Yum Cha Silks & Spice

I’m sad. Yum Cha has been closed for renovations for at least the last 6 weeks, if not longer. And the sign on the door gives no indication of when it will reopen. So, sadly… this place is currently not open for business.
HURRY UP PLEASE! I need a fix of beef ho fun!
Weird though is that the website is still up and running with no information about the current closure.

Monday funday with 50% off delicious dim sum. We covered our table and it was all great.

A few years ago, I absolutely loved this place. It was cheap and the food was good; what more can a student ask for? Now I think I have become a little more discerning and while the food is still cheap, I recognise that it isn’t necessarily the most authentic or delicate. It feels likely that most of the dim sum come from packets rather than being freshly whipped up. And I doubt they are the healthiest. But — hey — fried or steamed little parcels of food are tasty. I like the salt and pepper squid, the pork buns and the crystal scallop and prawn dumplings in particular, and although I very very rarely eat veg, I think the garlic broccoli is worth a mention.
And I’ve only ever eaten off the dim sum menu because it’s 50% off Monday-​Wednesday. That’s ridiculously good value considering most are only around £4 — £6 to begin with. Tonight my boyfriend and I ate for £20 — that’s for both of us, and includes green tea AND service charge, and 7 dim sum dishes.
I’ve always found service to be very quick, so you can quite easily order less and then up-​order later if you’re still hungry as often an issue at these sorts of establishments is being far too greedy and ending up with mountains of food.
The water glasses are petite though and obviously it’s quite salty food so it’s hard to stay hydrated!
Atmosphere-wise…on the plus side, it’s almost always full so seems buzzy, but it’s not particularly stunning or interesting inside. I took a date here once. God knows what she thought I was playing at.

Maybe it’s because I’m spoiled living in the bay area but this experience was less than awesome. For starters, I’m used to bad wait staff at dimsum places but this was the worst. We arrived without a booking but there was a table available right away. Sitting down, our server didn’t give us menus. 20 minutes later, we finally got someone to notice us and got them. 30 mins in, we didn’t get any water either and we ended up waving at everyone who passed by so we could order. We got our order in, finally: salt and pepper spare ribs, duck noodle soup, pig ears, seaweed, bbq pork buns and bean curd with vegetables. We also got pineapple juice and passion fruit mango juice for the kids. The juices were ok but we still didn’t get any water…
In any case, we finally flagged someone to give us water and we got two tiny cups. Really?
Our seaweed and pig ears came out and the seaweed wasn’t seaweed. We got woodear mushrooms. Asking the waiter about it, he insisted it was seaweed. Showing him a mushroom, he still insisted it was seaweed. Incompetence at its finest. Intead of prolonging the agony by explaining that mushrooms do not grow in the sea, we just ate it. It was edible but since these special shrooms grew in the ocean, they weren’t very good. The pig ears were mediocre.
The spare ribs came out next and the first bite was pink and bloody. I should note that the table next to us had a plate of half eaten half cooked chicken wings. The ribs were nicely crisped and they had pretty good flavor. It was salty and sweet, something I wasn’t expecting. It was either sugar or a nice heavy dose of msg. I honestly couldn’t tell.
The soup came out next and we were actually worried. If they messed up duck noodle soup, all hope for a decent dinner would be lost. Thankfully, it was standard fare but the duck was actually quite good.
The pork buns came out next and the kids liked it but I didn’t at all. I thought the filling tasted weird and not very authentic at all. Honestly, the frozen stuff from the grocery would have been an improvement.
The bean curd and vegetables never showed up and they didn’t tell us they were out of it until we asked for it. At this point I’ve lost count of the number of fails they had so I just kind of gave up on them. We ended up with this cold bean curd noodle dish with cucumbers. I took a bite and didn’t want a second. The noodles had this really strange flour dust like texture. Not good.
1. Poor service, no menu
2. Mediocre food
3. Staff cant tell the difference between seaweed and mushrooms
4. Not telling us our dish was out
5. No water after asking 3 waiters
6. No refill on water after asking 2
7. Raw pork ribs
I knew I should have eaten at the train station…

Geez, ordered delivery to my hotel. Gave them my room number at least 5 times on the phone call. Charged it to my credit card, so they had my full name. These guys bring the food and leave it with the concierge, with only my first name on it. Concierge, granted, did not make a big effort to figure it out. So, the food sat there almost 2 hours before I called back to find out when they were delivering it. Needless to say, it was not so good when cold.
Update: I tried again a few weeks later. This time, the food arrived timely and was pretty good. Not sure I would go out of my way for this place though.

