Fan Tong, Kingsland Road, Dalston

Fan Tong describes itself as a "mostly Chinese" restaurant. It opened quietly on Kingsland Road in November. I was very intrigued, mostly because the last "mostly Chinese" meal I had was at the astounding Mission Chinese Food in San Francisco. It was one of the most exciting meals I've had - amazing cuts of good provenance meat, the bolshiest flavours you can imagine, fusions - in the Californian tradition - that just blew me away, like their glutinous rice cakes with thrice fried bacon, sichuan peppers and spring onions. Oh boy.

With stuff hotting up on the Hackney food scene, and some high-concept restaurants opening in Dalston recently, I had high hopes for Fan Tong - not to be all fancy and exclusive, but to push the boundaries a bit and bring some exciting food to the table.

Fan Tong was much more understated than I expected - it's a had a nice fit out, with a bit of the ol' weathered wood look, but nice benches and a neat little bar with stools, which, on the quiet Friday night that we are there, was more used by the waiting staff to perch between serving.

The menu comprises small plates, side dishes and a couple of noodle soup options. Between our group of six we managed to eat most of the menu. Pickled vegetables were fine, and cucumber dressed in sesame was a measly portion for £3.50. The sesame dressing tasted like tahini without much other seasoning, but there wasn't quite enough to go around in the already small portion.



The sichuan spiced pork with cheong fun was markedly better (and better value) - the pork was deeply flavoured, drizzled in lovely sichuan oils, and over nicely al dente cheong fun - a chewy, thick, boiled glutinous rice  the menu describes as like Chinese pasta. Topped with spring onion, coriander and fresh chilli, it was the explosion of fresh, spicy, cold, hot sloppy, hard flavours and textures that I love. We could have, and should have, ordered a couple more of these.



Also popular among the group were the salt and pepper fried green beans. I mean, who doesn't love battered vegetables, but the crispy coating was full of umami, the beans cooked just right, the dark vinegary, spicy dipping sauce. This dish was great, and a snip at £3.50.



Pork and prawn wontons were heavy on the ginger (a good thing), nicely chewy, and nicely dressed.



Bok choy came steamed, and dressed in oyster sauce. Like with the cucumber in sesame, we all felt like the dressings were a bit too 'off the shelf' - a missed opportunity to lift these dishes up to the next level.



Roast potatoes were a nice addition to the menu - done in classic British style, all crisp and shimmering from an oily roasting. They came artfully squirted with a chilli mayo, which we loved, but like the above dressings, felt could have been a bit more generously applied. We order a second nevertheless.



We ordered a couple of portions of their prawn buns, which were mini-sliders of nicely seasoned, juicy prawns in sweet little buns. We enjoyed the taste, but again thought the portion size was small for the price (£7). It became the theme of the meal - some dishes felt like great value, others poor value. It is an expensive business running a restaurant, especially in a prime bit of E8, where rents are high and business rates correspondingly so. But as seasoned eaters in this part of town, we found the pricing a bit off - sometimes in our favour, sometimes not. And that had a niggling effect throughout the meal.



Much more reasonable were the ramen bowls at £8.50 for the porky option. It was generously filled with strong-flavoured 'pulled' (can we just say slow cooked?!) pork and nicely braised belly. The greens were generous too, and though Fan Tong cheekily advertises these as packet noodles, they were perfect for the purpose. Having just eaten at Tonkotsu Mare Street, the broth didn't compare, but the soft boiled, seasoned eggs were a pretty fair match.



We ended the meal on a high with salted caramel (klaxon!) doughnuts, freshly fried, stuffed with the gorgeous sticky stuff and doused in it too. A big scoop of vanilla was a good antidote to the richness of all that caramel. With five little balls in each portion, this was another steal at £4.



Service was friendly and helpful, but the place wasn't quite buzzing. It had a feel of people just happening to be there, rather than people purposefully seeking it out or being established locals checking out their new neighbourhood restaurant. We saw passers-by examining the menu in the window, weighing up whether to come in or try somewhere else on the strip - some taking a seat, dwelling a sec, and then leaving again to try their luck elsewhere.

