Leong's Legend - The Original

I’m not gonna say too much about the original China Town Leong’s Legends, as I’ve already eaten and blogged about number 2 in this slowly growing chain of Taiwanese eateries. Plus the décor and menu are both the same so fewer words will be written. The only difference is really the vibe. The younger sister has a much better one.

The restaurant is somewhat smaller, but still has the same Song Dynasty drinking den feel and look to it. But somehow it is not as cosy as Continues is. I’ve not visited number 3 in Bayswater, but I’m sure it’ll be the same. But that won’t stop me from going one day soon. Real soon.

We weren’t that hungry so we only had a few dishes to tide us over. For starts we had a basket of Legends Siu Loung Bao. There were 8 of these little dumplings to wet our appetites. They were a mixed bag really. The insides were delightful, the pork was well seasoned and had a good texture. The jelly had melted and provided a soupiness to this dumpling when we bit into it. The only downside was the wrapper itself. It was too thick and almost chewy. Good but not great.

Next up were our mains of hot and fiery beef slices with beef tripe and a spicy pig’s offal dish. Our waitress, bless her, seemed shocked that we would order this dish. She did her best to dissuade us from ordering it, saying that only Chinese people liked it. She obviously had no idea of my obsession with offal. After a minute of this joyful banter she agreed to supply us with their offal dishes. As she turned to leave, she looked back at us and was about to try again but felt maybe we were ready for the good stuff.

Both were pretty damn good. The spicy beef slices with tripe were just that. Pretty damn spicy. Good texture and great flavour with some nice heat thrown in as well. Only downside was there wasn’t enough of it, as we could of eaten that all night.

The spicy pig’s offal came as more of a soup or stew than the previous dish as we were expecting. I think I tasted all bits of the pig there, liver, heart and kidney and all were well cooked and seasoned. It wasn’t that spicy but all can be forgiven as it was a really good dish.

I think word had spread amongst the staff, as they seemed impressed that we had eaten everything. I think they were expecting us to have it sent back and order something else that the other laowai were ordering.

All in all Leong’s Legends is a good restaurant with some funny staff, but somehow Continues has a much better vibe. Well we’ll see with numero tres.