88 Middlesex St, London E1 7EZ
Rule number one when you eat somewhere new and unfamiliar: Don’t be timid. I know this rule. I live by this rule. This rule defines much of my eating and travelling experience. So why (Why? WHY?!) was I timid when visiting My Old Place. Half the dishes we had were bold as brass, exciting and new to me. The other half weren’t anything out of the ordinary in terms of culinary mind expansion.
That’s not to say they were bad, quite the opposite. They were well cooked and refreshingly simple in many respects. But after watching dish after dish of deep red chilli laden food waft by, I was suffering from a bad case food envy.
After a glowing review in the Guardian and some praise in the foodiesphere, I arranged to head out to My Old Place with a friend to sample their delights.
I’m pretty new to eating Sichuan food – I’ve tried my hand a cooking it, but never really experienced it made professionally. So My Old Place was added to my shortlist of Bar Shu (has it reopened yet?), Gourmet San and The Empress of Sichuan. The opportunity came up, and never one to look any sort of foodie horse in the mouth, I grabbed it with both hands and well and truly sank my teeth into it.
The restaurant is big and open and – even on an early Tuesday evening – packed. There’s not much else to say about the décor – it’s simple and well lit. And the high ceilinged simple space meant the noise was far from overwhelming, despite a full restaurant.
The menu’s decently short and full of interesting dishes like fried intestines in chilli or crispy pig ear (why didn’t I try at least one..?), and there is a full BBQ menu at the back. Now that, we did dive into, ordering four of lamb skewers.
And boy, they were good. An intense chilli blast followed by a gentler spicy lamb flavour that left your lips tingling merrily (that’d be the Sichuan pepper) and a whisky-warmth in your gullet. Great stuff.
Tender beef in garlic and ginger was exactly that – tender and beefy with some garlic and ginger. Tasty, and a huge portion, but not nearly as exciting as the chilli laden extravaganza in progress next door. Plates groaning under the weight of browned chicken, crimson chillies and deep greens kept on coming past all covered in lashings of Sichuan peppercorns. I couldn’t tear my gaze away.
And for that, I apologise to the poor people sat next to me who suffered me staring, pointing and otherwise loudly discussing everything that they ordered. Mind you, that settled down once our crab had arrived. A glorious spice laden, bold and flavourful dish. Just the right amount of heat to add a tingle of excitment without killing the flavour. And,there were at least three of the spiky little buggers unceremoniously chopped into four and piled high on the plate. They were mixed in with green peppers, onions, greens, ginger, garlic, and an mercifully ungloopy sauce.
All in all a (albeit timid) success. It’s made me even more determined to dive straight into the interesting stuff next time round. I think you need to get a critical mass of people because the portions are huge and it was a struggle to manage two mains, a vegetable “side” (the same size as the mains) and a couple of skewers between two. So four to six would be an ideal size to really do the menu justice. Next time Mr Bond, next time…
I think you’re being too hard on yourself. I wouldn’t say you were being overly timid but I would’ve ditched the beef dish for something more gutsy.
I don’t want to a pedantic t**t but technically speaking neither My Old Place nor Gourmet San are Sichuan restaurants. For want of a better description, they are “mainland Chinese” restaurants that serve dishes from North East China as well as Sichuan and Xinjiang where the lamb skewers hail from.
Pedantic is good – otherwise how will I learn? I am, for a foodie, woefully ignorant of regional Chinese cuisine. But I’m learning. I didn’t think lamb was a typically Sichuan dish – but Xinjiang (far west?) sounds about right.
I do like to dive into the strong flavours when i hit somewhere new so next time I will try the ear (about the only part of a pig I’ve not eaten) or the intestines. I often find the more unusual sounding (to Western ears at least) dishes have some of the most interesting and unexpected flavours and textures.
Did you see anyone have what is in effect a massive bowl of floating chillis with fish which you scoop out of it…? That (and they do some good whole fish and chilli things) are my favourite at My Old Son.
Any timidity gives you an excuse to go back (or to Gourmet San on Bethnal Green Rd – always more crowded though and with a more ghetto decor)
I didn’t see that one Tom – although it sounds like a proper old ding-dong of a dish. I will have to keep my eye’s peeled… And i do definitely intend to head back asap, all timidity cast aside this time.