Leong’s Legend Continues

In the near decade that I’ve lived in New York, I’ve always felt a sense of bewilderment at the lack of good Taiwanese food options in Manhattan. You really have to trek to Queens to get a taste of the authentic stuff. One might say, ‘Well what about the pork chop house on Doyers?’ Nope, doesn’t cut it. ‘Baohaus?’ Nah, carry on. Nothing to see there.
So when I stumbled across Leong’s right in Leicester Sq and saw that they have o a jian (oyster omelette), I was super psyched. We sat down and ordered the oyster omelette, a beef dish and a noodle dish. We did not try the xiao long bao because Din Tai Fung has ruined all XLBs for me ages ago. The food came out in less than ten minutes and was piping hot and delicious. O a jian is a relatively simple dish but can be difficult to make without the correct proportion of ingredients. For me, a good omelette will have an abundance of fresh oysters scattered throughout and the innards should be chewy while the edges remain slightly crisp. Luckily this location of Leong’s gets the texture on point. Subsequently we have been to the other Leong’s location and are sorry to report that shop gets 2 – 3 stars only for inconsistency.
Overall a solid option if you’re craving Taiwanese food in central London.

It was a meal. Wasn’t wow’d nor were we disappointed. Was a simple meal. Wasn’t expecting much, and got exactly what we thought we’d get.
I guess while it was not a disappointment, I do think their Xiao Long Bao (steam pork little buns) were not as authentic as it claims, the ‘skin’ was way too thick and the fillings were quite average.
Same for the spicy wontons, it’s certainly not the traditional northern style. It was really just wontons in some spicy sour source. Yes I know that’s what the name (in English) says, but I assure you the Chinese menu next to it says a fair bit more and it’s definitely not delivering.
It’s not a bad meal, it’s just not authentic.
Would I go there again? Sure. Like out of my way for it? No, but won’t mind if people insist to go in. However for that price, ~£15 per person, I can really do with something a lot more decent that it given the choices around.
Not being critical, just do believe consumers deserve to get what they paid for, and not just a westernised version of something somewhat similar.
Again, I must stress, it wasn’t a bad meal, just wasn’t as authentic as I expected.

craving for asian food? can’t say leona’s legend hit the spot for me. maybe for you. you be the shot caller.
my husband and i were super duper excited to try xiao long bao in the UK. we kept hyping it up for our friends whom never had it before. they liked it as their first time but my husband and i were very disappointed. we totally apologized and recommended that they try din tai fung when they get back home.
ordered:
*xiao long bao– so with 2 orders of xiao long bao they gave us 1 dipping sauce. now if you are familiar with the dipping sauce that is usually provided for these juicy dumplings it’s tiny as heck. we asked for another one so at least our other friends can share and my husband and i can share. the waitress at first denied our request. talk about stingy!
*salt and pepper chicken– it was just plain okay. nothing special.
*spicy wontons-​the best thing i had at leong’s legend if you ask me. so if you do come here, i would recommend this dish.
*beef cubes-​once again not that great as it was a bit flavorless to me.
*coke-​no ice. asked for ice and was given very little ice. –_​–
service was not that great. we ordered a bunch of items and left still feeling hungry and unsatisfied. so what do you do when that happens? Unilocal another place to go eat at, is what! portions are small. prices are high. am i painting the picture any clearer? honestly, i’ll admit we or at least i am spoiled living in the states. fairer prices. bigger portions. more sauces. oh and ice! tons of it! would i recommend this place? unfortunately the answer is no.
tips:
*they have more than one location
*staff speaks limited english.
*be careful as they have many levels to their small restaurant and you’ll have to climb these tiny stairways.
*located in chinatown.
*serves alcohol.
*restroom is on the lower floor.
*menu does have some pictures to reference their signature dishes.
*no wifi

Come just for the Xio Long Bao!
Had a yummy meal here on Saturday evening. Having lived in San Francisco for a year I’ve had my fair share of dumplings, but these are some of my favourite!
The spicy pork is my favourite filling, as they are super flavourful and juicy whilst the skin is just the right thickness. The giant seafood dumpling is also very unique (they only make 200 a day) so be sure to see if they have any left.
We have also ordered a couple of other dishes here– the hand cut noodles with beef, and another coconut chicken dish. Neither were particularly memorable– I would recommend sticking to the dumplings!
We enjoyed a 350ml bottle of cold sake with our meal for £10, which was a bit of a bargain. our total bill came to around £30. Service was also very quick efficient. Highly recommend.

