Happy Chinese New Year. This year, I went to Bang Bang Oriental Food Hall, which is located in Colindale in northwest London. This venue is the largest Asian food hall in London and has a large selection of different Asian cuisines with a seating capacity of 450 people. The food hall does get very busy with queues and needs to have more seating in my opinion as there isn't a lot of room compared to the number of vendors.
The food hall hosts many community events and Chinese New Year activities and events. There is a restaurant in the ground floor, and the upper floor contains a patisserie and many restaurants from different parts of Asia, and visitors can find street food and delicacies from different regions in China, Korea, Vietnam, Malaysia, Japan, Thailand, India, and other locations.
The building is a stunning reflective one, and it shares with a supermarket.
First, I tried a mango juice with some fresh mango, although the photograph was deceiving as I expected more mango slices. The cafe selling the drinks sold desserts too, and it was called citropia cafe.
I went to Hakka for my meal, and the portions are enough for at least two people. The stall sells home-made southern Chinese food, and I had the bang bang chicken extra spicy with noodles. (The spice I could not taste, but I never find Chinese cuisine to be spicy.) The noodles were good, but chicken cooked in Chinese cuisine I never find as tender; it's always chewy and boiled. (I don't consume meat besides chicken, so perhaps I should have gone for a vegetarian option.)
For dessert, I went to Harune Korean Kitchen. I had the bing soo, and this is a dessert made of condensed milk and frozen into shaved "ice cream" and topped with mango slices and sauce. I had the mango flavour, but there were other flavours as well.
Before I left, I went back to citropia cafe and had their fresh watermelon juice.
Next door is an Asian food supermarket, and I went and had a look, although it was packed due to visitors purchasing items for Chinese New Year.
This month starts the year of the snake, one of the twelve animals in the Chinese lunar year based on the story about the animals.
Leave a comment