This is an outstanding regional chinese restaurant - one where vegetables are king. Yeah yeah yeah - you look at the menu and they serve you every part of the pig and they put all those parts in a lot of dishes. But what stands out are the vegetables - either in the long and interesting list of purely vegetarian dishes - or the vegetables on the carnivorous side of the menu. This is a Guizhou restaurant - the state between Szechuan and Hunan in the South Central part of China. The cuisine is half hot like Szechuan and half suave like Hunan. There are a lot of dishes on the menu you don't see elsewhere. A Tofu with Salted Egg Yolk was a surprise winner. This dish tastes more like eggs than eggs do. It is a tofu and shrimp in a bright yellow sauce that must be made of the concentrated yolks of about a zillion eggs - but it is very light, creamy and delicate. I have never tasted anything in a Chinese restaurant quite like it and we scarfed it down. Another winner was Lotus Shoots with Celery and Cashews (and in theory macadamia nuts ... although they must have been hiding inside the cashews). The Lotus Shoots had a strong savory shallot like taste - and the savory essence transferred over to the celery. After the dish was gone we kept sort of picking the dish for the last little bits of celery. When was the last time you had an irresistible drive to polish off all the little bits of CELERY in a dish? That's how good the celery was. On the Szechuan-style side - we had a spicy village pot - a "toss everything you can think of into a clay pot and add chili oil" heavy red concoction with tripe, pork blood, meatballs, octopus, pork liver and a bunch of vegetables. It was listed on the menu as "spicy" but not "hot". (They do have "hot dishes" which they indicate with a red pepper.) The fire on this sucker built slowly. At first I was thinking I should have asked the cook to make this extra hot ... and add some more chili oil to the dish. About twenty minutes later, those macho fantasies had worn off ... the chilis had claimed their place in my mouth. All of the meat ingredients were good and the variety was interesting. But the stars of the show were ---- you guessed it ---- the vegetables. There were about four different kinds in the pot - in theory drowning in chili oil and heavy heavy organ meat ingredients. So they should have tasted like washed out nothing. Every single vegetable was perfectly crisp and maintained a strong burst of its own distinctive vegetable flavor. Each vegetable tasted different and with its own personality. How the cook pulled this off in a STEWED dish with filled with spicy oil is simply beyond me. So there is some formidable skill in that kitchen,. This is a restaurant we intend to return to - return to a lot. Serious innovative eating in Chinatown. read more

We tried the hand pulled noodle soup. Nothing special about it and it was actually rather bland, but it's always fun to see the chef hand pull the noodle. read more

Maotai Kitchen - Chinese Near Me - London, XGL

I've been to Maotai Kitchen several times, on occasions ranging from a quick stop for some noodles to date night to a rowdier social dinner with friends, and it has delivered every time. The cuisine is from China's southwestern Guizhou (pronounced Gway-joe) Province. It has some similarities to cuisine from neighboring Sichuan, which has become trendy in London of late, but not quite the same. The best way to do a meal here is to go with a group and order a selection of dishes to share. That's how Chinese food in general is meant to be eaten in order to have balance. Best to get a few cold dishes, a few vegetables, and a mix of meat and seafood. Maotai Kitchen does cold starters well. My favorites are the jellyfish and the black fungus - funky, strange texture, transports you away from London! But you really can't go wrong, and since the cold dishes are only around £5-6 each, it's not a huge risk to try something random if a group is sharing. Also, the razor clams (when they have them) are fantastic. These guys have an extensive seafood selection - ironic since Guizhou is landlocked, but I think the concept is that they are applying Guizhou flavors and techniques to Britain's excellent ingredients. They do it well. For meat dishes, by far my favorite is the water-boiled beef (水煮牛肉), a classic southwestern dish that these guys do better than any Sichuan restaurant in town. Tender braised beef with tons of Sichuan peppercorn, vegetables and hot peppers. Definitely get it. I've also had some I also love their dry wok cabbage. It has a very Silk Road feel to it - fragrant spices like cumin. If you want something strange and delicious, go for the tofu with salted egg yolk. Also, their noodle soups are great - not just an afterthought. They pull their noodles by hand out front, so diners can watch. You could easily make a meal out of a bowl of noodles and tea and get out for under £10-15, but if you are willing to spend £40-£50/person on a fancier meal, you can get a full-on feast. You could come here for a quick lunch stop or for a fun night out - works either way. They have a nice, reasonably priced wine list - their house white, which is cheap, pairs well with a range of dishes. Or, more adventurously, you could go for Maotai, the famous Chinese firewater that hails from Guizhou, for which the place is named. For me, Maotai is a once-in-a-decade thing - but if you are going to drink that category of Chinese spirit (it's a sorghum-based firewater), Maotai is probably the best brand to sample. Probably a good thing to try at least once if you want to understand China. In all, these guys punch above their weight and are a good choice for an adventurous dinner whether you are in the mood for cheap and cheerful or for a feast. read more

