Tai Wu

Tai Wu on Upper Brook Street has a slightly unprepossessing exterior – it sits above W.H. Lung’s cash and carry in a building that is pure industrial estate chic. Despite that, it’s always packed – even on a midweek lunchtime. The (predominantly Chinese) diners know better than to turn their noses up at a perfectly steamed prawn dumpling over a few architectural niceties.

The food at Tai Wu is fantastically good value and the menu is vast. It’s handy for the university but even a Phd student would struggle to eat their way through every dish during the course of their studies – although that may also be down to faint-heartedness at steamed tripe.

You’ll find typical dim sum like Cantonese spring rolls to the less typical (to Western palates at least) steamed whelks in satay sauce. Soups follow the same pattern – familiar and soothing chicken and sweetcorn, unfamiliar shark’s fin and mixed meat.

Tai Wu is a great place to come with friends or big groups. The timorous of tastebud can enjoy sizzling fillet steak with ginger and spring onion or sweet and sour pork. While the sybarites who think they’re slumming it can realise the error of their ways with sauteed scallops or baked lobster in black bean sauce. And those people who are always looking for an authentic food fix can stuff themselves on seafood and bamboo fungus soup and steamed chicken feet.