Red Chilli Chinese restaurant

[Gary Marshall]

I ve had it in leeds manc and york , it seems hotter in york but otherwise the same basic dish

but when you go to restaurant called red chilli order a dish that the menu tells you is v hot, that the waiting staff advise you on ordering is v hot, every post on here says its v hot to then complain the dish had too much chilli in it ?! Its not called a hot pot for nothing!

[YKL]

My OH and a friend both went for the forever vegetarian set menu .... Whilst they both enjoyed the set menu, it definately wasn't the best value for money in this restaurant & if one of them hadn't also been eating the meat dishes  I think they would have gone a bit hungry, or at least needed to order more food.

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that sounds unfortunate. I took a big group of colleagues to the Leeds branch at the end of Jan, and a couple of the chaps had the veggie set menu and seemed to be stuffed.

I can imagine that some of the other dishes on the menu would seem pedestrian by comparison. It was noticeable that when they let me do the ordering, that all the dishes I added (the standard as discussed on this thread) - they were the biggest hits of the evening!

[thom]

I ve had it in leeds manc and york , it seems hotter in york but otherwise the same basic dish

It seems to vary slightly depending on the chef (I'd had a degree of heat-levels even within the Manchester restaurant) but I have to say I've never known them serve the hot poached lamb without a copious amount of dried chillis.

Just to be clear we're not talking about long finger-sized dried chillis of the sort you see draped along the fixtures and fittings in bad Mexican restaurants, these babies are no bigger than your little fingernail and have a punch to match.

I just managed to inadvertantly book myself into Red Chilli twice in one day - lunch and dinner tomorrow. That did seem slight (only slight) overkill so against my better judgement I swapped my lunch meeting to Abode.

Luckily I'm also taking the team there for dinner next Tuesday so I'll still get my twice-in-a-week Red Chilli fix.

Cheers

Thom

[david goodfellow]

I ve had it in leeds manc and york , it seems hotter in york but otherwise the same basic dish

It seems to vary slightly depending on the chef (I'd had a degree of heat-levels even within the Manchester restaurant) but I have to say I've never known them serve the hot poached lamb without a copious amount of dried chillis.

Just to be clear we're not talking about long finger-sized dried chillis of the sort you see draped along the fixtures and fittings in bad Mexican restaurants, these babies are no bigger than your little fingernail and have a punch to match.

I just managed to inadvertantly book myself into Red Chilli twice in one day - lunch and dinner tomorrow. That did seem slight (only slight) overkill so against my better judgement I swapped my lunch meeting to Abode.

Luckily I'm also taking the team there for dinner next Tuesday so I'll still get my twice-in-a-week Red Chilli fix.

Cheers

Thom

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You are addicted.

Big time.

Thank your lucky stars its on your doorstep.

I'm envious,of course.

[thom]

You are addicted.

Big time.

Thank your lucky stars its on your doorstep.

I'm envious,of course.

I'm not addicted, I'll be alright, I just need one more hit of that chilli...

And luckily, I got it last night. A colleague was in town for the football (Altrincham born and bred, but ensconced in Rome for many years now) and when I asked what he fancied for a pre-match dinner he played into my hands by saying "Anything but Italian".

"Spice", I said. "I bet you miss a bit of spice out in that there Italy." He did. I suggested Sichuan, he said it was his favourite (though his normal fix of chilli, sought out the minute he touches down in Blighty, is a blast of Thai), I thought for a while (milliseconds) and then suggested Red Chilli.

Being with a newbie I played safe (and wheeled out the big hitters) by ordering us (all together now) spring onion bread, rice for two, Beijing dumplings and hot poached lamb. Service was a little slow (they were busy) but the food was as consistently wonderful as ever (overstuffed dumplings the only - welcome - derivation from the norm) so I won't recount the detail.

My chum was, frankly, blown away. In an ill-advised homage to Michael Winner he declared the lamb "Historic". If that blew him away the bill almost finished him off - £32 a head for the food and four Tiger beers (still no Tsingtao - they're blaming the exchange rate) - less than a tenner a head for the food.

Ah well, it should keep me going till the works do next Tuesday.

Cheers

Thom

[david goodfellow]

You are addicted.

Big time.

Thank your lucky stars its on your doorstep.

I'm envious,of course.

I'm not addicted, I'll be alright, I just need one more hit of that chilli...

And luckily, I got it last night. A colleague was in town for the football (Altrincham born and bred, but ensconced in Rome for many years now) and when I asked what he fancied for a pre-match dinner he played into my hands by saying "Anything but Italian".

"Spice", I said. "I bet you miss a bit of spice out in that there Italy." He did. I suggested Sichuan, he said it was his favourite (though his normal fix of chilli, sought out the minute he touches down in Blighty, is a blast of Thai), I thought for a while (milliseconds) and then suggested Red Chilli.