It struck me that when a road becomes a destination, restaurants pull in a number of different ways - they become over-the-top conceptual experiences, stalwarts that do their thing well and locals and incomers keep coming back, or the kind of place that soaks up the newbie passing trade when people don't know about or can't get a table at the former two types. As it stands, Fan Tong is clearly too good to be a generic tourist trap, but not quite consistently impressive to become a stalwart or a destination. It's still worth a visit if your order wisely, and I hope it finds its potential over the coming months.

K-MEX and Kimchinary, Hackney

I make my friends and colleagues wince sometimes when they ask about my weekend food plans. Twice recently the answer has been "I'm going to a K-Mex pop up in Hoxton". Rightfully, it raises some eyebrows, especially when I explain it's Korean-Mexican fusion food and it's all the rage on the LA street food scene.

Bear with me, though, because there are good reasons for KMEX being an altogether Good Thing, not just some flash in the pan fad designed to get the twitter mob cramming into pop-ups.

So it all started in Los Angeles, which has huge Mexican and Korean populations, each with their own delicious street food offerings. Cooking in California has a long tradition of fusing the influences of its diverse populations together with its amazing capacity to grow the freshest and tastiest vegetables known to humankind. It was only natural that some people were going to clock that kimchi goes great with cheese, that coriander, avocado, lime and chilli united the cuisines, and both bad long traditions of slow cooking cheap cuts of meat with all manner of delicious fragrant spices.

When I was in California I ate some of Dante Fried Chicken's Creole-Asian-American-Latino fusions, had korean fried chicken and waffles, Chinese food fused with modern European, Asian style chilli cheese fries, Indian burritos...all incredible, exciting and not just an excuse to grab a headline on the latest natty fusion.

Over in London, Kimchi Cult were at the vanguard frying up kimchi with burgers at Chatsworth Road Market, making their own bulgogi fries and fried chicken at pop ups. Kimchi Cult has moved up to Glasgow now and, rumour has it, is looking to open a restaurant.

I am most excited about Kimchinary, run by Hanna Soderlund, who has been representing at Kerb and Street Feast with her *unbelievably* delicious Korean-style burritos and tacos. Think fillings like slow-cooked, K-spice infused ox cheek, Korean pulled pork, kale and miso aubergine, served with kimchi fried rice, cheese, sour cream, Asian slaw, and crispy, sharp Korean pickles.



They are my absolute favourite street food lunch at the moment.

Hanna did a 7 week long residency at Catch on Kingsland Road recently, and I made it along to the final night to eat my way through the whole menu.

We shared dubboki - spicy, chewy, glutinous rice balls, and bulgogi nachos - think aromatic beef, with cheese, sour cream, and guacamole. Both utterly addictive.





The main draw, though, is Hanna's hand-pressed tacos, which work nicely in a sit-down setting - which are slightly harder for me to stuff in my bag as a cycle back to the office on my lunch than her burritos. There are all manner of exciting flavour combinations, such as cornflake fried chicken with sweet corn, Korean pulled pork with lightly pickled cabbage, ox cheek and tongue, and griddled squid and celariac.





The spread was incredible, with each taco a complex but perfectly balanced mix of flavours and textures. I brought a big pack of K-mex newbie friends with me, and all were blown away by every dish.

The pop up is now over, but you won't have to wait too long to try Kimchinary indoors. It seems Kimchinary is getting together with What the Dickens to open a proper indoors spot under the railway arches on Morning Lane in Homerton, which is happily less than 10 minutes walk from my flat. Follow their respective twitter streams for more news as it comes.

And it seems more Korean-Mexican fusion is brewing across London. I went last week to a popup dinner by Kome at Dead Dolls Club, and a variety of dishes got the K-Mex treatment. I particularly enjoyed seared tuna tostadas, where the gloriously fresh tuna meshed deliciously with tasty fermented vegetables, spicy sauces, fresh chilli and toasted sesame.



Also good were bulgogi fries - with aromatic beef, cheese, salsa, and lots of spring onion, which were hoovered up embarrassingly fast.



Even I have been trying my own hand at K-Mex, and now always have coriander, spring onions, sesame seeds, sriracha sauce and kimchi on hand to give a bit of a twist to certain dishes.

My message to you is this - don't be put off by the word 'fusion' or the fact that kimchi is fermented cabbage. Embrace this exciting food, and in particular, get down to Kimchinary, whether at Kerb, Street Feast, or whenever she opens her kitchen in Hackney with What the Dickens.