I don't normally leave reviews but I have to make an exception and it is a long awaited. If you're looking for authentic cantonese chinese food without having to pay an arm and a leg, seriously check this place out. This place is the reason I stopped going chinatown on sundays for my weekly dim sum fix, not to mention I live only 10mins away. The food here is seriously delicious. Why go to the so called michelin star places like Hakkasan or Yauatcha and pay silly prices when you can come here and eat food equally if not better for cheaper.
5**** for me. The only other place that comes even close to this place in terms of dim sum and cantonese food is the Royal China group of restaurants which include Golden Dragon, Royal Dragon, Royal China etc. But apart from that, if you're ever in south london and craving for chinese food.......give this place a shot, you won't be disappointed.
Entering this establishment is a journey in itself, passing through what seems to be the gates to a palace I immediately found myself staring into a delightful pond with beautiful koi fish. This already set the mood for me, after then being greeted by one of the waitress I was led to my table. The style and feel of the restaurant itself is something to behold its like travelling to china without any of the expenses that come with it. Being a connoisseur of traditional Chinese food I was shocked by the amount of choice, no matter what your in the mood for there was a dish to compliment that.
This particular visit I had dim sum, after selecting various dishes from dumplings to octopus, I started to enjoy some jasmine tea, and before I knew it my meals were on my table just asking to be consumed. Without fail every bite was orgasmic, you cannot find better Chinese food in London. Service was fantastic throughout my meal with friendly and approachable waiters and waitresses, to which seems their sole purpose is make your time in Dragon Castle the best possible experience.
Prices were extremely reasonable and I could only recommend this restaurant for Chinese food.
Top food, top service. The quality is beyond the way I can describe. Will definitely come back again with more friends!
Super yummy dim sum and very authentic too! If you're in London and craving for dim sum, this is the place to go.
Truly superb dim sum. Definitely recommend.
Late evening meal here tonight but no problem and the staff were welcoming & friendly. Food delicious.
Excellent dim sum and quite reasonably priced. A reason to visit Walworth, if you couldn't think of one.
Amazing food
We had the lemon chicken and beef in black bean sauce
Best quality meat I've had from a Chinese restaurant
Establishment is immaculately clean
Lovely food and friendly staff in a stunning setting!
The food was excellent and the service was first class
Amazing food, loved the dim sum, my favourite was the spinach and prawn dumplings also the char sui buns. I would highly recommend this restaurant as the staff are very friendly and helpful. I'm going to book for the evening soon can't wait to try my favourite chinese food beef in black bean sauce.
Brilliant food, pricey but you get a five star service so what do you expect! No negatives, i've bee going for years, whether it be a meal with a friend...my 19th birthday party or a family meal it's always the place to go if you want a good chinese.
Great spot for a family meal of dim sum and other goodies.
Try their sweet custard buns and the caramelised Szechuan prawns and cashew nuts, real comfort food and all at a very reasonable price.
Hint, it coming from Elephant and Castle tube, take the Northern line shopping centre exit, as it's just around the corner.
i adore the food at dragon castle its always so tasty! going for dim sum is one of my favorite things to do and i always make sure to go here for it. I haven't found any better even in china town!
One of my favourite dishes from Asian cuisine is dim sum. I always thought when I moved to London Chinatown will be probably a kind of paradise for me with dim sum at every corner. Unfortunately I was very disappointed. Most of the restaurants in Chinatown don't know what their dim sum are made of... I went to many places and they couldn't tell me what was in their dim sum as they are not homemade (they are probably all frozen from the supermarket next door).
Having an intolerance to some seafood ingredients, I have a very limited choice in those restaurants.
My favourite dim sum in France have always been pork and prawn xiu mai and prawn hakao.
Recently I heard about a Cantonese/Chinese restaurant that does dim sum in Elephant & Castle.
It was kind of a surprise to discover E&C have 'nice' restaurants. I decided to call the restaurant before booking. I spoke with the manager of the restaurant who was very helpful and told me that most of the dim sum won't be a problem with my seafood intolerance. For the first time in London I was very happy as I could order most of the dim sum from the menu. He also confirmed they were all handmade at the restaurant. I booked a table for two on Sunday.
When we arrived the place has a massive door which puts you straight in a Chinese atmosphere, behind the door there was a little pond with fish and then a massive room with some Chinese decoration.
As soon as we arrived the manager came to the table and advise on which dim sum I could order. Again he was very nice and helpful.
After we placed our order, my friend and I looked around us and were surprised there was such a diverse range of customers : couples, families, even people dining alone . Next to us there was a massive table of people : Chinese people, I thought it was a good sign, it also looked like they ordered the full menu on their tables. Everything looked very good.
