After our somewhat disappointing (except for the nice views) afternoon tea experience at AquaShard in May, we wanted to give one of the restaurants in the Shard a try. I settled on Chinese restaurant Hutong, situated on the 33rd floor of the Shard, in the same location but up one floor from AquaShard in the Shangri-la complex, and made a reservation. The restaurant's dishes are based on Northern Chinese cuisine.
Of course, a visit to the Shard means admiring the views, and I have posted a couple in this post, but if you really want to see what the top floor is like at the Shard, then see my post 310m Above London: The View from the Shard. There are seventy-two floors, so this means that Hutong is only half-the-way up!
We were the first to arrive for dinner, and we were seated next to the western-facing window with views toward the Houses of Parliament and Borough Market. We noted the cooked ducks hanging at the back of the restaurant.
I was tooo busy admiring the views to be decisive in what I wanted. I'd actually had a long night the previous night, which did not help matters. (I'd gone out with my friend Natalie from Bristol at the Queen of Hoxton and ended up drinking a little too much and missed the train back to Basingstoke.)
On to the food. My partner wanted to order the "thinly-cut pork belly and cucumber slices in chilli and garlic sauce" to start. The chilli and garlic sauce tasted delicious.
I wanted the barbeque duck starter. After we ate as much as we could of the first starter (which was really for my partner), we were brought our roasted Peking duck. The chef carved it in front of us and put the slices down onto a leaf-topped wooden tray. The menu named this dish in "two stages", and the first stage consisted of the duck being slices for traditional pancakes.
After he was finished carving, he took the remainder of the duck away, and the plum sauce, pancakes, and cucumber and spring onions were brought to our table so that we could assemble our duck pancakes. I must say that I am not a fan of the duck fat and skins, so I stuck to eating the meaty bits, and the plum sauce was particularly good.
A little bit later, once we had devoured the duck pancakes, the rest of our duck was brought back. The duck meat was diced and mixed with onions and pepper with spices. This tasted delicious and ended up becoming my favourite dish of the evening. Such a pity that I was starting to feel full and wanted to save room for my main meal.
We watched as the sun begin to set over London from the large windows in front of us.
I ordered one of the cocktails, and it came in a brass cup. The cocktail was a little too strong/bitter, so I did not particularly enjoy it. This was my least favourite item that I had that night.
My main meal was the fried chicken on dried chilli. I also ordered soft noodles as side dish. My partner has the "braised sliced beef in aged vinegar and ginger sauce", and this was served on a bed of rice. The chicken was particularly spicey, but it was nice.
The restaurant was particularly busy by the time we finished our meal. We were going to order a dessert, but our server disappeared for too long (I had to wave them down) and did not check back with us after giving us the dessert menu that I asked for, so I simply had to track her down again and ask for the bill. While we made our way out of the restaurant, we enjoyed quick views of London lit up.
Overall, our experience at Hutong was alright, but I left feeling slightly disappointed. The restaurant is expensive, but it's the views that guests pay for. The food was filling, and I feel that Chinese meals are best experienced with more than two people as there's always too much food. I was disappointed in the cocktail and in the service toward the end of our meal as the staff ignored us.
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