The superb cooking and friendly service at the Mandarin will inspire you to start a new family tradition
Mandarin Kitchen, 14-16 Queensway, London W2 3RX (020 7727 9012; mandarin.kitchen). Starters and soups £4.30-£13.90, large plates £8.90-£55 (for sharing), desserts £4.20-£8.20, wines from £27.90
London has many Chinatowns. They may not be as extensive as the throng around Gerrard Street, but they are very much there. When I was a kid, deep-braised in the sweet soy broth of privilege, my family would go once a year, just after Christmas, to the theatre; to bathe in the spot-lit thrill of the overture, the sequin and the jazz hand. As is the non-observant Jewish way at that time of year, we would eat Chinese. It was usually somewhere in the small Chinatown at the southern end of Queensway, hard by Hyde Park, where intense men stood in the windows hand-pulling noodles, both as kitchen prep and come-hither marketing. They had to do it somewhere. They might as well do it in front of an audience.
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