My Old Place

Affordable Szechuan cuisine

My Old Place

Szechuan cuisine, part of the Chinese cuisine family which usually contains extremely spicy food with rich tastes, is perhaps one of my least favourite of all Chinese cooking, mostly down to my useless palate when it comes to spicy food. My Old Place is a Chinese restaurant in The City specialising in Szechuan cuisine, it is very popular among the local Chinese community, with its excellent price and authentic taste. I have never yet experienced proper Szechuan food in London so I visited My Old Place and wondered what they had in store.

cumin lamb skewers

cold pork ears in chilli oil

dry fried sweet and sour pork

braised tofu and vegetables

The dry fried sweet and sour pork was highly recommended and it was easy to understand why, the powerful savoury and sour taste really lived up my taste buds without overwhelming the pork, it was a perfect dish to pair it with a bowl of plain rice. The braised sea bass was moist and smooth, while it wasn't fresh but the seasoning was spot on with a good balance of robust flavours. "Water cooked ant climbing tree", aka glass noodle cooked in a chilli broth with boiling hot chilli oil was scary in both visual aspect and taste, the aggressive aroma of the chilli could be detected as soon as it was served up at the table, incredibly spicy but popular to other diners at the same time and surely a treat to any spicy food lovers. Dry fried French beans for me is a must order side dish as the robust aroma combing the natural sweetness of the beans with a mild spicy finish was just so defined.

glass noodle cooked in a chilli broth

braised aubergine

braised seebass

Dry fried French beans

My Old Place proved to be a very good value for money Chinese restaurant in The City, the size of the dishes are also really big so this place is great to come with a large group of friends otherwise you would struggle to try more than a few dishes. The issue about this place, like most traditional Chinese restaurants, the menu is just far too big so it can be very time consuming to work out what to order, also with such a large menu, it is safe to assume that not many of the ingredients are fresh, service is also very "China Town" level so don't expect anything from the staff apart from taking your orders and serving up the dishes.

Food 3/5

What I paid: 
£18 pp with soft drink

Average cost without drinks and services:
£20 pp

88-90 Middlesex St, London E1 7EZ