Being with a newbie I played safe (and wheeled out the big hitters) by ordering us (all together now) spring onion bread, rice for two, Beijing dumplings and hot poached lamb. Service was a little slow (they were busy) but the food was as consistently wonderful as ever (overstuffed dumplings the only - welcome - derivation from the norm) so I won't recount the detail.

My chum was, frankly, blown away. In an ill-advised homage to Michael Winner he declared the lamb "Historic". If that blew him away the bill almost finished him off - £32 a head for the food and four Tiger beers (still no Tsingtao - they're blaming the exchange rate) - less than a tenner a head for the food.

Ah well, it should keep me going till the works do next Tuesday.

Cheers

Thom

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Yum,Yum

I'm eating it all again.

This is a very nice distraction for me,as I'm currently listening to Alice in Wonderland on The Fat Duck reservation line.

I'm twenty minutes in,and hoping its my lucky day!!!!!!!!!!!

Very happy dining.

[thom]

Hurrah for Red Chilli and a thoroughly successful team-building night out.

Service was a little sketchy (we got a new waitress and stretched her to breaking point with very convoluted ordering), the room was packing and bustling, our first table for nine was in the ailse and the second squashed in a corner under a draughty window but the food...

...amazing.

Three of the team had been before, though one of these (who had foolishly visited without my guiding hand) had tried to order the poached lamb broth on two previous occassions and ended up with the wrong dish each time. The other five were newbies.

We didn't go CRAZY with the ordering (there were ladies present. Proper ladylike one's too) but we still managed to end up with enough food that we all left feeling stuffed and three of us had well-stocked doggy bags in tow.

Plenty of boiled rice obviously. Four potions of spring onion bread - a revelation to the uninitiated ("Bread! In a Chinese Restaurant?!" - Shades of Peter Kay...) - and four portions of Beijing dumplings (devoured by all with lots of lipsmacking).

Then our token veggie had aubergines in a sweet chilli sauce and a dish of salt and pepper stir-fried beancurd . The aubergine were great (not dis-similar to the Beijing aubergines), really smoky and creamy, but the beancurd was fantastic. It had real texture and there aren't many things in life which aren't improved by being dusted in salt and pepper and fried.

We also had two lots of the hot poached lamb (leading to at least four new converts), a Cantonese spicy beef (the shredded, batterered sweet stuff which can get a bit sickly but was great here), salt and pepper baby squid (fantastic), the fillet beef rolls (I missed out on these), rice and chicken with tomato (a real find - very delicate clean flavours but absolutely delicious; a soupy stock full of rice with a real clear taste of tomato) and some big noodle dish (dan-dan noodles? I didn't try this).

All went down a treat, though if I'd had my way there would have been a LOT more offal being consumed around the table. Personally I ordered the pork belly with preserved cabbage (as unctuous and intense as ever) and... the French beans with pork. I nearly missed this, as it was under the veggie menu (beans with pork rather than pork with beans) but boy am I glad I sought it out!

It was bloody lovely! I don't initially understand where so much flavour could come from but it was obviously contained within that oily, dark red, sediment filled sauce which was chockful of chilli heat and umami. I think I could eat my own shoes if they were basted in whatever that magic formula is.

The pork itself worked wonderfully. It was in mince form and weirdly it was only the other day I knocked up an impromptu stir-fry with lamb mince (plus chilli, five-spice, loads of soy and oyster sauce, and chopped spring greens with thin noodles stirred through) and it worked so well as a texture and seemed so well suited to wok-cooking I questioned why mince wasn't more prevalent in Chinese cuisine as keema for example is in Indian/Pakistani cooking.

Apologies If I am showing ignorance of the many, many mince based dishes one finds on the menu of your average Chinese-chippy.

All in all then another knock-out meal (if a little short on "extreme" dishes) with some fantastic new discoveries. The bill? Including a decent amount of Tiger beers (maybe 12 or 15? All in, not each...), two bottles of decent Sauvignon Blanc, and a smattering of soft drinks it was around £220, under £25 a head all in.

Fantastic.

Cheers

Thom

[Gary Marshall]

i'd only take exception with the bread ordering at the start, that's just wierd

i've had the dan dan noodles it's like a super hot spaghetti bolgonese, especially so when you take it home as a doggy bag and the heat really intensifies. It was too much chilli with the lamb hot pot also.

[thom]

i'd only take exception with the bread ordering at the start, that's just wierd 

i've had the dan dan noodles it's like a super hot spaghetti bolgonese, especially so when you take it home as a doggy bag and the heat really intensifies. It was too much chilli with the lamb hot pot also.