The idea to come here was sparked by a 20% off on weekdays sign that I saw on the window when I was walking through Chinatown one day. I had no idea there were two locations, but they appear to be related, perhaps just constrained by the limited Chinatown real estate, and my friend was more familiar with this location (both have 20% off though). We came on a Wednesday evening and had no problem walking in and getting a table on the 2^nd floor. The tables felt cramped and they are packed in pretty tight, but there were plenty of tables available.
We ordered their famous xiao long bao, as well as bamboo rice, spicy wontons, the now trendy pork buns, and a plate of water spinach. The xiao long bao are truly excellent, and I thought on par with the ones I’ve had in Shanghai. I was really looking forward to the bamboo rice, but it was just ok. The rice felt a bit overcooked. The spicy wontons were not my choice and didn’t do it for me, but that may just be personal preference. I’d also say the pork buns were all right, nothing special. I feel like these really have to be fully stuffed and have some spectacular meat to compete on the London scene. What can I say about the water spinach… it was a large plate and totally fine.
The food came out really quickly, and we were out of the restaurant in less than an hour. It could be an option for pre theatre dinner, if our experience is typical. We had to ask for our discount after they handed us the bill, and there were no itemised prices on the bill either, which made it a little confusing. However, it was printed, which is an improvement from some Asian restaurants, so you would think this is something they could fix. I don’t think I’ve had Taiwanese food anywhere else in London, so I don’t have anything to go by, but I could see myself coming back to try a few more of my favourite dishes.

Despite the indifferent service, I am going to give this 5 stars. The food is really that good :-) Stick to the basics: Xiulangbao (pork, shrimp/​crab meat), kung pao chicken, and egg fried rice. You’ll be going back a happy man then.

The place smells amazing and I like the cozy little floors (some would call it cramped, others would call it intimate, you be the judge), but the food is pretty mediocre.
Crab xiaolongbao were indistinguishable from the normal ones, so no sense going for the seafood boost unless you really want the tobiko topping that really make the soup dumplings resemble perky nipples. I can’t complain about the decent dumpling wrapper, but there just wasn’t much soup in these things.
The aubergine with garlic sauce was one of the more disappointing renditions of the dish I’ve ever seen. Barely a hint of garlic, and certainly low on flavor. In Chinese, the name of this dish is Fishily Fragrant Aubergine, so Leong’s is missing the fermented fish, the bits of ground pork, the heat from chilis. Teeny tiny portion size didn’t help with this dish.
The pork belly dish was well done, mainly since the cook stuck with what carries the flavor here: the slow-​cooked pork belly. Enough marbled fat for winter hibernation, and a big hillock of rice and just enough sauce to moisten. Probably my favorite dish of the night, though overall, still meh since pork belly is a hard thing to cook badly if you have time. We ordered two of these, and one didn’t show up until the end of the meal despite confirmation, but otherwise service was totally fine.
£15 per person, which included drinks, so not bad value.

The service was ok at best. Food wasn’t anything super stellar. The dumpling chef had gone home for the night. Offals were awful & expensive at £9. Bottle of plum wine was £17…in all, dinner was £71!

Crabby soup dumplings were tasty. But everything else we tried was meh. Except the noodles with pork, they were weird in a bad way, with an unpleasant sweetness and no spice.

My fav taiwanese restaurant out of taiwan! A huge variety of authentic taiwanese dishes, I guess the best restaurant in China Town.

