I’m a huge fan of Asian cuisine – Korean, Japanese, Chinese, Vietnamese, and Thai food. In this post I share my favourite Asian spots to eat in London, most of them close to campus, which I recommend you to explore.
Korean: The Alley (Holborn) – Did you all know that The Alley sells Korean food? Although it’s a bubble tea place, they also sell tteokbokki and rosé tteokbokki in their snack options. Tteokbokki is a Korean-style rice cake dish with spicy sauce, and I like how they add Korean instant ramen into their dish. In Korea, we call this rabokki (ramen and tteokbokki), but somehow that is simply called tteokbokki here. It’s £5.40 if you dine in, and you can add the optional cheese for an extra 50p. I strongly recommend you to try it, as it tastes almost like the one you’d get in a typical local snack shop in Korea.
Japanese: Wagamama (Holborn) – Wagamama serves Asian food in general, but most of their dishes are Japanese. I enjoy their yasai yaki udon, a stir-fried noodle dish with vegetables. They also offer yaki soba (the same dish but with soba noodles; soba noodles are made from buckwheat flour) if you don’t like the floury taste of udon noodles. You don’t have to make a reservation to dine in, you can simply go in and get a table. (A little disclaimer: I’m recommending Wagamama as the best Japanese restaurant as opposed to the equally worthy Ippudo Ramen, as the latter serves a broth that is a bit too greasy and salty for me.)
Chinese: Happy Lamb Hot Pot (Holborn) – For those of you who love a hot pot, this is a good hot pot place. Maybe bring your friends with you, since hot pots are served in portions for more than one person. Although you have to reserve a table by calling in advance and although the restaurant is relatively expensive for a student wallet, I strongly recommend it for group dinners. You can enjoy a choice of broth, meat, seafood, vegetables, tofu, mushrooms, and sauce ingredients. A less expensive recommendation is to grab the ingredients from Tian Tian in the Asian market and make the hot pot yourself. My flatmates and I have done this. We have easily cooked the ingredients in our shared kitchen and enjoyed a flat dinner together.
Vietnamese: Hoa Sen (Drury Lane) – I guess a lot of you might already know Viet Eat as a go-to Vietnamese place since it’s so close to campus. I prefer Hoa Sen in Drury Lane over Viet Eat, although you’ll have to book a table beforehand. I like how Hoa Sen offers a diverse range of phos, including veggie pho and Hanoi pho. Another reason why I recommed Hoa Sen is that it’s more wheelchair accessible compared to Viet Eat (this is an important factor for me as a wheelchair user).
Thai: Monkey & Me (Marylebone) –You have to call and make a booking in advance. This is probably the only place that’s a bit far away from campus of the five restaurants I’ve recommended here – I had to take two buses to get there. The servers kindly lifted my wheelchair since there was a huge step at the entrance. I strongly recommend that you order Thai iced milk tea along with your main dish. I visited the restaurant with a friend, and we ordered pad thai (noodles with tarimand-based sauce) and pad see ew (soy sauce-based noodles). Both of them were fantastic!
Do you have any other suggestions for Asian food spots in London? Make sure to leave them in the comments below.
