Restaurant review: Ping Pong

Locations I have visited: St Christopher’s Place, Soho

One of the best things about living in London is the abundance of food and restaurants available. Korean, Japanese, Spanish, Lebanese, Eritrean (more on that in a later post)… you name it. Having recently started my first job, I am enjoying the liberties of having my own salary, but have realized that being an adult means expenses are often higher than expected! This brings me to my mission: to discover the best-tasting food in London, at affordable prices. I will be posting reviews of restaurants I have discovered since moving here – some good, some bad, in the hope that this can be useful for other Londoners who live on a budget, but don’t want to give up on the luxury of good food.

I first discovered Ping Pong when I was visiting London with my father last summer. We were wandering around Central London and saw the sign for dim sum, which immediately caught our fancy. Since then, I have eaten there 3 or 4 times.

Their choice of dim sums is vast. I would highly recommend the steamed chicken cashew nut, steamed scallop and shiitake and fried duck spring rolls.  I also love the variety of sauces they give you – besides the standard soya sauce, there are 3 different chilli sauces and if you have a loyalty card (I have a habit of getting loyalty cards wherever I go), they also bring you 3 additional, more sweetish ones (as well as free prawn crackers and fried seaweed!). The décor and atmosphere is pleasant, but we were sometimes forced to use our phones as torches to see the menu properly. Their cocktails, however, are unbeatable. I have tried both the ‘Lemongrass and Lime’ as well as the ‘Ping Pong’, and they taste very fresh, which is wonderful after all the concentrated fruit juice you get in most other places!

The one thing which bothers me about Ping Pong is their concept of serving three pieces of dim sum per plate. This may sound trivial, but being there with just one other person meant we had to either split the third dim sum or magnanimously let the other person have it, neither of which is ideal. It takes away from my favourite part of eating food: sharing.

Ping Pong serves good food and has a nice atmosphere, but I am also always on the lookout for a new dim sum places. If anybody has any suggestions, please do comment below!