We ordered our food using the sheet of paper they gave us with check boxes on it. But there were some items not on that so the guy taking our order wrote it down as well. Later a lady came out and told one of the people at our table that they have an 8 pound per person minimum because she ordered a single item under 8 pounds. we explained that we also had food, and since our other food items were over that and we were together it balances out. Of course due to us speaking English that didn’t seem to come through. They then brought the tea and the one persons meal but not the rest. after waiting a while we asked about the rest of the food and found out didn’t enter our order that was the check boxes on the paper. In the end we eventually received all our food, over multiple conversations, and three different times.
Slow service, messed up orders, got mad at us assuming we were only ordering one thing when we weren’t, didn’t apologize for the errors. But the food was decent enough once we got it, so two stars and won’t be stopping in again.

For some reason although these two locations of Leong’s are owned and operated by the same people, Leong’s Legend Continues served significantly lower quality food than the original.
The service isn’t great, and the food was a bit disappointing. We ordered a bottle of wine which took 15 minutes to arrive. Two guys came in after us, ordered after us, and were served practically all of their food before we even received our appetizer.
I came here for dinner and ordered the xiaolongbao after raving about them to my friend, but when they arrived, they were small, shriveled, and the skin was way too thick for soup dumplings. It seemed like they had been sitting out for a while on a counter somewhere before they were brought to our table. The stir fried green beans were fine, but the pork belly had WAAAYYY too much fatty tissue for the amount of meat on there. They also just weren’t that flavorful — tasted like they were marinated in sugar and soy sauce. Ick.
It was generally difficult throughout the meal to get the attention of the servers, despite the first-​floor seating area being barely bigger than my tiny flat…

No matter what language we used, we could not get tap water here. We first tried in Mandarin but the girl taking our order seemed confused and we were never served any water with our meal. Second time we ordered in English and the guy seemed to understand but again no water was served. Why? I have never had any problems getting tap water at any other restaurant in London, even the other Chinese restaurants in the area so it is really surprising. It’s just tap water, it can’t be that difficult.
Service was otherwise okay, not rude but not very helpful either. We ordered the braised pork belly & rice, pork noodles (don’t remember the exact name), and the xiao long bao. The food is the only good thing about this place, cooked perfectly, great flavour, good quality. I just wish the proportion of rice and noodles in our dishes for the price. We were starving when we sat down to eat and after finishing we were still hungry.
I might come back to try their oyster omelette as it’s my favourite Taiwanese food and I haven’t seen it offered in any other central London chinese restaurant. Overall a bit disappointed however not the worst dinner I’ve had.

Is this a speakeasy? Is it invite only? Is this someone’s house? No? Then why must I knock first to give you my money? I am puzzled. Service here was like everywhere else I experienced in Chinatown– not ‘typical Asian service.’ Nay, it was RUDE. The two girls opening have absolutely no knowledge of customer service (or maybe they do and just can’t give two shits). They didn’t direct us to a table, but rather pointed to the right-​side of the restaurant, and when I sat at a table she said, «NO» and pointed to a different table. When they weren’t busy barking at us or the two other patrons in the restaurant, they took turns playing on their phones while slurping noodles in the corner table of the dining area.
The first thing that came out was our ha gow (shrimp dumplings); unfortunately, the first thing I saw when I pried my precious dumpling from the paper was a strand of hair. I managed to get the attention of the one girl not on her iPhone who took the dumplings back into the kitchen, screamed in Chinese at some poor soul, and came back and actually apologized. I thought from there we’d receive more cordial service, but I was wrong. We got some sort of noddles with seafood that were incredibly salty– they sauteed the noodles and seafood with dark soy sauce, salt, and called it a day. The xiu mai was nothing to write home about. We got 8 pieces of heaven, pork soup dumplings, which I was deeply disappointed in. The soup was piping hot and burned my mouth as it should, but it was incredibly sour! Seriously, what did they do?! I didn’t have much hope for the ha gow, but those actually turned out to be quite good. By the end of the meal I was wishing we had gotten 4 orders of ha gow and forgone everything else. At the risk of receiving hairy dumplings and being yelled at once more, I won’t be back.

