#wuns

One of my favourite places to stop for a snack in Chinatown has, for a while, been Bun House on Greek Street.  It was perfect for when you were a little peckish to go grab a bun, regardless if you are looking for something savoury or sweet (the salted egg custard bun is so nice and runny).  As you can imagine, I was pretty disappointed to find out that it had shut down (luckily, it had just moved to Lisle Street instead) but it was quickly replaced by another restaurant opened by the same owners, Wun’s Tea Room and Bar.  We popped down to give it a go.

We started off with some wok tossed corn ribs with crispy garlic.  Admittedly, these weren’t quite what I expected (I think I was actually expecting ribs) but this was tasty nevertheless.  I’ve not had corn served quite like this but I did like how they took it off the cob in quite such large chunky pieces.  As for the flavour, it’s salt and pepper with crispy garlic; you can’t really go wrong!

We ordered a couple of chicken thigh skewers as well.  These were well cooked, pretty juicy and with the tiniest of kicks.  It was fairly well seasoned so nice enough but not particularly memorable to be honest.

One of their signature dishes, a dish of sugar skin fatty iberico char siu.  It’s a pretty generous portion and lived up to its name of being fatty (something that I liked).  However, although I thought I’d like the sugar, it was actually a bit too much.  It made the dish a little too sickly sweet, especially with the fat.  It was all just a bit too sweet and rich for me and I think that’s saying something!

Speaking of rich, the next thing that turned up was the XO bone marrow with fried mantou.  I do love bone marrow and so was excited to see a big hunk of bone arrive with the fried mantou.  The bone marrow was rich and flavourful and the XO sauce was a little spicy and pretty tasty.  The mantou was crispy with a fluffy interiour but a little oily.  Again, it was a really rich dish with the fried bread and bone marrow; probably not something you want to have by yourself but if you’re sharing with a few friends, a little bit of this goes a long way!

Lacy dumplings with pork and chives.  This looked quite impressive with the lace but unfortunately didn’t taste as good as it looked.  The lace was crispy but tasted a bit floury and the dumplings themselves were a little dry.  Definitely a bit of a dud dish for me.

For dessert, this was the salted duck egg ice cream.   The duck egg flavour was subtle but the ice cream had a slightly grainy texture to it that I didn’t love.  I thought this was ok but maybe not something I’d order again.

Last up was the chilled mango sago.  I liked this.  It was refreshing, not too sweet, had some nice chunks of mango and grapefruit in it and the sago was well cooked. 

Overall, I wasn’t massively impressed by Wun’s.  There were a couple of dishes that were quite nice; the corn, the skewers and the bone marrow (albeit a bit rich) were all tasty but the dumplings and the char siu weren’t great for me. 

Given that I quite like Bun House, I’d be willing to give Wun’s another go but I have to admit, I won’t be running back anytime soon.

Wun’s Tea Room and Bar, 23 Greek Street, Soho, London, W1D 4DZ

Anyway, that’s it for us in 2019.  We’ll be taking a bit of a break for Xmas and we’ll see you in 2020!