Mandarin Kitchen: Excellent Chinese restaurant in Bayswater with the best Lobster Noodles

I’ve never really eaten much seafood at Chinese restaurants – I always tend to go for the more meaty options. But when we were told that Mandarin Kitchen in Bayswater serves the best Lobster Noodles in London – I was totally up for checking it out. The source of this information was our trusty driving instructor Albert Low; who by the way is an excellent instructor. Leave a comment if you’d like his contact details for driving lessons in Central London or Richmond. He’s one of the best :) 

We went to Mandarin Kitchen on a Thursday evening and it was packed. Unfortunately we didn’t make a reservation and had to wait for about 20 minutes for a table, but seeing all the delicious plates of food being carted out of kitchen and being in no rush, we settled in to wait. And then soon enough, we had a table – one of the best, right near the window which was prime viewing position. 

We started with some lovely Oolong Chinese tea (Ti Kuan Yum) and ordered one of their signature dishes – Steamed King Scallops in a garlic soya sauce that came with tiny crystal noodles. It was delicious and I’ve never seen scallops so big. A great starter to whet our appetite and then shortly later, the piece de resistance appeared – a gigantic Lobster with Ginger and Spring Onions on top of a bed of soft glistening noodles. The waiters break it up for you and serve it quite efficiently so all you have to do is dig out the soft delicious lobster flesh. And having soaked up all that lobster juice, the noodles were incredibly tasty. Such a simple elegant dish – and Manderin Kitchen deserves all the accolades for it.

I was quite full at this point. We each had a scallop and then shared the lobster noodles between three people and to be honest, I should have stopped there. But there was still more to come: a tender Beef Fillet in a sweet plum Mandarin sauce with a pimped out Yeung Chow Egg fried rice that had shrimp and pork. Stuffed to the brim, I hardly at anything for the next 24 hours after that meal! In hindsight, I would have ordered one less dish since there were 3 people, 4 dishes was a bit of an over-kill. Oh well, it was fantastic meal and I totally recommend checking out Mandarin Kitchen and its utterly delicious Lobster Noodles!