Kiasu

Well, they had the most people and the most stickers out the front, so it was an easy choice among the row of restaurants on the Bayswater stretch.

Food

The menu consists of your old favourite and a few twists. We decided to test out the staples, so we had Soy Bean Milk (£1.80), which was watery and disappointing. The Char Kway Teow (£7.20) – Hot off the wok –rice noodles with prawn, egg, Chinese sausage and bean sprouts. Singapore style (sweet dark sauce), which we asked for hot, was not that hot at all. Still, it maintained a nice wok breath, although I found the sauce was too sweet. The ingredients were a bit skimpy. The Nonya Laksa (£7.60) – White rice noodles in spicy coconut gravy garnished with prawns, fish cake and daun kesum was agreeable enough, with a sauce that is pungent and coconutty. They were again very skimpy with their ingredients, but Slokky drank all the sauce, so I guess it is one of the better ones you can get in this country.

Rating - 6.5

Atmosphere

The place has the interesting blue décor. The waiters are also decked out in blue uniform. The whole operation reminds me of Cha Cha Moon really, minus the long communal tables. The clientele though, is a bit less cutting edge, with families and not so “cool” types. There were a few native South-East Asians, so we felt better.

Rating - 2

Service

A notch above Chinatown rudeness. For an Asian restaurant, the dishes certainly came out slowly…it was a 20 minutes wait for our food, and it didn’t arrive at the same time either. We don’t mind too much, but don’t eat here if you are in a hurry.

Rating - 3

C-factor

Quite expensive for what you get. There were only 2 prawns in my laksa.

Rating - 0

Brownie Points - 11.5

Info

48 Queensway
Bayswater
W2 3RY
Phone +44 (0) 20 7727 8810
Website