Waiter Goran Lilucevski at the Yellow River |
Start the Chinese New Year in style
THIS Sunday sees the end of the Chinese New Year
celebrations – 4,704 in the Chinese calendar — the
Year of the Dog for those of you who were born in 1934, 1946
1958, 1970, 1982, 1994 and 2006.
The Yellow River Café is named after a yellow river
in China and this is shown in their logo in bright yellow
on a red background. Red is considered a happy colour which
symbolises a sunny and bright future. So I had that in my
mind when I drove up and down Upper Street and wondered why
I could not find it – the corner building is actually
black with yellow lettering!
The restaurant is spacious with the bar and exhibition kitchen
on the left-hand side and glass walls overlooking the street.
Two booths with large red lanterns complete the elongated
room – this area is reserved for non-smokers.
We were greeted by Sam, Tim and Yusa with a complimentary
glass of Lindauer Montana, sparkling wine from New Zealand
in celebration of the New Year.
Ken Hom is chef consultant to Yellow River. A leading authority
on Chinese food and author of Simple Thai Cookery, Ken explains
that there are special meanings to the different courses in
a Chinese New Year banquet as certain colours and foods are
associated with prosperity such as sesame prawn toast and
spare ribs. Duck is for fidelity, chicken for fortune, fish
for togetherness, noodles served uncut, for longevity, rice
for abundance and dessert for luck. This way you can plan
your future by choosing those dishes considered to bring prosperity,
health and fortune. As white foods are thought to be unlucky
at Chinese New Year time no bean curd or tofu are offered
on this occasion.
The hot and sour Tom Yum soup was very spicy and delicious
with succulent prawns, lemongrass, lime leaves and chilli.
The Wonton soup was one of the best we have had and so was
the Cantonese sweet corn and chicken soup (£3.95).
You can make a whole meal afterwards just by ordering their
superb starters: The Vietnamese prawn cakes (£5.95)
were wrapped around a delicious sugar cane skewer and served
accompanied by a sweet chilli sauce. The five spice and chilli
chicken wings (£4.75) were very good and served with
a BBQ sauce. The crispy aromatic duck (£ 9.95 a quarter)
was perfectly cooked and served with delicious thin pancakes.
Yellow River seem to specialise in prawns which were juicy
and tasty. We enjoyed the udon thin rice round noodles with
prawns and a light soy sauce (£6.95) and the monk’s
delight (£3.95) a good selection of broccoli, spring
greens, shitake mushrooms, chopped garlic, ginger and soy
sauce.
You must not miss the lotus pancake (£4.25). Delicate
in taste it is sprinkled with maple syrup and served with
vanilla ice cream.
The fresh lemongrass and ginger tea (£1.90) accompanied
the food very well. The presentation of the dishes was attractive
with emphasis on green coriander leaves and slices of red
chillies as the main decoration.
Several menus are on offer as well as the oriental (£12.95)
and children’s (£5.00) bento boxes containing a
choice of one starter, two main dishes, rice or wok-fried
noodles and prawn crackers, as well as an extensive takeaway
menu.
Gong Xi Fat Choy! – wishing you the best of fortunes!
Yellow River Café
206 Upper Street Islington , N1
1RQ
020 7354 8833
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