London,

Cha Cha Moon

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Cuisine: Chinese
A meal for two with wine about £28 excluding service

15-21 Ganton Street, W1F 9BN

Nearest Tube: Oxford Circus or Piccadilly Circus

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Description: , W1 (). Open daily noon-11pm ().

Phone: 020 7297 9800

Open: 11.30pm Fri & Sat, 10pm Sun

 

 

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Value for money at Cha Cha Moon

Tasty choice: Ernesta Rickeviciute recommends the dumplings and prawn noodle soup

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Modern definition tends towards the euphemistic. 'Folically challenged' is kinder than saying that someone's bald. And those who might once have defined their lifestyle as penurious because they had to flog the family home can nowadays bask in the knowledge that they are simply 'downsizing'.

It's a bit like Chinese food - which doesn't seem to be called that any more. Everything is pan-Asian, a terribly vague definition that signifies nothing or nowhere in particular. Perhaps pan-Asian is a label that has been embraced in order to disassociate modern Chinese cooking from the version first introduced to English suburban life in the late Sixties. Fast food that filled you up for an hour and then you were hungry again. We all know about those lairy cerise sauces coating battered balls of pork, and greasy spring rolls.

Thankfully, the food at Cha Cha Moon is a world away from those early experiences. This newish West End restaurant is the latest offering from Alan Yau - the man who brought Wagamama to the high street and who made us realise that the word noodle didn't necessarily have to be prefixed by Pot. He's also the brains behind Hakkasan, one of my all-time favourite places.

Cha Cha Moon (which sounds like a song Bing Crosby might have sung) is situated round the back of Carnaby Street. (Remember Carnaby Street? No, me neither.) Outside are darkened windows and a blue neon-flash sign that makes the exterior look like a cross between a video rental store and a sex shop.

Inside, the first thing you see is a sleek steel kitchen with efficient-looking chefs handling huge choppers behind a Perspex screen. The highly visible cooking area is another modern trend. I always feel sorry for staff working in them: no one notices them after a while, but they must feel as if they're on display, like a never-ending reality show but hopefully without the evictions.

Long wooden tables are reminiscent of the school dining hall. Dark bricks line the walls and the ceiling is made of bamboo. I had taken a personal trainer for a little lifestyle advice since just the thought of the Olympics is enough to make me feel like a champion couch potato. I asked him if he recommended Chinese food for his clients. 'Depends on the food,' he replied evasively, as he scanned the menu with the fierce scrutiny of a dentist searching a sweeteater's mouth for cavities.

Dishes arrive accompanied by noodles and we decided to order a variety and share. Cod and bitter melon with glass vermicelli tasted good and looked pretty. Chilli prawn noodles had giant crustaceans reclining in a hot sauce and mini batons of cucumber. The spring rolls were unremarkable.

We had to have the sweetly named Cha Cha Mooli, whose main ingredient perplexed us. Was it fish or foul? Or maybe even tofu? We consulted the menu to discover we were eating meltingly soft turnip and dry shrimp, which was certainly not a combination of ingredients either of us had tried before. 'Interesting,' said the trainer - a man of few words, I decided - as he wielded his chopsticks with a dexterity that put my own skills to shame.

The service was excellent - charming and efficient. The place was packed (though we only had to wait a couple of minutes for a table), filled mainly with a young, lively and cosmopolitan crowd. This could be because the food is so good, but it could also have something to do with the prices. Did I mention that every dish on the menu is set at £3.50? With four dishes, copious amounts of water (for the trainer) and wine (for me), the bill came to a staggering £24. If frugality is the latest buzzword, then Mr Yau seems once more to have tapped into the zeitgeist.

Of course, there are always going to be drawbacks to this kind of dining. It's not a place for lingering or for gazing into someone's eyes. But if you're looking for delicious food which is superb value for money, then this is the place to come.

As we left, I asked whether there was anything my body would benefit from, and the trainer looked me up and down. 'Definition,' he said firmly.

Details are correct at the time of publication - please check with venue before booking.

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