Reviews Jen Cafe

This place is one of the "must visit" places in chinatown. It offers amazing noodle soup bowl items and teas. Also, the fried fishes were good as well.

Easy and simple. Food is good, with a good but again simple menu of choice. Having previously lived in Beijing, i find thid place resembles most the atmosphere of a Beijing Hutong dinner. I generally go here for my chinese dumplings (know for being made in the window)

For a dumpling fan like me this place was a treat indeed. You eat yummy dumplings (both steamed and fried are delicious) and watch them being made on your side. Making dumplings is a skilled job. This is a small place, gets busy quickly. Their drinks are quite interesting as well. Ambiance - simple no frills. Service - just what's required, servers can be loud in passing orders. Nonetheless, good place to grab a quick bite and carry on for the rest of the day

Jen Cafe is a casual eatery of the no fuss kind of a place. The star attraction of this cafe has to be the handmade dumplings. These can be seen being made in the front of the shop and in the shop window. Two portions of the vegetarian dumplings were ordered. One portion was steamed and the other was fried. The fried dumplings were only fried on one side which made them not at all greasy. It gave a nice contrast to the texture. Both sets of dumplings were so tasty and even the outer pastry was good. The filling seemed to be a mix of mushrooms, vermicelli and other vegetables.

In the middle of Chinatown there is this green painted café, with BBQ meats, and roast duck hanging from the metal stands. in the Nothing much has change over the years, the same wooden 4-5 tables the curved bar area. In the shop window you see a lady rolling out dumpling pastries and making Beijing dumplings that can be cooked either fried or steamed or boiled.

...fried dumplings, boiled dumplings and vegetarian dumplings... spicy pork noodle...Slightly spicy, slightly beany and very nice minced pork on top of hand-made chewy noodles for £5 makes this a must-order each time we're at Jen Cafe.

Like many Chinatowns in cities all over the world, London's Chinatown is filled with restaurants, buffet shops, takeaways, tea houses, cake shops and other eateries. Even the provision shops in London's Chinatown is dedicated to food and stock very little

London’s original Chinatown was in Limehouse in the East End (thank you Wikipedia for that nugget!). In the early twentieth century London’s Chinese population congregated there, setting up businesses to provide for the Chinese sailors coming in and out of the Docklands. The current Chinatown off Shaftesbury Avenue was only established in the 1970s, until then the area had been just another down-at-the-heel part of Soho, although Gerrard Street was home to the first Ronnie Scotts Jazz Bar in the 1920s. It’s one of my favourite parts of London, and I love just wandering around, grabbing a plate of dumplings, or stocking up on noodles, Sriracha, packets of miso soup and Jasmine Tea from Loon Fung supermarket.London's Chinatown London's Chinatown London's Chinatown London's Chinatown London's Chinatown However, the 80 or so restaurants in Chinatown vary wildly in quality. For every authentic gem, there is one with a window displaying heated silver trays full of congealing day-glow orange, msg-laden ‘food’. After much experimentation during my first few years of living in London (most of it late at night / early in the morning with one too many cocktails in the stomach) I now go to the same handful of places: Tokyo Dinner for a cheap and cheerful Japanese meal, Cafe TPT for the standard Cantonese fare (the honey roasted pork and shrimp dumpling soup are particularly good), and Jen Cafe. I’ve also heard really good things about the dim sum at Leong’s Legends and will try soon. 

Of these, my most regular is Jen Cafe for Beijing dumplings and bubble tea. I love Beijing dumplings, little dough-wrapped parcels of pounded pork and cabbage either boiled, steamed or fried. The ones at Jen Cafe are made by a consistently grumpy lady who sits in their window for hours at a time (possibly why she is grumpy). I always have them pan-fried, liking the contrast in texture between the chewy outer skin and the soft filling, and dunk them into a sauce made from the containers of chilli oil, rice vinegar, soy sauce and sugar on each table. They’re some of the best I’ve had, although I have admittedly never been to Beijing, and at just £6 for eight fat ones, are also excellent value. I have them with a bubble tea, normally Hong Kong style: smooth, sweet tea made from condensed milk, poured over ice, and and littered with tapioca pearls.

Jen Cafe is unavoidably tatty around the edges, and the service is well, typically Chinese; don’t expect smiles or too much attention. Nor is it a place to hang around in: the bill is often placed down in front of you while you are still mid-chew. But it does make an excellent pit-stop if you are in the area, and the dumplings are reliably good. It’s cheap, tasty and satisfying, I’ll continue to be a regular on it’s threadbare stools.

As usual the dumplings were great I was hot so a glass of iced lemon tea was welcome. A very authentic restaurant with good food, busy as usual. I always enjoy a bite to eat when I'm in the area.

It's all about the dumplings. Fresh. Home made. Good value. Tasty. Best fried - though you need to specify that. Been snacking on dumplings at Jen's for decades. The dumplings have gotten a bit smaller over the years, but are still yummy. (And to be fair I have also gotten larger.) Every time I strayed into the menu I wished I had had dumplings. So. Dumplings. That's all you need to know.

A no thrills restaurant where you go there to eat and then leave swiftly. The portions are big and good value and it's a reminder of a typical hong kong cafe.