Saigon Saigon Restaurant

The 2013 edition of The List's Eating & Drinking Guide is out now – only £5.95 (+p&p).

This review is taken from the current (2013) edition.

At first glance, the inexplicably named Saigon Saigon looks like another all-you-can-endure buffet, perfectly located for Topshop customers requiring an MSG rush of a Saturday afternoon. Peer a bit further, however, and this bustling two-floor restaurant offers a surprise or two. In fact no MSG is allowed in the kitchen; all dishes on the a la carte menu are cooked fresh to order and, best of all, there is an impressive selection of dim sum made daily. Navigational skills are required to get the best out of the slightly confusing menus, but digging out gems like Hunan-style pork, with its postage-stamp sized slivers of meat and fearsome chunks of chilli, makes it all worthwhile. Fried turnip paste, studded with shrimp, is a dim sum favourite, as are char siu buns, either sweetly glazed in puff pastry, or steamed in comforting dough balls. There’s definitely a heavy hand with sugar in the kitchen, as evidenced in a mildy jammy bean curd dish, but ingredients are fresh, and the results are worth moving past that unnerving first impression.

• High point: Delicious dim sum
• Low point: Good library skills are required to get the best out of the menus