Gold Mine Chinatown

The new golden child of Chinatown

Classic dim sum selections

Chinatown is blessed with so many Chinese restaurants, but it is also a minefield with some pretty average, forgettable venues. Since Covid came along, some have gone for good, but some new ones are also popping up. One of the latest new openings is Gold Mine, the original joint (which is still around) in Bayswater is widely popular to the local Chinese communities, and it is welcoming news that it is setting up shop in Chinatown as it is much close for me to get to. After checking with the restaurant directly, I can confirm all the dishes are the same as the Bayswater joint.

Salted egg and pork congee

Rice rolls

I opted for a selection of dim sum for my lunch visit, Gold Mine's dim sums are very classic, such as char siu bao and har gow. I found the steamed spinach and prawn dumpling really enjoyable, it had a great balance of greens and prawns, great umami taste, and the pastry not overly thick or sticky. The taro puff was also excellent, really crispy but not oily at all, with a smooth taro paste and some minced pork which were finely seasoned. Less impressive was the rice rolls, as it was too thick and dense, lacking smoothness. 

Salt baked chicken

Taro puff

Interestingly enough I never had dim sum at Gold Mine as I always ended up going ALC to get a taste of its legendary roasted duck. It turned out the dim sums are pretty dame good and better than many other places elsewhere in Chinatown. Apart from the rice rolls, the standard was high and it won't look out of place when compared to a typical dim sum joint in Hong Kong. The service was lacking sadly, with only 1 waiter serving a whole floor with 30 covers, he was overworked so not always easy to get his attention, but that is fairly normal in Chinatown sadly, with good staff are hard to come by while many restaurants needing to cut the cost to offset the impact from Covid...

Food 3/5

What I paid: 
£27 per person with tea

Average cost without drinks and services:
£25

45 Wardour St, London W1D 6PZ

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