Ecapital / Capital Revisited

[Jonathan Day]

Haute cuisine fans please note: the restaurant I am discussing is Chinese, not Chavot’s much-debated French restaurant. If that's the one you are interested in, leave now.

Formerly known as "Capital", this place attracted some attention about a year ago, for serving Shanghaiese dishes so authentic as to sound bizarre even to adventuresome eaters. Perhaps under pressure from Chavot’s operation, the restaurant has now renamed itself ECapital. Or perhaps they thought that prefixing an ‘E’ to the name would turn it into a New Economy success story, like eGullet.

As mentioned in another posting John Whiting and I had lunch there last summer and enjoyed “thousand layers” (pigs’ ears, pressed together and then sliced vertically through the stack, the resulting slices resembling a beautifully layered terrine in miniature), and crispy chilli eels. Both dishes were delicious: the “thousand layers” resembled a brawn, with overtones of sesame and a bit of spicy mustard; the eels had a lovely sweetness that matched the chilli very well.

I was in the area today and returned for a very quick lunch, solo. Unfortunately the place seems to have slipped somewhat, though it was still interesting. Back in the summer, a separate lunch menu was offered, proposing interesting dishes in smaller portions. It was printed both in Chinese and in English.

Now the lunch menu is only printed in Chinese. The main menu offers some, but not all of the interesting Shanghai dishes (the ‘thousand layers’, sea cucumbers, cubed belly pork, etc.) but in largish portions with prices around £12.00. The focus of the main menu is on more commonly ordered pan-Chinese and Cantonese dishes.

The place was almost empty today, so I asked the waitress to work through the Chinese menu with me, line by line. I had the ‘thousand layers’, once again; scallion pancakes; and a dish of cold noodles with chicken and cucumbers. A German family took the table next to mine, took out a massive German-English dictionary and tried to puzzle their way through the English menu. I felt some sympathy for them, even more linguistically challenged than I in this place.

All of the dishes were good, but none matched the level I had found last summer. The flavours in the ‘thousand layers’ were less bright and pronounced; the cold noodles tasty but underseasoned. The best dish, in some ways, was the scallion pancakes, which looked more like a small doughnut, with the insides of the ‘ring’ filled with scallions. It was one of the best dishes of this sort I have tasted.

Because I had ordered from the lunch menu, I left with a bill of just over £15, including service charge and tea. Ordering from the main menu would have raised this to something like £30. I asked two staff members why the lunch menu was no longer translated; neither had a clue.

I hope this place turns around. It was one of the more interesting restaurants in Chinatown and the cooking had an enjoyable energy and brightness. It doesn’t bother me when special Chinese dishes are announced, only in Chinese, on wall signs, but I was annoyed by the idea of an entire menu printed only in Chinese (and offering different portion sizes and prices).

Edited November 23, 2002 by JD (London) (log)

[Jinmyo]

An excellent report, JD.

The "thousand layers" sounds wonderful. Do you remember the actual name of the dish? Qian chong or something? Is it steamed?

edit:

I mean the dish itself sounds wonderful, not this particular tasting of it.

Edited November 23, 2002 by Jinmyo (log)

[Jonathan Day]

Jinmyo, I don't know the Chinese name. It was printed in Chinese, but that didn't help! I will try to remember to ask next I'm there.

Also not exactly sure how it was prepared. My guess as to the preparation method:

• ears from fairly young pigs, since they were relatively thin and not very cartilaginous
  they were either boiled or very thoroughly steamed, then flattened
  half of the ears were somehow cooked (braised?) in a mixture containing soya sauce, rendering them brown, the other half were left white
  the brown and white ears were alternatively stacked
  the whole thing was pressed under a heavy weight
  then it was cooked again (steamed?)
  then cooled and perhaps pressed again
  then sliced, so that you saw the alternating brown and white colours
  and served cold, lightly brushed with sesame oil, and spicy mustard dipping sauce
  

But this is just a guess!

The first time I had this, by the way, the colours were more marked. They were more muted in this one.

[Jon Tseng]

JD, were there more shanghainese specialities on the main (english) menu than before? I remember hearing they were increasing the number of these they translated a while back, but haven't checked back for a while

re the quiet lunchtime, still feel the lack of dim sum, if true to the shanghainese roots, is commercial suicide. given what the kitchen is capable, seems like they're leaving money on the table to me

cheerio

J

[Jinmyo]

Thanks, JD. This sounds quite interesting to me. I'm going to look around and see what I can find out.

[Jonathan Day]

JD, were there more shanghainese specialities on the main (english) menu than before? I remember hearing they were increasing the number of these they translated a while back, but haven't checked back for a while

re the quiet lunchtime, still feel the lack of dim sum, if true to the shanghainese roots, is commercial suicide.  given what the kitchen is capable, seems like they're leaving money on the table to me

Jon, my impression was that there were fewer specialities on the main menu. But since most of the main menu dishes were sized and priced beyond what I wanted to eat or spend, I have to admit that I didn't analyse it as carefully as I might have.

