London lunching around Piccadilly

Two of my favourite people now work around Piccadilly Circus, and I'm most jealous of their excellent lunch (and dinner) options. Potentially the best thing about that area is the amount of good, inexpensive Japanese options - Brewer Street is filled with little Japanese cafes, and there is also the Japan Centre on Piccadilly itself, which has been enlarged in the last year or so to incorporate a separate shopping area and a large restaurant.

Dave and I decided to opt for Ten Ten Tei on Brewer Street, where he usually goes for his una dons. It has a larger than normal menu compared to the other establishments along that road that I've been too: lots of bentos/sets under a tenner, and a good variety of ramen/dons/your usual katsus and teriyakis. I was happily recalling the excellent ramen I had at Ryo's in Sydney, which made me in the mood for some shoyu ramen:

The soup base was obviously out of a packet, and the noodles were unsatisfyingly soft, but the pork topping was nice, lots of fat as you can see! Dave opted for the oyako don (chicken and egg on rice), what I would consider as the ultimate Japanese comfort food.

Next lunch was with Sally, who reminded me that Cha Cha Moon, Alan Yau's most recent venture, was just round the corner in Ganton Street. It's had some quite awful reviews, but given that it's Mr Yau, and it's his attempt at replicating the Hong Kong style cafe, I had to go and try.

The first thing that struck me was that everything is still very very cheap - most dishes are £3.50, and they are all a good size (probably bigger than in Wagamamas who now charge you around the £10 mark). The second thing that struck me though, was how odd some of the fried noodle dishes looked - they seemed to be the most popular option amongst the diners around me, and lots were swimming in dark soy.

I had really wanted to try their chicken fen pei (雞粉皮), a cold noodle dish of chicken and peanut sauce, something you really can't find in London, but it was unavailable (I'm guessing it can't be the most popular dish). So we opted for a Singaporean char kway teow, crispy duck lao mein, and some prawn guotei:

Everything was a bit underwhelming - I'd happily eat it, but it all felt a little Chinese takeaway, and I'm also sorry to say, a little Wagamama-esque. I did like their choice of drinks though - Hong Kong style milk tea is available and very authentic, and you can get all the vitasoy you want here too!

Maybe I was missing the point a bit by getting fried noodles - will return next week to try their wonton soup I think - the next table also had a Taiwanese beef noodle soup that looked quite good.