My friend and I ordered pork, turnip and peanut dumplings, supreme xo scallop dumplings, honey barbecued pork bun, spinach and prawn dumplings, pork and prawn dumplings, pork fried dumplings and barbecued pork cheung fun.
Pork, turnip and peanut dumplings were not my favourite but there were nice. I didn't really like the crunchiness of the peanut inside. My friend really like these dim sum.
Supreme scallops dumplings were probably one of the most expensive dim sum we ordered, and I was a bit disappointed, there were not the best scallops dim sum I had in my life. The scallop was a bit soggy.
Honey barbecue pork bun were very nice, usually I always find them dry in Chinatown. These were perfect, a bit moist and the pork inside was well seasoned.
Spinach and prawn dumplings were a revelation. I never thought spinach could be good in dumplings. These dumplings were by far my favourite. I know next time I am going to Dragon Castle I will order probably two of them and I'm not sharing!
Classic prawn and pork xiu mai were nice. You could taste there were homemade and not frozen version from supermarket. I really enjoyed them.
I usually always go for steamed dumplings if I can as I always think they are probably more healthy. We made an exception on that day and ordered fried pork dumplings. No regret! They were good and not too greasy. After the spinach & prawn dumplings and the xiu mai, there were my favourite.
My friend and I never tried cheung fun before and we found the picture on the menu intriguing. We ordered one portion of barbecued pork cheung fun. Texture was very interesting. It was a bit complicated to eat as everything slide off the rice sheet but overall it was tasty. I would have maybe prefer a sour sauce than the soy sauce.
Overall I am very happy with my experience at Dragon Castle. Service was perfect from my phone call to the end of the meal. The team was nice and friendly, it was appreciated as in Chinatown most of the time they don't really care about customers and are a bit cold.
Dim sum were all good which is what matters the most for me, they were all fresh and homemade.
All dim sum were very cheap, around £3 each. Such a bargain, £25 lunch for two with drinks and service charge.
Since my last visit I recommend this place to many of my friends who are dim sum lover too and told them to order their spinach & prawn dumplings.
I have already planned my next visit. My only critic will be that they should make their dim sum menu available in the evening.
9/10.
There’s really only thing to do when the excesses of the festive season get to you – and that is to keep on eating! Take a break from all the turkey and pay a trip over to Elephant & Castle for some Dim Sum. It’s not the most glamorous of locales, but home to some good grub.
A fish pond greets you as you enter – copper pennies swimming with the fish, and we’re in a fairly standard large scale Chinese restaurant, white tablecloths & Chinese teapots at the ready.
There’s a hefty menu and we waste no time getting down to business. We kick off with Deep fried squid with Chilli & Garlic and if this is a sign of things to come, we are happy campers. The garlic/chilli topping is so good we’re still scooping it up long after the squid is gone. The garlic will ward off vampires later.
The roast duck is served cold, which I hadn’t expected but tasty, albeit a little bony. Previous reviewers have praised the Cheung Fun and the prawn version is fantastic – hefty prawns rolled into a light rice wrapper in a light soy sauce.
I’m not a fan of the Char Siu steamed buns but that’s about the only flaw in the ointment. The scallop dumplings & the bean curd rolls are good but my adulation is reserved for the Fried Turnip cake. I had a hard time persuading Husband to agree to this dish, and I’m not sure he was entirely convinced, but for me, it was the best of the lot.
It’s a starchy, soft, shredded turnip mass cooked together with chilli, garlic, spring onions and beansprouts and I’d go back again just for this dish alone.
Dragon Castle now features on my list of regular eating haunts – bring friends, that way you can sample even more (So speaks the voice of the gluttonous).
Dragon castle is one of my favourite Restaurants in london. I come here weekly and the food is amazing, especially the fresh Dim Sum. I normally come here with my boyfriend and the bill is usually around £50 with a bottle wine although you can for much cheaper there. I would recommend trying the dim sum on the week days as the weekends can get extremely busy. Try the sizzling Aubergine in teriyaki sauce and the Singapore fried noodles! My all time favourite dish is the seafood and tofu clay pot!
