The Times
Giles Coren clearly expected the worst when he found himself having to treat his family to a Chinese meal “without taking them to an actual proper regional Chinese restaurant serving real Chinese food for real Chinese people of the kind that I love but they hate (and most of you do too)”.
The Chinese Cricket Club is “a big, empty, overlit space” at the back of a hotel on the edge of the City, with little sign of cricket beyond “two bad black and white photographs of the Oval on the wall”.
The food was just as Giles had expected: “bland, generic, loveless and tasted to me as if it had been frozen”; indeed, some was so foul he was brought the edge of retching. His son, though, thought it “fabulous” (and the service was genuinely excellent).
Giles Coren - 2025-01-19