GC Kitchen

SAVE YOUR MONEY AND YOUR STOMACH!
Would not be surprised if I just ate rat meat and piss.
Go to Sainsbury’s and buy raw asparagus. You’re better off eating that! My friend next to me agrees, but he’s too poisoned from the food to write a review!

Great little Chinese restaurant. There takeaways are great with good size portions and always delivered on time.

Probably the worst dim sum I’ve ever had in London! All the dishes, especially the dumplings, felt like they were the cheap frozen ones you get in Chinese supermarkets in London.
The only decent dim sum dish that we had was the glutinuous rice wrapped in tea leaf pretty decent actually. But the prices here were exorbitant £4 for a basket of 4 dumplings? Should be closer to like £3 or £3.50!
I suspect that GC Kitchen could be OK for their standard run of the mill Chinese dishes, like fried noodles or fried rice. But sadly although its the only dim sum restaurant I know of in Balham, I won’t be going back ever again for it.

I went to GC Kitchen on a kgb deal and was really surprised by this place and immediately grew to like and recommend it. It is quite a trip for me to get there, but it has definitely made my not too long list of places worth going out of the way for, and here are the reasons why:
1. The Service was wonderful. They were friendly and came to check on us regularly to make sure everything was alright. It was quick, and they really went out of their way to be helpful. We didn’t want to drink alcohol, and upon asking if we could replace the two beer that came with the deal with some tea, they didn’t just ie us the tea but also told us to choose an additional entrée.
2. The food. I have gotten quite tired of all the asian fusion restaurants popping up around town, always serving the same selection of indistinguishable dishes. This was my first london restaurant that had a whole series of Salt& Chilly dishes. We had the Salt& Chilly baby squid and it was excellent. Crispy Squid rolled in salt and covered with a pile of frexh cut red and green chillies. Absolutely delicious. It wasn’t soaked in oil and tasted really fresh and exciting.
For the mains I was excited to see that there was a good joice of different sauces (the standard sweet and sour, but also hot bean sauce, curry sauce, satay sauce…). I had the Mango Sauce with Chicken and aboslutly loved it. The mango was nice and ripe, the chicken was tender, and there was a nice spicy touch to it.
3. The restaurant. The look of the place is nice and clean. The kitchen is open so you get to watch the preparation of your meal… no hiding there! I was sitting upstairs which I would definitly prefer to the downstairs area because ti gives you some daylight and a good look at the passer bye’s. not that you really need to kill much time, because service was fast!
All in all a very pleasant experience and indeed a place I will be going back to. Just four starts for now, because I have only been there once and want to see if they can keep up their good cooking.

It’s utilitarian Chinese with a few nice touches which make it worth recommending.
The décor: clean and new, with an open kitchen.
The staff: friendly and genuinely interested in sorting you out with a satisfying meal.
The food: good dim sum (the only dim sum in Balham I’d wager). Excellent lunch specials, with a filling dish and Chinese tea for 5.80.
They do free delivery.
I’m a fan.