The Elephant and Castle is somewhere you go en route to somewhere else, unless you live there, in which case you are also trying to get to somewhere else.Dragon Castle occupies a ground-floor space in the kind of office block to which Stalin's planners would have been proud to put their name. There is a huge set of red ceremonial double doors, and behind that an ornamental gold-fish pond, containing the only wildlife in the borough. The dining room is vast, and understated by Chinese standards; an Asiatic tassel here, a little sparkle there. What was most striking was the mixed crowd: southeast London black families, white couples, and then tables full of London's Chinese . It may be a cliche, but Chinese people in a Chinese restaurant is usually a very good sign.Try their sweet and salty poularde clams, stir fried with chilli, For carbs we had some broad, silky ribbons of fried ho fun with Chinese chives and bean sprouts with that smoky, oily flavour which comes from the very hottest part of a wok.The fact remains that Dragon Castle is one of the best Cantonese restaurants I have tried in London in a very long time. And it's in the Elephant and Castle. Think of it as a genuine diamond in the rough...
This is one of my go to places for dim-sum.
I like the fact that there is a good variety of choices for dim-sum and most of them are delicious and fresh. I really love chicken feet, prawn dumplings and turnip paste from there. Chenfung is though not too nice here. The staffs are sometimes busy and in rush but the atmosphere is still better compared to those from China town.
The price is also very reasonable. I recommend it.
Great selection of Dim Sum for Sunday lunch and you can see they are home made vs Chinese restaurants in Soho.
The restaurant is so spacious, with many seats available which I think booking is not too necessary. When we came most dim sum is finished, but we still managed to order some. Service is friendly and quick. The guy has such an enthusiasm for his job.
Most of the dim sum items are good. We ordered the turbot fish, this is a new and weird experience: having pork on top of the fish and steamed, then poured with hot oil. This combination of pork and fish is not usually seen in Chinese fish dish, which is quite interesting to try. Yet I don’t think they managed to do that well. This dish costs around £50.
Overall good experience, will come back one day for dim sum.
I've always had a great experience at this restaurant. The last time I went was for lunch and the manager let us take in our little puppy. He sat us in the corner and checked with the guests on the next table if they were okay with the puppy. We appreciated it because we were starving. We had dim sum (which they serve daily for lunch) and a few vegetarian dishes. Everything was tasty, fast and professional service. I missed this place during lock down!
Food is very nice, fresh, fast service, it is on the expensive side, with VAT included.
Will definitely visit again.
Loved this restaurant! Lovely lovely food and nice service too. One thing I didn’t like was the strong smell of fish at the entrance as they have a pool with fishes in it. Other than that, everything else was tasty and super fresh!
Spacious restaurant with a good variety of mainly Cantonese cuisine. Well executed standard dim sum + a few innovative ones. Overall, great food, service and atmosphere and can’t wait to come back to try other dishes (+ a huge bonus for having a air con on 40C day 🤣☀️🥵)
I recommend the food and the place!
One star less only because I don't eat pork, and menu description didn't match with food that it came.
Thanks my friend who tried one of the dim sum before I did, said that is pork inside, where description said is not. 🥺
After complain they took the item away from the bill.
But generally I enjoyed and dim sum are really good and creative 👻
I'm delighted with the service. They made me feel very comfortable and the food and soup a 100. I was feeling a little sick and they recommended this restaurant to me, I'm coming on Saturday! Thank you
Visited for a birthday meal for a friend the food was delishious staff friendly though the service was slow it didn't matter and we enjoyed our meals
Very fresh ingredients and a lovely waitress who said it was her third day but was super helpful.
We had the dim sum basket and chilli prawns followed by pork belly and tofu, with jasmine rice and beers. Very nice.
I've been coming to Dragon Castle since it opened many years ago. I now go mainly for dim sum and absolutely love it! It's also a place where it feels very comfortable to pop in on your own for a treat - the service is always great.
I'm really pleased to see that they have succeeded in keeping afloat over Covid and I'm loving the new dim sum menu too.
Absolutely delicious - perfect level of seasoning in each dish, all freshly prepared. Comfortable dining room and excellent service. Best Chinese cuisine I have had in a long time - looking forward to going back soon.
Lovely place food was nice, service was slow they forgot to bring out my soup, all was forgotten when the yummy food arrived
Had the best dim sum here in London so far ! Prices were reasonable, food was delicious and hit the spot! Egg tarts and rice rolls were great, dumplings were silky and flavourful. Service was alright, but typical of Chinese restaurants - Straightforward, curt but efficient and no nonsense. Another good point is that this restaurant is huge and spacious, not cramped, with nice interior decor. Looking forward to my next visit
Ain’t been here for 5 years since the temp closure so thought I’d give it a try. Wow! The dim sum is really good. Looks like they hired a proper dim sum chef and not using frozen dim sum like before. Fresh and tasty. Larger than normal dishes. The stir fry is good too. Highly recommend. Staff are very efficient at their jobs.
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