Leong’s Legend: Dim Sum with a Taiwanese twist!

To my lovely readers, as some of you may have noticed. I did a Dim Sum Marathon Week last month which was inspired after reading this post by Mr. Noodles. Timing could not have been worse what with Xmas celebrations and parties but persevere I did. I ended the marathon week with my last post being in Shanghai which was commented that it wasn’t London-based. =)

To make up for that, this is an additional post where all that writing had me craving for dim sum and I decided to try out Leongs Legend during the holiday break. I have been to Leongs Legend many times but never for their dim sum, as I didn’t know they offer it.

Finding other dim sum cravers wasn’t too difficult and the party of three met up in Chinatown.

Amidst the regulars, there were some which I have not seen before and some that I recognised when I was in Taiwan.

小笼包XLB £5

The Xiao Long Bao from Leongs Legend is still one of the better ones that you can find in London.



北京菜肉水饺 Beijing Pork & Chive Dumpling £3.20

This was surprisingly good. Shaped into bite-sized portions, each mouthful was delicately flavoursome.

虎咬猪 Taiwan Mini Kebab with Pork £2.60

I was a tad disappointed with this, it was quite ordinary.

棺材板 Casket £4.80

This is bread that have been toasted and used to form the base with minced chicken and vegetable in a creamy sauce laden in the middle). The creamy minced chicken and vegetables are good but the toast was over-fried or toasted which made it oily.

豆腐皮蛋 Beancurd with “Thousand Years” Egg £3.80

宝岛牛肉饼Taiwanese Grilled Minced Beef Patty £2.80

This came up as a winner at the table. Pan fried to a crispy exterior, the dough was still thin and soft enough that when biting into it, the juices of the beef flows through.

紫菜虾糯米卷 Sticky Rice Roll with Prawn & Seaweed £2.60

Sticky rice with prawn and seaweed…some of my favourite ingredients, how could I not love this? For the fried lovers, you will not be disappointed with this. However, I think that if it was steamed, it would have been even better!

蜜汁叉烧酥 Baked Roast Pork Puffs £1.80

水晶虾饺 Prawn Dumpling £2.50

The roast pork puffs were good but the prawn dumplings were quite disappointing. Even just looking at it, you could tell and my eyes did not prove me wrong.

姜葱鱼片肠粉 Seabass Cheung Fun £2.80 炸两肠粉 Dough Stick Cheung Fun £2.20

Usually when it comes to Cheung Fun, the usual orders tend to be the Char Siew or dough stick or prawns. Imagine my surprise when I noticed that they offer a seabass version on the menu. This is the first time I have seen it and we had to order it. I have to say this gets the thumbs up from all of us. Slices of sea bass with ginger and soy sauce, it’s like eating steamed sea bass but this is wrapped in the rice noodle roll. Yum!

燕窝蛋挞 Bird Nest Egg Tart

The pastry was too dense but the egg filling itself was good and the teeny amount of bird nest in the middle gave the egg tarts a slightly different texture and 口感 (mouthfeel).

We had no problems with the service and our teapot was regularly refilled while we continued chatting away. The bill came up to around £15/head. Reasonable and based on the quality and additional varieties available, I can see myself coming back here for dim sum when in Chinatown.

4 Macclesfield St, City of Westminster, W1D 5

26-27 Lisle Street, Leicester Square WC2H 7