New to Shoreditch this very modern Dalian restaurant is serving up some seriously tasty food from a marvellously varied menu
Dalian is a province in Northern China, Blossom Street is a street in Shoreditch. Perhaps it was inevitable they would come together. Fairly fast, very flavoured and pretty hip this kind of food is what hipsters like to eat
And some of us boomers like it too.
Off a side street that has been pretty much knocked down and then rebuilt, Xi Home is far from traditional inside with a sparkling and bright modern interior and a big neon lobster on the ceiling. It’s only been open a short while, so when we went in we could still detect the aroma of freshly sawn MDF under the luscious cooking smells from the semi-open kitchen.
The menu is brash, modern and in your face, laid out like a newspaper. And it’s big, we turned the pages back and forth totally out of our depth but liking the look of everything we saw.
Well not everything, some of the more traditional dishes feature parts of animals I’d rather not think about, let alone eat. Sliced Beef & Ox Organs in Chilli Sauce, or Spicy Beef tendons, for example, might make even Jeremy Clarkson nervous.
Instagrammers will inevitably go straight for the giant pork soup dumpling; you suck the soup out of the dumpling with a candy cane coloured straw, but we spread our net a bit wider by kicking off with Dan Dan Noodles.
You can find all kinds of versions of this, but they all stick close to the mother recipe which is basically noodles tossed in a spicy sesame sauce with minced pork, pickled mustard greens and peanuts. Here the noodles were thin rice noodles, usually thicker ones are used. You mix it all up and dive in.
It was delicious, hot with chilli oil and numbing with Szechuan peppers. A real flavour explosion. I think that I prefer fatter noodles, though..
Poached chicken is very popular in Singapore and always served cold. Here it is steamed and then chilled fast, chopped in thick slices and served with a spicy dressing of soy sauce, Chinkiang vinegar and Sichuan pepper. Again it’s really good, apart from the odd bits of bone. Still, that’s authentic I suppose..
Everything now starts coming at once. Wasabi prawn balls, big juicy prawns deep fried in a kind of batter and slathered with Wasabi mayonnaise are great. I’ve heard that the secret of great wasabi mayonnaise is the addition of condensed milk. Who knows?
We then do dumplings, from an enormous choice we pick Pork and peeled chilli pepper. I didn’t know anyone that has ever peeled chillies, it sounds an awful faff, but apparently this is because green chilli skin can be a bit indigestible and also peeling it makes its flavour more pronounced. They can be bought ready-peeled in Chinese shops, if you want to try.
Great dumplings, taut skinned with their filling and generous in number. Dipped in vinegar they go down a treat. There are over fourteen dumplings on the menu including vegetarian and vegan ones.
Now pretty much full, we still can’t resist a Pork Chinese Burger. Crispy warm flatbread is folded over a filling of slow-braised pork that’s spicy and moist. A very popular Northern Chinese street food snack apparently, and I can see why. Someone should sell these on the street here, they would be a sensation.
Fantastic food in a very modern space in a great part of town and with a menu that has an almost bewildering amount of choice, Chinese is ‘coming home’ at ChiHome.
Opening Times:
Monday to Sunday 8:30am – 10pm
Blossom Street, London, E1 6PL