Ping Pong - Goodge St

A few weeks ago I went for dinner with Anna and Kat; we went to Ping Pong which is a restaurant specialising in dim sum. They have a huge menu containing a massive range of dumplings, buns, rice, vegetables and fried or baked dishes; prices range from around £3-6 per plate. It's a similar concept to tapas or mezze, so you order several dishes to share and it's best to go in a small group so you get a chance to try more. As well as food they serve cocktails; the vanilla, lemon & vodka is lovely and refreshing!

Prawn & spinach rolls

Pork puffs

The prawn toasts were great, they were generous with the topping and the toasts were light and crispy. The pork puffs topped with sesame seeds were my favourite; the honey roasted pork inside was melt in your mouth tender and the pastry golden and crunchy. I also loved the squid ink dumplings with king prawns and garlic, I must warn you that they are super garlicky, so maybe not a great choice if you're on a date. We also ordered a sticky vegetable rice, it was nice enough but seriously over priced at almost £4 for a tiny portion. The food tasted as though it had been freshly cooked, rather than sitting around under a lamp for half the day. They also managed to retain the flavour of everything, as so often I find dim sum all ends up with the same vaguely prawny taste.

Prawn toast

Fluffy pork bun

My main criticism would be that despite eating and spending quite a lot I never feel that full after dim sum, maybe because mentally lots of little dishes don't necessarily equal a full meal. Whilst you get lots of little bites of tasty food, there isn't much substance to them so you can easily spend £15 on food and not have an awful lot to show for it. On Sundays they do an all you can eat menu for £18, whilst the base price is pretty high, if you're hungry I'm sure it's easy to make the most of it and gives you the opportunity to try dishes you wouldn't normally choose.

Squid ink parcels with prawns

LOTS of dim sum