Service over substance

10 April 2012

Don't get mad, get even. That's how I imagine the shadowy figures behind the formerly unassailable Royal China Group deal with the unstoppable fabulousness of Alan Yau's Hakkasan and Yauatcha.

So here, in what used to be the group's short-lived mod-Japanese venture, Michiaki, is Royal China Club. See what they've done there? We're exclusive, see? Above the hoi polloi. No riff-raff or sweet'n'sour here, baby.

And yes: it looks like it could talk the talk. Generously spaced tables, a bubbling fish-tank full of everything from flat, shimmering turbot to weirdly alien geoducks, lots of glossy dark wood.

Management wouldn't let us in to take photographs - exclusivity, paranoia or sheer snottiness? So you'll have to take my word about the sculpture made of coins that's supposed to represent a peach for good luck but which actually looks like a giant arse.

But there's something missing. I had lost my usually punctual date. Turned out she was sitting in the bog-standard Royal China a block away. When I dragged her to the right restaurant she was massively disgruntled: 'This isn't nearly as much fun as the other one.'

Right enough - what the newcomer has acquired in chi-chi-ness, it has mislaid in character and buzz.

We settled in for an extended bout of over-serving. We couldn't pour a glass of tea (from a Yauatcha-esque list of exotica) or eat a mouthful without being assisted in one way or another. By the end of the meal we had been bombarded with so many hot, scented towels I could have performed open-heart surgery.

The forcefully charming lady in charge manoeuvred us into ordering her recommendations. So we watched our Scottish langoustines being fished kicking - and maybe screaming - from the tank.

Seconds later, they appeared in front of us, so undercooked they appeared to have been subjected to little other than a spell beneath a very hot tap. Parboiled langoustine is a challenging proposition and even the richly savoury soy and ginger dip couldn't stop us shuddering at the marshmallowy gloopiness of the wet, gelatinous flesh.

Next up: the Peking duck, a marvellous-looking creature with the gloss of brittle toffee. But the layer of thick, resilient fat under the lacquered skin made it a trial to eat, as did the flower-cut bulbs of spring onion and the freshly made, springy and elastic pancakes.

Naturally, we weren't allowed to assemble these ourselves. So we inelegantly gnawed our rapidly deconstructing rolls under the watchful eye of the staff, feeling like lumpen hicks.

The duck reappeared as a stir-fried course - which is correct - but not as a broth which would complete the traditional trio. It was ordinary. Cubes of pork belly combined the tooth-unfriendly qualities of crackling with deeply chewy layers of more fat.

These came with salad cream and a mix of sugar and salt; dead authentic, for sure, but it should have come with a government health warning.

We went back for dim sum. This was a marginally better meal from a genuinely intriguing menu: pillowy pan-fried buns stuffed with savoury lamb; sticks of venison satay; gnarly but lipsmacking little ribs in black bean sauce; crab roe siu mai (or shu mai); dried scallop and glutinous rice in lotus leaves; my favourite char sui pastries.

But quality was still wobbly: delicate lobster dumplings self-destructed on contact with the chopsticks; siu mai were tough, wrinkly and padded with frozen-tasting prawn; the rice was less glutinous than soggy, the venison tough.

This new venture may come across as a massive raspberry pointed meaningfully in the direction of the parvenus. But it's got a long way to go before the food matches the ethereal beauty of the Yau scallop shu mai.