From Balzac to Bamboo
We try out the newest eatery in Wood Lane
The once popular Balzac Bistro had been looking sad for months: closed up, chairs piled up on the tables and newspapers covering the windows. Then suddenly, and without warning, it had gone completely. In its place, Bamboo House appeared almost overnight with new black signage replacing Balzac's familiar red and a few hand-written notices stuck up in the windows: “Dim Sum served all day” and “cash only”.
After a quick trip to the cashpoint, we went inside to find that Bamboo House looked as though it had taken over the Balzac Bistro almost lock, stock and barrel. The same wooden floors, white walls, red pillars, spotlights – even the coffee machine looked identical. The only really noticeable changes were the red, Chinese-restaurant-style chairs and the long blue curtains - which together made for a not particularly harmonious combination.
The “Dim Sum” notice in the window rather undersells the place because, in fact, Bamboo House offers an extensive menu with long lists of Dim Sum dishes, soups, chicken, beef, duck, lamb, pork, prawn and vegetable dishes as well as a selection of rice and noodle dishes. With more than 170 items on the menu, there is plenty to choose from.
We went for prawn dumplings and coriander (£3.50), Chinese grilled tofu (£7.50), stir fried Chinese mushrooms and bamboo shoots (£6.50), boiled rice (£2.00) and Singapore fried rice (£5.50). To drink, we had endless cups of green tea but this was, frankly, tasteless. Free but tasteless. Instead of fragrant tea leaves floating around in the pot, we were served one tea bag between us.
Bizarrely, when the food came, the bowl of plain rice arrived first. Then came the prawn dumplings with coriander, which was meant to be our starter. Aside from the fact that there was no evidence of any coriander, the prawn dumplings were acceptable enough and we ate them as our boiled rice slowly went cold.
Then came the dish of bamboo shoots and mushrooms and the grilled tofu. This was straight-up, good quality Chinese food and, for a moment, we were enthused. But the sight of vegetarian-friendly tofu with little sprinklings of meat on the top rather ruined everything. A sign of wealth in China, I am told...but not a sign of a happy veggie in Wood Lane. Finally, the Singapore fried rice arrived. Except that it wasn't. The eager-to-please waitress turned up at the table with a plate of steaming Singapore noodles instead. Nice and spicy and full of vegetables – but not what I had asked for!
The Bamboo House staff were extremely attentive – almost to a fault. One waitress rushed to top up our tea cups after every sip, another was on standby to whisk our empty plates away as soon as we had finished our last grain of rice. Not quite Basil Fawlty but I did find myself hanging onto the remaining plates on the table to make sure they didn't get swept up in the enthusiasm. We also ended up holding our conversation in hushed tones, as the hovering waitresses, keen to respond to our every need, were almost permanently in earshot.
After our main courses, no desserts or coffee seemed to be on offer. Not a lychee in sight, in fact. Which really seemed like a lost opportunity and one that a new business should not be passing up. They could easily have squeezed a few more pounds out of us here. Instead, we just paid the bill – just over £25.00 – and left.
Bamboo House serves up reasonably good quality and reasonably priced Chinese food and is an okay place to eat if you don't mind the unpredictable and quirky nature of it. However, I am not entirely convinced that any London restaurant can afford to be this amateurish – and particularly not in a recession.
Yasmine Estaphanos
9 February 2009
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