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Description: "Incredibly welcome" in "the desert around Elephant & Castle", this surprising yearling offers "the best dim sum south of the river", and other "very fresh" and "distinctive" Chinese dishes, in a "spacious" setting.
Food: 
Service: 
Ambience:
Phone: 020 7277 3388
Website: http://www.dragoncastle.eu
Open: Open daily, noon-11pm (Friday and Saturday 11.30pm, Sunday 10.30pm). Dim sum served until 4.30pm.
Good for: Good food, Ambience.
Payment options:
No compromise: head chef Chris Kwan
Admittedly, I've never been to Beijing, but I imagine that parts of it probably resemble the unlovely stretch of Walworth Road near Elephant and Castle that houses this new Chinese banqueting hall - complete with red lanterns and bulbous chandeliers - in a cumbersome modern cement block painted blue.
An enormous, fortified door opens onto a lobby with a fountain and pool, where a mass of coins is evidence of many wishes made.
Do more than wish for 'the other menu'; insist on it.
'It is for the Chinese,' says our young, friendly Chinese waitress, who is probably more familiar with pizza than prawn-and-pork wonton, but it is all translated into English and features the interesting, authentic Cantonese cooking.
We started with clams in a Szechwan sauce with a silty texture but fiery flavour.
Thinly sliced pork hock served cold with a dipping sauce was excellent, with enough fat and sinew in the meat to make it interesting.
Minced pork served with salad leaves to fold around it - the moment of fame for iceberg lettuce - makes highly satisfactory parcels.
Two main courses I would go back for are Lamb Tibetan, with its unctuous dark and powerful sauce but cutlets that retain a heart of pinkness, and beancurd stuffed with prawns, which was expertly prepared.
But I would choose a different eel dish from the one involving a coating of deep-fried breadcrumbs, since the recipe cancels out the agreeable rich slitheriness of the creature.
A request for a green vegetable dish of sautéed pea-shoots was met with incomprehension but it was duly produced.
Egg-white rice with dried scallop is lovely - a very different kettle of fish from the usual egg-fried rice.
The dessert list is a card with pictures of manufactured novelty icecreams, but some fresh fruit - orange, grape, strawberry - was found when we asked for it.
Wine glasses are topped up with a regularity that is irritating but not as irritating as the piped music that seems to owe a debt to Andrew Lloyd Webber.
Dim-sum, served daily until teatime, would almost certainly be worth the detour. In the evening, remember to request the other menu to keep the interest of obviously expert chefs who have yet to make compromises.
Details are correct at the time of publication - please check with venue before booking.
