Oriental City, London > Reviews > City needs more than food to survive

Author's product rating:   

Value for Money	Good
Standard of Menu	Excellent
Atmosphere	Poor
Standard of Service	Excellent

Advantages:	Only place I know in London to have a food court like this .
Disadvantages:	The whole place needs a bit of buzz

Recommend to potential buyers:

yes

Full review

My interest in Oriental City was sparked when I saw Ching He-Huang(Of Ching's kitchen) recommending it on T.V. recently.

Having lived in South East Asia for a long time, I'm very familiar with the food courts in South East Asia and it's one of the things I miss most now. I've been craving proper Asian Food like Chicken Rice, Mee Siam and Laksa for ages now, so I couldn't wait to go.

It was relatively easy to get there. We stopped at Colindale Underground Station and it was a short 10 minute walk from the station to Oriental City. It's a huge building so, not too hard to miss. If I remember correctly, it's flanked at the entrance by two stone lions.

We were there on a weekday, so it was quite quiet. The moment you step into the food court, you are dazzled not by its size (for it's not very big), but by the incredible choice and staggering array of food available. A good cross-section of Asian cuisine is represented in the food court. Chinese, Korean, Malaysian, Singaporean, Malaysian, Thai, Japanese, Indian and a Dim Sum Stall. You can get a complete meal here for £4.50 to £5.50 and if you don't want anything fancy for a drink, you can get a chrysanthemum tea, ordinary tea or pineapple juice for about £1 to £1.50.

Sample dishes you can savour include : Roti Prata, Roti Canai, Chee Cheong Fun, Sweet and Sour Pork, Japanese Bento boxes, curries in all shapes and sizes, stir-fries in myriad combinations. Examples of drinks available include tapioca bubble tea in a variety of flavours, cendol, longan iced drink, lychee iced drink, ice-kachang, mango milkshake, teh tarik and - use your imagination. If you can imagine it, they probably have it or can make it.

There are dozens of photos of beautifully presented dishes plastered across the stalls. We walked round three times trying to decide from the incredible menu and were still stumped. Greed started taking over and I just wanted to try everything! At one point I was so overwhelmed by the number of choices available that I even felt like giving up and not getting anything at all! In the end, we decided to go for the safe and boring option.

My original intention was to have crispy duck noodles, but after changing our minds about twenty times, I finally chose Crispy Noodles with Black Bean Chicken (£4.50) and my husband chose Vietnamese Special Fried Rice (£4.60). It's a self-service system of course; you go up to the stall, place your order and are given a ticket number. The ticket number is eventually flashed on a screen above the stall or called out by the stall owner.

My dish was pretty decent - it definitely wasn't sauce out of a packet, but had actual salted black beans in the sauce. The chicken pieces were generous and tender and there was a fair amount of peppers and onions in my dish. The egg noodles were springy and were crispy without being dry. My husband's dish comprised a yellow rice with dried shrimps (not a bad thing in Asian cooking) and fish cake. It looked quite plain, but was delectable. What really impressed me however, was the fruit cocktail drink I chose which cost £3.00. It was decorated in true cocktail fashion with mango and watermelon flower shapes and was chock-full of fresh papaya, fresh mango, fresh watermelon and fresh pineapple. Imagine my delight when I unearthed a juicy lychee and a succulent longan at the bottom of my drink. They could've stinged and used tinned fruit, but they didn't and that made all the difference. It was real value for money. The drink itself was lovely and had the distinctly tropical taste of lemongrass in it. To top off the lovely meal were toothpicks to ensure good dental hygiene!

It would've been nice to have had a fresh fruit counter, a satay (grilled meat on sticks) and grilled seafood stall perhaps, and unlike the food courts in Asia which serve tasty AND cheap food, the prices here were really high - about three times what a similar dish would cost in Asia. However, we have to take into consideration the fact that these are London prices and the stall holders pay London rates as well. So, other things being equal, the prices are, for London, very reasonable.

Right next to the food court is an Asian Supermarket, a Japanese sushi-type restaurant with a counter and high stools, a bakery, a little café and a shop selling traditional Asian goodies like preserved fruit, tiger cake, pandan chiffon cake and wife cake. Other shops sold pretty porcelain glassware, kitchen accessories and stationery products. There are also other restaurants in the building. The Asian Supermarket sells a good variety of fresh fish and vegetables, and also packaged foods from Japan, Korea and South East Asia, but it didn't wow me like the Wing Yip Superstore in Croydon, Surrey which stocks an amazing variety of food products.

All in all, the only reason I might possibly return is to try another one of the delicious drinks on offer or to do my shopping at ASDA which is a 5 minute walk away. To be fair, it was a weekday afternoon but I have to admit I was really a little disappointed with the lifelessness of the whole place. I expected something more bustling, more happening, but the entire building had a dated feel about it. It reminded me of a 70s shopping centre in South East Asia where haggling is still the norm and at any moment, I expected Canto pop from 1983 to blast through the PA system. I think the place would benefit from a greater variety of shops as there seems to be lots of empty space; a small cinema screening Asian films perhaps, specialist oriental bookshops and maybe more little cafes. But I'm not complaining - it would be great if London had more of these food courts around, then I wouldn't have to stuff McDonalds or Burger King all the time.

Other information :

Buses to get there : 32, 142, 292 or 303.

399 Edgware Road, London, NW9 0JJ

Opening Hours : Daily 10.00-22.00