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To be fair we were absolutely ravenous so we just asked for everything to come out as soon as it was ready and aside from the veggie stuff it was the spring onion bread which headed the queue (this unconventional ordering system seemed to befuddle our waitress but she got the hang of it eventually).

Yes, the dan dan noodles did look like spag bol, in fact that was commented on around the table. But "too much chilli"? Come on Gary, I thought we'd weened you on to the hard stuff. Carry on like this and you'll be back ordering chicken and cashew in no time...

Thanks for the tip on the beans and pork though. Absolutely spot on, I think it's become a new standard dish for me.

[Gary Marshall]

credit where it's due, and it pains me to say, the pork and beans were a bapi rec originally

[SaladFingers]

Not been to many Chinese restaurants aside from the casual, bog-standard neighbourhood ones that do a good job of feeding you. Tried Red Chilli while in Manchester and had Five Spice Beef, Shredded beef fillet in Cantonese sauce and hot poached lamb. This is the nicest Chinese food I've ever eaten. One more senior member of staff was wonderful and polite, though a huge congregation of staff members in the enterance completely ignored us. It was totally weird but all uphill after that.

[Gary Marshall]

i would describe the service in red chilli's generally as idiosyncratic, they can be friendly, interested, competent, ignorant, rude, almost threatening across the different staff on the same night, but the food overcomes it. They are generally more the former than the latter, but you never know what you're going to get.

[Bapi]

I too have found them to be very pleasant in Manchester, especially if you go off piste for some of the more outlandish dishes. One sweet lass even tried to warn us off the Spicy Hot Poached Lamb- by waving here hand over her mouth and saying " No, No- too hot". Obviously, we thanked her and the told her not to worry.

[Gary Marshall]

every time we order the hot pot they warn us. i obviously look like a chilli wimp, correctly.

[ajnicholls]

Went to the new branch in Manchester last night. Positively quiet compared to the hustle and bustle of the Portland Street branch.

Spring onion bread, Beijing dumplings and steamed pork buns went down well. The dumplings are the best value foodstuff in Manchester, with 10 for about £4.

I went for the mixed meat hot-pot. Never has so much offal been put in one dish. And given that I'm a doctor, it felt like an anatomy lesson. Some stuff was unidentifiable. And it could have served 6. But it was tasty and interesting. Think I'll go back to the poached lamb dish next time. The other half had the mixed seafood with rice crackers, which was a good combination of scallops, squid and random fish in a spiced and slightly sweet sauce. Bizarrely served over what seemed like snack-a-jacks.

I like the new place and hope that they can sustain two branches in the city. Service was better here than the city centre place and the room is better set out. It will become my regular stop-off when I move to the new Children's hospital that is next door.

Adam

[poppalarge]

We went to the Portland street branch last night.

Had the usual, beijing Dumplings and Hot poached lamb. Decided to try the French Beans with Pork and also the Spring onion bread based on recommendations here.

The French Beans with pork was amazing, like nothing I've ever tasted. I could live without the spring onion bread, but perhaps its because we they brought it out after our starters. Maybe it would go down better at the start of the meal.

[Gary Marshall]

I think the spring onion bread is best as an accompanyment to the poached lamb, you need something to dunk in the hot pot.

[david goodfellow]

Dropped some strong hints to Mrs G yesterday morning about a visit to the Portland St branch, for a latish lunch, but she was'n't having any of it

She is not such a big fan as I am, so I don't impose on her too much

However I can feel another must visit quite soon

[thom]

A four star review in the Metro on Wednesday for the new Oxford Road site. Fair do's to the reviewer, he went for some of the more extreme dishes including the lung slices and the meat-pot with the pig's skin etc.

For me it was back to the Portland Street original for a quick lunch with a mate yesterday. Hot poached lamb, rice for two, spring onion bread and a departure from my norm as the French beans with pork took the place of the Beijing dumplings.

All absolutely spot on apart from mildly amateurish service. Bill including waters and beers was £28. Yum.

My recent meals have included Abode, Le Gavroche, Sketch, Grill on the Alley, Harvey Nichols, Ithaca, Anthony's, The London Carriage Works, Blackhouse Grill, Oddfellows, The Modern, Tom's Chophouse and more besides but for some reason I only ever get around to writing up Red Chilli.

Note to self - Must try harder to post a greater depth and breadth of comments to present a more balanced and truer reflection of my myriad dining experiences and to dispel the notion that I am clinically addicted to Red Chilli.

Edited April 16, 2009 by thom (log)

[david goodfellow]

A four star review in the Metro on Wednesday for the new Oxford Road site. Fair do's to the reviewer, he went for some of the more extreme dishes including the lung slices and the meat-pot with the pig's skin etc.

For me it was back to the Portland Street original for a quick lunch with a mate yesterday. Hot poached lamb, rice for two, spring onion bread and a departure from my norm as the French beans with pork took the place of the Beijing dumplings.