The service was brisk and friendly.
But Even with 50% discount dim sum menu we felt the meal was overpriced.
Fairly standard fare.
Crispy seaweed was especially expensive.
Left a bad taste for us. Disappointed. Will avoid in future.

A restaurant in its own right that has karaōke as an option is usually always more favourable than dining at a primarily karaōke establishment and here is no exception. Both the food and the drink is on the whole a better-​than-​average quality. There is an intriguing variety of dim sum to choose from as well as a good range of main dishes. The non-​alcoholic cocktails such as the Exotic Fruit Punch are also well concocted and refreshing.
The karaōke system has a very many old classics plus a good collection of languages, genres and controls of audio to choose from. There are conveniently 2 screens for a comfortably sized room and the toilet is uncharacteristically clean for a karaōke place. The waiter is also ready on hand outside the room to offer service when required.
In essence, Yum Cha Silks and Spice provides an all-​round pleasant karaōke dining experience, good for an enjoyable Chinese meal and does the trick if you fancy a good-​old belting-​out of song, and perhaps even a little jive.

I held a work event in one of Yum Cha’s private karaōke rooms at the back of the venue. We had around 12 guests and ordered a large variety of food to share (which tasted great), as well as a steady flow of drinks.
Service was pretty good, although the waiter’s English wasn’t great, which did lead to a little bit of confusion. However he really tried and was helpful in letting us know how much we should order.
It would have been helpful if they’d given us a briefing on how to use the karaōke machine beforehand as it wasn’t very intuitive (and the song selection could have been better). We did work it out though and had a lot of fun — particularly after a few drinks.
There is definitely room for improvement at Yum Cha, but I would go back — and it was nice to try out a different area of London other than the very centre.

Go here for Sunday brunch dim sum. Delicious dumplings and very reasonable prices.
All the dumplings are good, try the more interesting items such as the parsnip cake and the mini egg tarts for a sweet finish.

I’m giving this place 5 stars because it always exceeds expectations. I’ve come here for 50% dim sum (every mon-​wed) and it’s always quick, cheap and delicious.
It’s not going to be like Royal China or the top dim sum places but it definitely is comparable to some of the better Chinatown places. I actually found the service to be quite friendly and efficient.
The dim sum had a wide selection with many traditional items such as har gow, siu mai, turnip cakes, even a small section at the bottom with chicken feet, pig ears and jelly fish (can’t bring myself to try those). The BBQ pork buns are delicious with the bun soft and pillowy. All the dumplings were very good. I also really enjoyed he bean curd and pork.
All in all if you are near the camden area on a Monday — Wednesday, definitely stop by! But be careful cause it does get packed!

Service is still with a sneer.
Food is still predictable, tasty and cheap Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays.
They don’t have hot mustard which I like but I’ll live.
Of course I’ll be back– It’s in the neighborhood and consistent.

We made reservations for lunch on a Saturday at 12. We were the first customers to the restaurant. We were looking for good, but cheap dim sum and we certainly found it. We tried a few dumplings, with the chive dumplings being the highlight. We also had some of the custard filled buns. The pork and prawn shumai were quite nice as well. I ordered a cheung fun with pork thinking it was a bun, but it was still tasty! The wait staff was nice enough and the jasmine tea was quite good. I literally burned the top of my mouth off, but that was my own fault. I would certainly visit again. It was well worth it. £20 for 6 dishes and tea. Not bad at all!

A short walk in Camden has brought us here, as we didn’t feel like having a burger and one friend is vegetarian.
This place is very nice with a romantic ambient and staff is very nice and helpful
The menu was a big long and complicated but the waitress helped me to find exactly what I like in it with a lot of patience…
Seems like the food is served in no particular order — whatever is ready arrives to your table, which I find really nice.
I wasn’t really hungry so I’ve ordered one portion of chipped lamb dim sum — there were 5 pieces of it and it came in a bowl with some yummy sauce.
As a side dish I had some rice which I had to season up a little but still was well prepared.
My friend had some seafood dumplings and she said it was all amazing.
The number of units per dish varies, but if you’re very hungry you should order more than one dish for sure, mix and match! Seems like everything is pretty awesome.
Besides this, you also have bigger portions too!
Yum yum!

