Grace Dent reviews A. Wong

A week when two ES fashion stylists fought heroically to zip me into a long-length vintage Biba gown made me ponder my recent Grace and Flavour habits. It is common to spot me in Balthazar or The Delaunay consuming carbs in the manner of Kenyan marathon-running sensation Mary Jepkosgei Keitany pre-race. I can’t help thinking life is for living and if I get hit by a bus tomorrow, I’d quite like the coroner to find a receipt for a Delaunay banana split tucked in my bra.

The dress in question was designed for someone of Gwyneth Paltrow’s proportions; her of the cookery book filled with recipes for fresh air and bracken, her whose children have limited access to carbs. Gwyneth certainly could have slipped her boyish frame into that slender Biba gown. My tits, on the other hand, have their own micro-climate.

A good place to begin my period of abstemiousness was A. Wong in Victoria, a relatively new spot offering ‘a celebration of China’s kitchens and its regional idiosyncrasies in London’s Victoria SW1’. A. Wong promises to serve exemplary dim sum at lunchtime and classical dishes in the evening. Right now, if I’m doling out tips for dim sum, belly pork, Xiao long bao and suchlike, I chivvy in the way of the dark-panelled, shack-style Leong’s Legends on Macclesfield Street, W1. Some friends disagree with me on this, they still swear by Sundays at Royal China on Baker Street. My dim sum loyalty is still — post visit — up for the taking.

I arrived at A. Wong on a belligerently cold April day to find my guest sitting in the window of the glass-fronted restaurant beside an ever-draught-providing front door. ‘Can I take your coat?’ a waiter asked. ‘No, I’m freezing,’ I said. ‘I’ve asked to be moved somewhere warmer,’ my friend said. The waiter disappeared then. I didn’t see him for another 35 minutes, perhaps he was on the phone to Wickes discussing an investment in a self-closing door hinge. On his return, I made the error of ordering the eight-course tasting menu, which to the hungry, cold eye offered a selection of dim sum, soup, razor clams, white corn-fed chicken in gong bao sauce, rib eye in truffle and a variety of authentic sweet things. I wanted to chatter and be fed without thinking. Bring forth the plates.

After another 40 minutes a waiter appeared with baskets of dim sum. ‘We’re going to take you on a journey of 5,000 miles!’ he announced quite theatrically with a hand flourish. I girded myself, awaiting the possibility of kitchen staff appearing from the kitchen under some sort of dragon-shaped tarpaulin raising and lowering poles. Instead we were allotted six rather large flabby dim sum. ‘They taste like Marks & Spencer’s sausagemeat,’ I mumbled sadly. Two of the Xiao long bao were covered in a citrus foam. I do not have room in this column to fully vent my thoughts on foam. But, in brief, it’s 2013 and Morag from Cleethorpes is doing it on MasterChef Drongos edition and can you all stop it. A sharing dish of mixed green vegetables with dried shrimp and fermented tofu appeared. Tiny dried shrimp, each one displaying a ripe backbone of muck, in a smattering of broccoli and Chinese leaf. Pleasant but unremarkable. We’d been there two hours.

At this point, cold, hungry and still relentlessly polite, a dangerous thought entered my mind: ‘What would Giles Coren do?’ I thought. To my reckoning Giles would not sit freezing his arse off hoping to be slung a bit of gong bao chicken sometime near Christmas. ‘Can I have the menu?’ I asked. ‘I realise I’m waiting for set-menu plates but can I order a few quick classic dishes as we’ve been here for hours?’ ‘Your dinner is coming,’ the waiter said, ignoring the rebellion. Eventually two more plates appeared: the bland chicken in gong bao sauce with a side of powerfully spicy aubergine, then rib eye with Yunnan truffles and noodles featuring an unpleasant citrus kick. I asked for the bill, twice, and left. On the upside, if I ate there every evening I’d be in a size 0 Gucci bikini by August.

A. Wong, 70 Wilton Road, SW1V 1DE,