Imperial China, London Chinatown - Take 2

I don't normally post about second goings to restaurants unless it was massively different in standard but in this case I'm posting about dinner rather than dim sum so I think it's worth a repost.

Imperial China is one of my favourite Chinatown joints because it serves decent dim sum, at affordable prices and they place care in their surroundings but never have I been to Imperial China for dinner, ok I lied I went there once for a wedding banquet but that's entirely different.

As a group of five we ordered spare ribs, grilled dumplings, salt and chilli squid, roast duck, Gai Lan in oyster sauce, Tung Choi in garlic sauce and being true to Asian cuisine five bowls of boiled rice. Actually we also ordered the Singapore fried Vermicelli but that got left off the order, though it was a blessing in disguise because we were full from the six plates.

What I loved about the meal was that everything was piping hot! If you've read my blog posts you'll know that I'm a devil for hotness when it's supposed to be hot. Then there were some downfalls. The spare ribs didn't impress, I've had better at takeaways who charge much less! However it was piping hot but it was only four bones! The squid had it's good and bad points. The squid itself was of a good texture but it was covered in a very thick batter, I think a lighter batter would have done it wonders. The duck did taste lovely, tender and juicy, though it was besotted with fat bits and rather measly for £13. The dumplings were ok, but not something I'd consider ordering for dinner. The highlights of the meal were probably the greens. Both were cooked just right, the gai lan was crunchy and flavoursome and the tung choi was also just right with a mild hint of garlic. The boiled rice was a great compliment also.

The bill came to exactly £80 for 5, which isn't bad I guess for dinner but we were expecting less than £15 per person. There were highlights and lowlights about the meal but I think it was generally adequate. The service was also very friendly because we did spend ages looking at the menu but they were still very pleasant to talk to. Would I go here for dinner again? It's a difficult one but because there is so much choice in Chinatown I'll probably only be returning here for dinner in quite a few years time.

Oh and an unrelated comment, I'll be going to Hong Kong and Australia soon so for the first time you'll see posts outside of England!