Reasonably priced dimsum, only when you have them after 5pm on Mon-​Wed, as you will get all dishes in the dimsum menu to COST HALF AS MUCH! I mean the dimsums are kind of ok-​ish, not amazingly delicious or so but with the half price offer, you’ll find them very satisfying.

A great place for dim sum for lunch or dinner. But the also do yummy laksa, pad thai and many main dishes if you want more than just dim sum. Good tasty food that is resonable priced. I get many thumbs up from friends when I take them here. Not many people would think that can have dim sum in Camden Town which is just as good or even better than London China Town. The only disappointment to my visit a few days ago was they no longer served Siu Long Bao (Shanghai dumpling). I thought they were once the best place in London for them. No matter there are still many choicea stil left of menu :)

50% off after 5:30 Mon– Wed.
This is pretty much all YCSS has going for it. I wasn’t overly impressed with the dim sum at all and much prefered my usual haunt of Royal China.
It was 50% cheaper than my normal bill at Royal China. It also tasted 50% less good. The siao lung bau were bit small and the skin a bit thick; shanghai dumplings were pretty mediocre and fried noodles not crunchy enough (but the topping was decent).
Service was spotty and food quite MSG-​y overall.

This place gets packed on the weeknights where it’s 50% off. To be totally honest, 50% off brings it into the realm of just slightly below Chinatown prices.
We had a booking for 5 people but unfortunately one of our party couldn’t make it. We were nicely relocated which I didn’t mind at all. When ordering it’s very much rush with little fuss. You can ask regarding help on what to order and you’ll generally be told whether what you’ve ordered is enough. Note that dim sum plates were a generous 3 – 4 pieces per plate. But sizes varies wildly between dishes.
Of course the dim sum here is all pre-​prepared (read: frozen) but that’s with most places that need quick service and consistent quality. For the location and food, I really couldn’t complain. But it’s not stellar in any particular area.
Noise level is quite loud.
I’ll probably stop by again if I’m in the area, e.g. after or before drinks, but wouldn’t make a special trip here. They supposedly have Karaōke rooms too? I didn’t see them, but hopefully they are soundproofed from the restaurant :)

Yum Cha Silks & Spice has become my go-​to place for birthday parties and other gatherings. Always on a Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday evening of course– that’s when the 50% dim sum is!
It’s not the most amazing dim sum, but for the price, it fits the bill. It’s good and fast. Everyone has the chance to try new and different things without being committed to one dish. I think my favourite is the spicy vegetable dumplings. For my large groups it’s about £20pp INCLUDING drinks and the service charge. Win.
Of course the dim sum menu is different on other days with a much larger selection, but hey-​ho.
Protip: If you have a large group (10+), they may try to get you to book the karaōke room (£300 min spend). Go ahead and turn the offer down (esp if you’re going on a 50% off night), as they will most likely put you in it anyway! There are a couple, I have one had the large wooden bench room, which is a lot of fun. Beware of dancing and singing in front of the door window though, you may have an audience of staff!

50% off dim sum on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday evenings. That’s pretty great if you’re looking for some dim sum in them tum-​tums of yours after sundown, son.
What is that? A pun? Alliteration? I’m such a poet.
Anyway, the food was average. Edible, but not incredible.
They take card and they let you split the bill however you want. For a Chinese restaurant, that’s pretty great. So, no hate.
After eating here, one of my friends had an epiphany. He was like, «Here’s a business idea: what if there was a Chinese restaurant that DELIVERED?!» And of course, two seconds later, he looked at the take-​away menu and it says they deliver. That made him quiver.

If you are in the area and crave dim sum, drop in but it’s not worth making a special trip. Har gow were ok but very watery for some reason. Steamed Chinese greens with oyster sauce was made with greens that were not that fresh. Bean curd rolls were bland and too saucy. Presentation wasn’t great either.
It’s not horrible but it’s not great dim sum either.
The service was attentive though which is a plus for a Chinese restaurant. It would have been nice to have non-​disposable chopsticks.