Find your Friendly Inn

People who live in London, or people who frequent the centre of town, tend to have a 'go to' Chinese restaurant in China Town. This may not be true for everyone, I realise, but certainly the people that I know, especially families, have one place they like to visit again and again when they want a Chinese here. It is a familiar story; the day out is coming to a close, the family/couple/individual is tired and hungry. Being near to China town, it dawns on them that a Chinese would be a good idea (for some reason, this is always delivered as some sort of new brain wave, like it's the first time this has happened). 

Now, probably the most familiar element to this scenario is the 'let's try somewhere different' line. You've been to China town many times, you've eaten here many times and yet, as is clear when walking down Gerrard Street, there are a great many restaurants you have probably never even looked at before, let alone sampled. So, why not try one. After all, most of the menus and prices are fairly similar, and it would do no harm to see if the sweet and sour pork in Wan Chai Corner is as good as the one in the Canton. But this is other territory - another family is a regular at the Canton, and Wan Chai is yours. It's almost blasphemous to try another, let alone compare it to your own. 

So, our regular is called Friendly Inn. It used to be an Italian I believe, the remnants of which can be seen on the staircase wall, and on the signs to be toilets (in Italian).  The food here is good, and reasonably priced. If you are lucky the owner will be sitting on a round table by the door, greeting you then getting back to her newspapers. We have always been able to get a table (even as a large family, as they have more seating upstairs). 

However, whilst I would encourage you to try the Friendly Inn, what I would more encourage is to find a regular. Yes, it is good to try new places, but there is something very comforting about the familiarity of your regular, of pushing through the dazed tourists trying to decide which Chinese to go into. Ordering the same thing every time might take it a bit far though. You can be the judge of that.