Barshu - London

Very nice restaurant with an extensive menu. Ordering is easy with the tick sheet. Service is fast and no nonsense. Food is very good and there's lots of things you might never have tried or seen. Some of the flavours were a bit bold for me, but that's up to the person. We paid £150 for 5 people including alcohol.

The fried rice and beans were delicious but the Szechuan chicken was almost inedible. WAY too much peppercorn in the dish itself. I love spicy food, but this is just not the best way to prepare this type of dish. They could’ve used the peppercorns to flavor the oil the chicken and peppers were cooked in instead. Very good service though.

The Michelin guide included restaurant was really crowded and people were lining up outside when I got there. There's a good reason for thr busy sight. Their yuxiangqiezi eggplant sauteed in spiced garlic sauce) is probably the best you can get around fitzrovia or even Chinatown. Many restaurants overuse vinegar for this dish, which makes it into a completely different dish and for me that ruins the totality of it. Here the sauce is thick and flavoured, well combined with soft-textrued eggplant, the entire dish is like a mildly spicy paste and is mouth watering especially with some rice. The same commentary could go to their suancaiyu picked fish in soup) as well, easily beats the nearby restaurants. A lot of the restaurants make this dish as if the whole dish is soaked in oil, and fish is usually cut thin. Here ud get fairly firm yet tender fish cutlets with delicious vermicelli in a well balanced flavourful soup. The hongshaorao soy-sauce pork) is mediocre. Not nearly as saucy or flavoured as it should be. Probably because the owner here isn't from southern China as reported by my two friends from the northern part, and probably just like the owner they had no idea what this southern dish should be aiming at. It's acceptable if it doesn't call itself with that name. And same comment could go to what I post below. The biggest disappointment of this month has unfortunately been found here at barshu, namely their suannibairou pork belly with mashed garlic). You might say the photo down below looks alright. It might even be a good photo to showcase if I spent a good time editing it. I would say you are not wrong. But this dish. Is simply not what it says it is. I won't call a pork dish a pork dish when 90% of the dish is in fact carrots. When I make a saltimbocca I wouldn't say this is sage leaves with pork on the side. might go easy on the soy-sauce pork but not for this one. Also this dish is Hella sweet. The sauce it uses is already sweet and the carrots are sweet also. So it's just sweet on top of sweet. Im almost totally convinced that this dish is for the Michelin guide person to be impressed. Well this is not impressive to me at all. And I wouldn't pay 9 pounds or whatever price it was)for this. I'd rather have it authentic with actual combination of good flavours. Call it whatever you like. Bitesize Carrots in sweet sauce with thinly cut pork may doesn't sound good but that's what it is. The seats we got were in a karaoke place looking room and unlike our neighbors we didn't have a service calling device so my friend suffered a lot of running to get bills and orders etc. We joked about not paying the service charge cuz he was allegedly half our server but I'm not being picky here it's a small restaurant with loads of work to do. Only mentioning this so just in case someone else get the seat and feel frustrating. Anyhow I think the restaurant is absolutely capable of delivering good food but sometimes they just make confusing choices in my opinion. For now I wouldn't highly recommend it cuz it's not cheap at all. It's an alright choice but I'd like to see it presenting it's full potential.

Delicious, authentic, Sichuan food. Plenty of options to suit all palates, good quantities and easy to order with the pictures on the menu. Extremely busy staff with a full house but they took good care of me, making sure I was warm enough and had everything I need.

Been here a few times and it's always amazing. Lots of vegan options and they're clearly labelled too. If you aren't careful you can end up spending quite a lot, but we find that if you get a few dishes to share and some boiled rice, you can keep it to around £25 a head. Obviously the vegan/vegetarian dishes are more affordable. Drinks are expensive but that's the same everywhere in this area. Service is really good and all the staff are very attentive. I like the ordering system too, you get a piece of paper to write everything on instead of having to memorise your order.