards. Seriously I don’t mind as long as it’s delicious but in this case, it is tasted just very normal to me. What is your take?
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[...] case you miss out on anything in October, I have listed them below: 1. A travel rant on Chop Chop Chinese Restaurant in Edinburgh. 2. Edinburgh trip report: Day 1 3. Edinburgh trip report: Day 2 4. Edinburgh trip report: Day 3 5. [...]