Don't know what t other negative reviews are about. My friends and I have been to Maotai Kitchen several times because the food is not only very delicious, but also rather different from the rest of Chinatown restaurants - it's a regional cuisine from Guizhou province in south-western China, and according to what's said on the back of their menu, it's the only restaurant in UK dedicated to this regional Chinese cuisine. So that's pretty cool for a start! The restaurant looks quite smart but the atmosphere is casual, friendly, and welcoming. It has several floors, with a spacious private dining area on top floor equipped with karaoke. The extensive menu could be a bit overwhelming if you're not too familiar with Chinese food, but the lovely staff were able to help us through and recommend dishes when we first visited the place. The manager - Derek - is particularly helpful, patient, friendly. Kudos for him and his lovely staff members! Another speciality of the restaurant is their Hot Pot (very popular amongst the Chinese; very festive thing to do as well esp in winter time) and the selection of ramen soup noodles (with various soup bases to choose from and the noodles are all freshly made and hand-pulled by the noodle master working at the shop front window - quite a show!). On their a la caret menu, I especially recommend Beer chicken, Baked seabass, Juicy beef with pointed pepper, Marinated Arctic-surf-clams, Hot and sour beef noodle soup, Aubergine with minced pork, and spicy chicken fried rice! This restaurant is relatively new - only opened under a year ago, and my friends and I always enjoying going there for some seriously good Chinese food. Even we know the portion is always generous and filling. we still have difficulty NOT over-ordering because there are so many tasty dishes we want to try/eat!! Highly recommended. read more

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Hmm, a new restaurant in Chinatown. One advantage of that is the restaurant looks relatively clean and not too shabby... but let's face it if you're planning to eat in Chinatown you're not exactly going for the decor right? My friends and I came here because they also make noodles fresh and we're big fans of noodle bar. My friends did the ordering so I'll try and best sum things up as I have no idea what the names are - Stir fried noodle with seafood and veggies. We ordered the thin noodles for this one. Overall, it was pretty greasy with little flavour. I ended up globbing chili sauce over it. - Soup noodles with pork belly. The noodles were on the thicker side which is okay it's just that the soup was also very bland. Can't help but compare it to noodle bar but doesn't even come close. - Soup noodles with rice noodles - This was definitely better than the regular ones above but soup was still eh - Cabbage with shrimp - this was probably my favorite. Overall, food is a bit underwhelming but maybe there are dishes that they're good that that we didn't order? Oh well, back to noodle bar! read more

This is one the saddest Chinese restaurant I have seen around the streets of China town. To keep it short and simple, first rules first- microwave. No good restaurant you would go to would even go near this low blow object. I had ordered 2 hand pulled noodles, which, although were hand pulled, lacked texture and consistency. Our seafood noodle sauce was then microwaved with some semi-fresh shrimps, scallops and squid. We had also ordered a spicy eel dish, in which the portion did not justify with the price. Also, the awkward empty restaurant paired with no music other than the sound of the waitress chattering? Not chic. However, they do serve stove grilled fish and a variety of Sze Chuan like spicy dishes.. Will not come again, over priced and under served. read more

I wanted to see what cuisine from Guizhou was like so stopped by for a meal. The dishes had a good balance of heat and nothing knocked your socks off like Sichuan cuisine. The food was decent enough although it definitely was not the best Chinese I have had. We had: Spicy crab: the crab was perfectly cooked and came with diced veg and cubes of processed ham. I liked this home school touch. Could have been a touch more flavoursome but was tasty overall. Double cooked pork belly: tasty stir fried slices of pork belly with veg. We ordered a side of noodles with veg rather than rice and they paired well together. Definitely get some of their homemade noodles. It's a nice treat. Service was friendly and good. Don't let the other reviews put you off. The manager or owner came over repeatedly to ask us if we needed anything else, bringing over more napkins and clearing away our piles of crab shells. The cuisine is different from what you get elsewhere so worth checking out! read more

Lovely noodles, unique Guizhou flavour restaurant. I paid one visit but wasn't impressed, because the spices they used was nothing special but just spicy. It is meant to be refreshing, add additional fragrance not just hot hot hot. Anyway, might give it a second chance. read more

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The broth is amazing and the hand pulled noodles are soft and spectacular. The flavour is really particular, it's not a rich broth, but really spicy. Filly, i'm not able to finish the whole bowl of noodles. read more

I've only been here once, but it was a pretty neat experience! Went in there with a friend one day before a show. I'd never had Guizhou cuisine before (I've had a lot of Yunnan food and Hmong food though so I was expecting something along those lines, but different.) It was pretty clean and the staff were prompt with our food. I wasn't so big on my own dish (which was some sort of clear-soup beef noodle that while okay, wasn't the best thing ever.) I LOVED my friend's dish, however - spicy noodles with I guess crispy pork? Not even sure of the name of the dish anymore but I just know it was really good - and just spicy enough to make me happy. Hopefully this place will still be there the next time I visit London! read more

Nothing to write Home about... Plain food, careless service, good location. No one out of 7 people I went with got anything tasty. We've waited ages, left immediately after the meal. And this was our last visit... read more

Can't remember when we had worse service than this. Staff just stood around cackling and ignoring us. Never even asked if we wanted a drink. I had to scream excuse me to order, to have dishes cleared and to ask for a check. The lack of service here is laughable. Too bad bc food was decent. The owner should know how terrible the employees behave. Never again! read more