This place is decent with good Taiwanese cuisine. I had the Taiwanese braised pork rice, Taiwanese oyster egg fry, and Taiwanese spicy dumpling. All of them are quite tasty and authentic although I would probably order the Shanghai dumpling instead the next time instead of the spicy dumpling.
As for the service, I would only recommend slightly better service. They do not provide any drinks whatsoever, no tea or water, which is a bit strange at first until you ask. Also, if you come as single person, you will sit at the counter next to the door, which is a bit inconvenient and also cold. I would recommend the owner to scrap that seating area altogether or move customers at their request.

Seriously good food!
We were drawn in by the woman making fresh dumplings in the window and the various vegetarian options. The waitress was very helpful with pointing out meals that could be made without meat as well. My family ordered 3 sets of dumplings, which were delicious, and you don’t even need the sauce they provide to get a lot of flavor. We also got a spicy tofu dish, the vegetarian noodles (the only one in the section), and a vegetarian soup.
BE WARNED. The spicy dishes are HOT.
It was yummy, warm, and fresh tasting.

I reckon if I made a list of the perks of having a Chinese housemate, point number one would be introducing me to seriously tasty food at places like this.
No more than a dozen tables over 2 floors, it’s a simple set-​up with no-​fuss (and no-​smile) service — which you can live with as it’s the food you’re there for.
Braised pork belly was yum whilst our veggie pick of aubergine with garlic and chilli (in a sauce I can’t remember the name of) had an unexpected party on my tongue.
Highlight though was my first ever taste of xiao long bao, cute little soupy dumplings of minced pork and hot broth that my housemate showed me how to eat. It’s tricky — too early and you scald your mouth, too late and they tear, but get it just right and the warm liquid bursts out to fill your mouth in a uniquely sort of comforting way. Mmm. Just err remember to keep your mouth closed when you bite into it (as I quickly learned).
Have to give it 5 stars as it made me so happy; may you all leave this place feeling as warmed and content as we did! :)

Xiao Long Bao. Those three words instantly make my mouth water.
Strolling through Chinatown on the search for soup dumplings, my friends and I promptly waited for Leong’s Legend to open at 12PM for lunch. These babies are tasty and taste way better than the ones at Dumplings Legend. Although my #1 Xiao Long Bao experience goes to Din Tai Fung, the ones at Leong’s Legend serves as a viable substitute.
The restaurant is pretty tiny. But then again I think there was another room. It’s dark and you’re surrounded by weapons. Fake ones I hope. I can’t imagine eating here and having a guy at the next table pick up an axe and chop your head off. Think Mulan, and I think that sums up the atmosphere here.
So what can you expect? Legendary dumplings, hot and steaming. Nom nom nom nom nom.

One of the best meals I’ve had in London, and I’ve had plenty. Order the soup dumplings, kung pao chicken, and belly pork. Follow their recommendations and you won’t regret it.
Taiwanese and Chinese people value speed and efficiency of service, so that value shows here. The service staff are not chatty or warm, but they bring you your food quickly and address your requests promptly.

It feels like a little village hut when you walk in. The food selection is a real hit or miss and strangely enough I think it is slightly better for dinner than lunch. but perhaps it declined overall through time. The first time I had dinner here a few months ago, we grabbed something quick to eat and thought the pork belly was fantastic. The Xiao Long Bao is really good but dunno why I was slightly disappointed when I had it for lunch and it wasn’t as pipin’ hot as it should be. The rest of the food was just ok, we had the beef tendons and chili wontons. We had the mango pudding to finish — I really enjoyed it. Probably the most out of everything else. The service is a bit patchy during lunch — especially when you have to resort to waving your arms around to get their attention for the bill.
I think the other Leong’s Legends locations are def better than this one. Just walk up the street!