I initially asked a waitress whether dimsam was available, remembering vaguely that the smaller lunch menu had many dishes that fell into this category: dumplings, buns of various sorts, small dishes of noodles. "No," she said, "we don't do that". She later admitted that this sort of thing did appear on the lunch menu.

Don't the Shanghaiese do dimsam?

If I return, by the way, I will bring along a copy of James D. McCawley's wonderful Eater's Guide to Chinese Characters, still in print and available from amazon.com. He gives a simple stroke-counting algorithm for indexing characters, then a comprehensive dictionary of foods. It works reasonably well for decoding Chinese-only menus.

[Jon Tseng]

>Don't the Shanghaiese do dimsam?

They do have snacks/"little eats" both in shanghai and sichuan, but nowhere seems to be as religious about the whole "dim sum" thing as in hong kong

>If I return, by the way, I will bring along a copy of James D. McCawley's

>wonderful Eater's Guide to Chinese Characters, still in print and available from amazon.com.

That sounds like a fascinating book - always have trouble ordering in china due to inability to read characters and end up with sweet and sour pork and toffee apple ;-)

One thing I might add, however, is the chinese tendancy to use poetic names for dishes means that even a translation doesn't always help - dishes wiht names like "phonix in white bikini jumping over stream" or "pigs taking flight" or whatever can confound even the most avid of linguist (sort of like "sweetbread" and "variety meats" here, I guess...)

cheerio

J

[StephenT]

I initially asked a waitress whether dimsam was available, remembering vaguely that the smaller lunch menu had many dishes that fell into this category: dumplings, buns of various sorts, small dishes of noodles. "No," she said, "we don't do that". She later admitted that this sort of thing did appear on the lunch menu.

I've had "juicy buns" at ECapital before, which were a sort of steamed dumpling filled with a minced pork and probably other things) mixture. A slightly sour flavour, delicious and very dimsum-like.

Never had the thousand layers, never been along at the same time as anyone else who's also wanted to order it

I've only been in the past few months so I don't know how it's changed since then but definitely one of the best restaurant in Chinatown if not the best. I'm definitely going to ask them to translate the lunch menu for me next time I'm there though.

[StephenT]

One thing I might add, however, is the chinese tendancy to use poetic names for dishes means that even a translation doesn't always help - dishes wiht names like "phonix in white bikini jumping over stream" or "pigs taking flight" or whatever can confound even the most avid of linguist (sort of like "sweetbread" and "variety meats" here, I guess...)

A strangely named dish that I noticed at ECapital is called "Fish dressed as crab" and the explanation is "our famous scrambled eggs". Most confusing.

[Jonathan Day]

McCawley's book has explanations for some of these poetic names -- e.g. "ants crawling up a tree".

The best explanation of a Chinese dish I have been given by a waiter (not at ECapital) was "little birds, burnt in the fire". This turned out to be roast quails, and they were very good.

[Kikujiro]

Note moved to this thread, where it belongs, from the VAT thread where I inadvertently posted it.

I went to ECapital today and ordered off the lunch menu. The waitress (who admittedly recognised me) was extremely helpful once I'd announced this intention. As far as I can work out, there are only a few Shanghaise specialities on the lunch menu that are not now on the main menu (albeit at different prices?). These include a crab version of the soupy dumplings and a 'Shanghaiese wonton with spicy sauce'. The vast majority of the lunch menu is, predictably, rice and noodle dishes.

We ended up having exactly the same as JD -- thousand layers, cold noodles with chicken/peanut sauce/cucumber, scallion pancakes (or, as ECapital has it, spring onion deep dish pizza); plus the standard soupy dumplings and the abovementioned wonton. I must admit that for me the thousand layers (which I hadn't had before), while undeniably beautiful to look at, did not make up in flavour for the textural challenge (cartilage?) they presented. I enjoyed them but couldn't finish the fairly massive portion. (I didn't check the individual prices v. the main menu). My dislocated NY colleague was delighted to find the other two dishes, which are much more standard in NY Chinese restaurants than over here (or at least I've eaten cold noodles and scallion pancakes in a million random NY places and never before in London).

I'd been uncertain if we were ordering enough and the waitress had suggested an additional dish of mushu pork (hello US again) with hand-pulled noodles, which I consented to, but when we'd got through the above dishes she came over and said she'd held off putting that item through in case we'd had enough without, so we declined. With a large bottle of water for my tea-limited colleague, £29 including service, a couple of quid a head more than dimsum at Joy King Lau.

Edited November 27, 2002 by Kikujiro (log)

[Simon Majumdar]

I have never tried the Dim Sum at JKL

How is it?

I am always open to an alternative to Golden Dragon or Harbour City

S

[Jonathan Day]

All the food I've had at JKL has been of high quality. In particular, their fish and vegetables are very fresh and well prepared -- for me, this is an important test of a Chinese kitchen. Service is efficient and, in a Chinese way, friendly.