All absolutely spot on apart from mildly amateurish service. Bill including waters and beers was £28. Yum.

My recent meals have included Abode, Le Gavroche, Sketch, Grill on the Alley, Harvey Nichols, Ithaca, Anthony's, The London Carriage Works, Blackhouse Grill, Oddfellows, The Modern, Tom's Chophouse and more besides but for some reason I only ever get around to writing up Red Chilli.

Note to self - Must try harder to post a greater depth and breadth of comments to present a more balanced and truer reflection of my myriad dining experiences and to dispel the notion that I am clinically addicted to Red Chilli.

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Me thinks this Sunday is worthy of the trek to the rainy city, although in fairness my last 3/4 visits the weather has been great.

As already stated above, the hint has already been made so,

Its almost a certainty.

By strange coincidence we met up with some friends from North Wales at Oddfellows over Easter, as its about half way from where we both live.

I shall post it on the Chester thread.

Be interested to have your opinion of the place!

[Winot]

I walked past a Red Chilli restaurant on Charing Cross Rd in London today. Looked tacky - anyone know if there's any connection to the lauded Leeds/Manchester chain?

[Gary Marshall]

according to their website they are quite randomly located in manchester, bacup, atherton, leeds and york.

[muichoi]

I walked past a Red Chilli restaurant on Charing Cross Rd in London today.  Looked tacky - anyone know if there's any connection to the lauded Leeds/Manchester chain?

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Do you mean Red n' Hot? it is tacky but the food is the real deal.

[david goodfellow]

I walked past a Red Chilli restaurant on Charing Cross Rd in London today.  Looked tacky - anyone know if there's any connection to the lauded Leeds/Manchester chain?

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Do you mean Red n' Hot? it is tacky but the food is the real deal.

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The Manchester one is tacky also, although I've not eaten there yet, I just thought I'd have a look.

It does'n't look very inviting, and its up a long flight of stairs, did think of trying a couple of dishes here and then a short stroll to Red Chilli, all for the cause you understand

Well perhaps sometime soon

[david goodfellow]

Just arrived back from our Red Chilli fix and have some good news, especially if you live in Birmingham. It would appear they are looking for a site, but are finding it quite difficult, to locate one.

If you know of one? please get in touch.

Well, surprise, surprise, the chef, Old Xie was not in the kitchen today. In fact this is the only time he's not been there during our visits.

No problem, however it turns out he's on holiday in China("somewhere near Korea")

I had no need to worry as the tiny kitchen had seven people in there even though there were only three tables occupied. Clearly they were prepping, expecting a busy evening service.

Considering the above the food was very slow coming from the kitchen,normally its out in a flash on Sunday lunch.

That said when it did arrive all the flavours were totally spot on.

Well the Hot poached Lamb was the first order, followed by French bean and minced Pork, then we ordered Big Grandma's Stir fried Crab, this is also available with Sweet chilli or Ginger and Spring Onion.

We can't make our minds up as to which sauce we prefer having tasted them all at different times they are all terrific, have to try them all again

Now then, because I have assumed responsibility for ordering somewhat in a hurry, I am told off because I'm reminded that we were going to try one of the Frogs Legs dishes.

So ever the gentleman I summon the waiter, and much to his astonishment order the Frogs Legs with red and green peppers.

When the Lamb arrived it suddenly dawned on me the enormity of our task given the portion size of this dish alone, which is enough for two or more.

Still we tucked in and started to make headway into the mountain of food.

I think its fair to say that we have settled into the Lamb, Pork and Beans, and Stir Fried Crab dishes as favorites, however we did enjoy the Frogs Legs which had a sweet vinegar sauce and some very large pieces or black fungus which added a weird gelatinous texture to the dish. Very enjoyable.

We all know how good a dish the Lamb is, but strange as it may seem there were a lot, and I do mean a lot less of those fiery little buggers in the dish, and to my mind better off for it, it meant that I could concentrate more on eating than wasting valuable time looking for the little nasal explosives

The Crab and Frogs Legs are very more-ish but very messy to eat but we find them well worth the effort. The Big Grandma sauce is divine with the Crab and well worth all of the licking and sucking (careful) the spiny and sometimes painful limbs.

The service was its normal laid back lazy Sunday style, the waiters seemed slightly amused and even bemused as they watched from afar, at our attempts to demolish enough food for eight people.

All in all, everything is well up to normal standard, terrific saucing, which I would happily pay good money if I could learn how to replicate them in my kitchen

Good quality ingredients in very skilled hands,putting on the plate exactly what the punters want.

We were of course defeated by the portions, but not by much, we had a smaller doggy bag than ourselves and the waiters were expecting.