Found in China Town

If you're stuck for something to do this weekend, then head to China Town for the Chinese new year festivities: There'll be an enormous firework display, a flying lion dance, a firecracker display and performances by Emmy the Great and Noah and The Whale in China Town - all for free. 

Traditional Chinese arts and crafts and food stands will also pack the streets. If you feel like braving the crowds, we would recommend getting there early to make sure you get a good view. Otherwise, rooftop bars are worth investigating to get a piece of the firework action from the comfort of, well, not being crushed by the crowd or frozen by the weather. 

China Town has a wealth of Chinese and South East Asian food shops, medicine and alternative therapy units and restaurants. Lately I have been visiting relatively regularly to stock up on all the Japanese ingredients they also sell (much cheaper than the Japan Centre). I always go to both New Loon Moon and Loon Fung to compare prices and brands before buying.

In general, our experience of seeking a hot meal out in China Town has been of wandering around with a feeling of being surrounded by potentially great food and experiences but as though it would be so easy to get it wrong. We both hate all you can eat MSG slathered non-de-script meat and vegetable buffets (who actually goes to those places??). In short, this area has pretty much remained lost in translation.

No longer. Our Chinese new year resolution for this year was to get found in china town, so we've done our research and found a great Cantonese place you can rely on too.

New World was introduced to us by a family friend who grew up in Hong Kong. It's a little shabby but authentic, with dim sum trolley girls circling the room, offering you their goods. He always sits on the ground floor as near to the kitchen door as possible so as to get the dim sum fresh out of their bamboo steamers.

We recommend any of the dim sum but the last time we were there, we had... 

Prawn and vegetable:

Spicy prawn and scallop:

Pork sui mai:

Wasabi prawn:

I wouldn't recommend the Shanghai dim sum which are fried and usually with pork. They are rather greasy which is what they are supposed to be, having had them in Shanghai, but an acquired taste.

The most unusual thing we had was a fried water chestnut gelatinous square with crunchy bits of water chestnut in it. It was really delicious (the Catonese know how to do puddings) and sort of maple syrupy tasting.

The whole meal for 4 came to just £10 each including drinks (non alcoholic)

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