A friend from Singapore, now in London, first recommended JKL to me. He is a wine connoisseur and more than a bit demanding about his food. He tells me that each of the floors of JKL is separately owned, but that they share a kitchen and menu. He claims that a family feud led to the break-up of the restaurant, but that the operation was sufficiently successful that they opted for this unusual arrangement. I have no idea whether this is true.

But the food is very good, and the menu is extensive, e.g. more than the usual number of varieties of abalone.

[Kikujiro]

Simon, JKL is my regular place for dimsum in Chinatown. Not nearly as good as Royal China, of course. I haven't tried Golden Dragon nearly as often but I did last month and was disappointed in the context of expecting it to be better than JKL. Like everywhere else, JKL has pulled the Chinese-only specials menu, but they do translate it on demand. My favourite of these was a kind of fried pancake with long ('golden'?) mushrooms, which they did for ages, then abruptly stopped. I think. Although it was always a struggle to communicate that particular item when ordering as I never worked out what it was called. In particular I agree with JD about freshness.

JD: I've seen this story about JKL before (here or on Ch*nd). As you are seated on the lowest possible floor that can accomodate you at the time, isn't the arrangement (if real) a bit unfair on the upper ones?

[Jonathan Day]

When we've reserved at JKL, and occasionally on a walk-in basis I have been directed to upper floors even when the ground floor has many vacant tables. There is a small, creaky lift, so that folks who cannot climb stairs can still be sent to higher floors.

The allocation algorithm is mysterious; I have to admit I haven't worried about it very much. All the food seems to come from the same kitchen, in the basement.

[clb]

A note on a disappointing lunch today at eCapital: confessed Chinese food novice gets it wrong again.

Was with parents who had to be steered away from chicken with cashew nuts and the basic set menu and I suppose part of the disappointment was that my attempts to do better weren't actually worth the effort. I wasn't expecting to eat in Chinatown and hadn't checked to see what was recommended here but did, in any event, stick largely to the Shanghainese specialities.

The good things were the juicy buns Stephen T mentioned above, the very similar Peking dumplings (we should really have been steered away from ordering both but, in the end, they were far the best things we ate) and the hot and also very juicy stir-fried choy sum.

The bad things, alas, included the crispy chilli eels. I think either the preparation has changed considerably since JD had the same dish in late 1992 or, more probably, it was all too obvious that we knew nothing. There was no chilli heat and the sweetness meant that there was no taste of eel at all. Result was something which tasted remarkably like strips of chewy protein in a standard High Street sweet-and-sour sauce. Other failures: salt and pepper fried squid and scallops and hand-pulled noodles with king prawns.

I pointed out how disappointed I had been with the eel (and we had only eaten perhaps a third of the dish) but there was no apology or deduction from the bill which amounted, I think, to £68 for three.

clb

[Wilfrid]

Is this a rather plush little place in Lisle Street?

[Jonathan Day]

No, it's in Gerrard Street -- and not at all plush, very spare in its decor.

I went back a few weeks ago, and was disappointed by just about every dish. The "thousand ears" lacked flavour, and the crispy eels were overcooked. See the "restaurants always get worse" thread...

[Wilfrid]

Sorting through my restaurant cards, I find the New Diamond at 23 Lisle Street. If the menu offers a long list of unusual and fairly exotic dishes, and it looks rather new and smart, that must be the one I'm thinking of. I won't give it an unqualified recommendation on the basis of one lunch, but it's certainly worth considering if anyone's looking for an interesting menu in Chinatown.

[StephenT]

Sorting through my restaurant cards, I find the New Diamond at 23 Lisle Street.  If the menu offers a long list of unusual and fairly exotic dishes, and it looks rather new and smart, that must be the one I'm thinking of.  I won't give it an unqualified recommendation on the basis of one lunch, but it's certainly worth considering if anyone's looking for an interesting menu in Chinatown.

I'm quite a fan of New Diamond. It had a few minutes of fame a few years ago when a newspaper reported it as the place where the chefs of various fancy restaurants went to eat when they'd finished working at their own restaurants for the night. Then a year or so later there were posters all over the street telling people to boycott it because they treated their staff badly. As it turned out, we were on the way there when we saw the posters so we went anyway and were relieved not to find an angry mob outside. Service and food that night were particularly good if I remember.

They do have some interesting things on their menu. Someone I was with at lunch once ordered "salted and baked pigeon" (at least I think that was it). It arrived chopped up in a bowl. Halfway through eating it he found the head, which was a bit unexpected. When the waiter came to collect our plates he exclaimed "Hahahaha you didn't eat the head. Not many people do."

These days I mostly go there for lunch and haven't read the menu for a while. I usually order "soup noodles with mixed seafood" which I don't think is on the menu, but for £6.80 you get a big bowl of ho fun in a tasty broth topped with a pile of prawns, squid and sliced scallops. Tasty.

[Miss J]

I like New Diamond too. I wouldn't say it's a stand-out, destination restaurant, but if you're in Chinatown and want to order something interesting it's not bad at all. It's the first place anyone recommended jellyfish to me, for which I am grateful.