Review: Perfectly parcelled morsels at Soho's Ping Pong Dim Sum

I'm an all or nothing person and when I eat out, it's very much an all situation. Very rarely does salad get a look in (except in Battersea's The Lost Angel where I just can't make them the way they do there) and why choose between starter or dessert when you can have both?

This all or nothing mentality extends to my opinion on sweet and sour. Why not just all sweet or all sour? Half-hearted flavours are frustrating, as if they never quite get either right and so combine the two. It's with this in mind, that I hesitantly open the black double doors of Soho's Ping Pong Dim Sum.

Great Malborough Street used to be described as a place where the buildings were "neither way great or extraordinary". Those 1700's west London critics should see it now. Stepping inside the black walls of Ping Pong is a cross between going into a high end New York oriental restaurant and some sort of alternative theatre. It's slick and contemporary.

Semi-circled bars are filled with high stools where pairs of people sip intriguing coloured cocktails and take bites from parcels of food. We are shown to our place at one of the bars by a walkie-talkied member of staff, who earnestly glances around the floor to check it's all under control. This restaurant is not for the faint hearted. It means business.

A Salted Beetroot and Cherry Manhattan and a Spiced Sidecar later and we're admiring the cavernous interior. Both cocktails are strong and unexpectedly delicious, given that mine had chilli syrup in. Maybe that's the purpose of the side of caramel, lemon & poppy seeds popcorn.

We move to our table and are talked through the dishes, which our waiter says is all about sharing, "think of it like tapas." We order four dishes each by ticking circles on the menu (took a while to work out if we had mistakenly defaced the menu or done what we're supposed to do).

Each come as and when they are ready from the food bar nearest to us, the smell of frying garlic beating the waiter back to our table. First come the three baked mushroom puffs, perfect cylinders of light pastry filled with oyster and shitake shrooms, carrots, mange toute and cashew nut.

Then came the tofu, mushroom and black bean rice pot. Fresh broccoli topped the dish, with spirals of steam coming from the bowl. There's always a danger that jasmine rice can be bland without enough flavours, but they didn't disappoint.

A few dishes and many pourings of chilli flaked oil later, including duck spring rolls (tasty, I was told), the dumplings arrive in true Ping Pong style on our already cluttered table.

Four stacked wicker basket containers opened to reveal neatly parcelled dumplings, spicy vegetable, seafood and chicken and cashew nut. It is a neat freak's heaven, with each dish being precisely identical in presentation. This is the self-conscious London eater's home, where low-caloried squares of food is bite-sized but filling.

If you have strong feelings on odd textures where food is concerned, the translucent pastry of the dumplings might not be for you. Almost jelly-like, they're softer than the pastry options, but the fillings for both are flavoured differently and worth a try, especially with the spicy mango sauce.

Two chocolate fondants later (gluten free because this is 21st century London, darling) and we roll out of Ping Pong with a newly acquired taste for alternative Chinese food, wondering if the often frequented noodle bars on our high streets will quite cut it now we've had tasted a healthier, flavoursome substitute.

Ping Pong Dim Sum

Spiced sidecar £8.55

Salted beetroot and cherry Manhattan £8.95

Duck spring roll £4.55

Spinach and mushroom dumplings £3.65

Baked Four mushroom puff £4.25

Tofu, mushroom and black bean rice pot £5.45

Seafood dumpling £3.95

Four mushroom bun £3.35

Spicy vegetable dumpling £3.45

Chicken and cashew nut dumpling £3.85

Chocolate fondant £4.45 x 2