The idea of an indoor oriental food street with loads of food stalls doesn’t seemed to have caught on here as well as places such as the far east and in American cities where people swarm to such places for lunch or dinner.
What am I talking about? Well, if you've been to a huge shopping mall such as Bluewater, Lakeside or Meadowhall, you we have notice how they always have a food hall where people eat their lunch/dinner taking a break from their shopping. You have the usual fast food chains such as Kentucky, McDonalds, Burger King. Then you have healthy options such a jacket potatoes and sandwiches/bagels. Lastly you always have some sort of Italian and Indian place and almost certainly, a Singapore Sam would make a appearance as well.
These are all there for the convenience of shoppers but how about a food court that was just there solely for people to go and try out different dishes from all sorts of oriental cuisine? That’s what Oriental City is.
Opened in the early 90's Oriental City based in Colindale, North London has been renowned for the shopping centre of oriental food. It started life as YaoHan named after the south-east Asia shopping/hotel consortium. YaoHan went bankrupt in the mid-90's and the Colindale location faced closure but a group of Japanese businessmen decided that it was too good to shut down, so they bought it and it continues to this day! I’m so happy it still exists as its
one of my favourite eating places.
Walking into Oriental City through its main doors, you are quickly overwhelmed by the huge food court in front of you. Hundred of tables and seats are laid out in the centre just like any other food court. The difference is the surrounding market type food stalls with all sorts of different oriental cuisine. If you like Chinese food this is the place for you, but if you also like Japanese, Thai, Korean, Malaysian and Indonesian food, they're all here too.
Each stall has its speciality or cuisine. They range from rice, friend noodles, noodles in soup, sushi, friend snacks, steam dim sum, dumplings, soup and loads more. If you like oriental food, then you will be spoilt for choice here. The choice of different cuisine and the huge choice from different stalls will make it nigh on impossible to choose what you want to eat. Theres always the temptation of trying something different. You can walk around the whole food court just admiring the menus with colourful pictures and not order anything until you walked around at least a couple of times! Unlike Michael Douglas' Falling Down, theres 'nothing wrong with the picture' either, the dishes themselves reflecting the pictures.
Ordering is easy, just go to the food stall that has something you want to eat and either do your best to pronounce Chinese words not usually found in your local take away menu (i.e. not chow mein or chop suey :p) or just say the numbers. They just take your money and give you a numbered ticket. You then go and find yourselves a table amongst the hundreds that are there and patiently wait for your food to be freshly cooked. A numbering system is shown above the food stall and when you see your number, you can go and collect your food.
Hang on! With all that choice, you aren’t only going to order one dish or type of cuisine are you? Of course you're not! I usually walk around the food court to see what different things I can have for the starter, the main course and then maybe if I’m really greedy, a desert. So you can end up ordering from more than one food stall and that’s the beauty of this place, to try out different oriental cuisine under one roof. The price is reasonable too with most dishes starting form as little £2 up to £6 for a really large dish of food!
The atmosphere is very rowdy in the food hall and it can get quite packed at peak hours so finding a place to sit is a bit of a fight even with so many tables. Bit like at the shopping malls I guess. One thing that can be quite a bad habit is when you are looking for a place to seat, looking at what people are eating! People always say its rude to stare, but it gives you an indication what size portions you are getting!
Here are some of my recommendations:
Top of the list and absolutely my favourite place in the food market, Beijing are renowned for their dumplings and noodles in big bowls enough to stuff you silly. Theres meat dumplings, vegetable dumplings, and king prawn dumplings and all taste fantastic. The noodles are freshly made in the stall and you can choose what type of noodles you want, whether thick ones or thin ones. Eating it you appreciate the amount of effort they have put into this one bowl of dumpling noodles. Away from dumplings, they do a variety of rice and fried noodle dishes. Beijing also serves Ho Fun, which is the equivalent of Taglatelle in Chinese food and is a very soft and silky noodle. I’ve tried most of the dishes on offer here and they're always 110% cooked to a home cooked perfection.
Another food stall called Canton serves Roast Duck, Chinese Roast Pork (Char Siu) and Soya Chicken. It can be served on top of rice, noodles or noodles in soup. This type of dish is a favourite lunchtime meal. They also serve things like Singapore noodles, sweet and sourspare ribs, salt and pepperchicken wings as well as a whole host of nibbles.
For people who don’t find steamed food revolting (believe me they are loads), then head straight for the Dim Sum House, a stall that sells a huge range of different steam and friend Dim Sums. Dim Sum literally translated means 'A Touch of Heart' and thats what they are, small little parcels of food made with loads of heart. They almost look too good to eat! They are supposed to be shared with others and the idea is to buy loads of different sorts of Dim Sum which usually come in portions of three or four. Most dim sum dishes are about £2 each so spend about a £15 and you have a wide variety of different ones to try.
Atami is the main Japanese stall with loads of dishes with Japanese soup noodles as well as cooked sticky rice dishes with fried chicken/pork/king prawns and of course the infamous Sushi. Bento sets are a good choice to go for if you want variety as they usually come with Miso Soup, Sushi, Rice, Vegetables and some sort of meat or fish of your choice. They also have a Teppenyaki grill, which serves up grilled Teriyaki kebabs.
Amongst the other stalls I would recommend, theres Yummy Thai, serving fine Thai currys, and Cafe Sentosa, serving the best in Malaysian cuisine. A oriental drinks stall is also worth trying but requires an open mind. How about Ying-Yang tea, which is a combination of cold tea and cold coffee? Soya Milk? No? Well all I can say is, you have to have an acquired taste. Theres also several stalls that sell ready made sushi and oriental cakes for taking home to eat.
If sitting in the middle of food court isn’t right for you, there are also a few restaurants within the centre. There are 2 Chinese restaurants serving Dim Sum to your table up to 5pm and then cooked dinner until close. For all you 'eat as much as you can' people, theres Zen a huge restaurant which only does buffet food day and night. At a price varying from £11 to £20 depending on the time of day, you'll have to feel really hungry to eat your moneys worth and the food is obviously only to buffet standards.
Considering its a known as a shopping centre, there are hardly many shops about. The biggest is the Oriental City supermarket, which is right behind the food court. It sells all the specialist Chinese and Japanese products that you would find hard to buy in your local supermarket and all your usual meats, fruits and vegs. Be careful what you buy though as some products are imported and the small English label stuck on isn’t the best.
Other shops include a massive japanese bookshop (useless unless you can read japanese, though there is a small selection of english books about japanese culture), a cheapy £1 shop with a difference selling chinese/japanese stationery and products, a Pet Fish Store, a chinese massage clinic, a chinese entertainment store and several chinese crockery shops.
But forget about the shops, just go to Oriental City to eat and experience the market-like food stalls! The Oriental City is situated on Colindale Road in Colindale, North London and theres a tube station a short walk away. Parking wise, there is a 4 storey car park, but I would always advise parking on the top level which is open-aired as the bottom 3 are dark and gloomy and has been known for occasion car crime.
BIG APOLOGIES if I've made you hungry now, but I was just the same whilst writing this having to describe all those dishes! :p
Oh BTW CIAO if you are reading this, the place is called Oriental City NOT Orient City! Please change!
Thanks for Reading! Any comments or Questions welcomed! Ray Liu (c) 2002
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Advantages: Full of culture and beautiful enough to just walk around Disadvantages: Not really the destination for anyone who is used to holidaying in Ibiza
Briz_Hatchings 05.02.2001 (07.02.2001)
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Aug 20th, 2002
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