Yipin China, and Chinese Food in Islington

For a long time, if anyone had asked me to recommend where to go in Islington for good Chinese food, I would have said "sure, no problem, go to a tube station, get on the Picadilly line, and go to Chinatown or Queensway". And while I do my best with this blog to big-up worthy local Islington businesses, sometimes you just have to say that's not something we do that well around here.

Whilst I admired Youngs on Upper Street for it's staying power, that was roughly the extent of my admiration. Although I must admit to enjoying my meal on the few occasions I ate there, that was a reflection of my own low standards (i.e. I inevitably enjoy more or less any Chinese meal however cheesy or low-quality, and enjoy a greasy inauthentic takeaway as much as the next man) rather than anything of interest on offer there. Youngs has now finally gone the way of all restaurants, to be replaced by a branch of another long-standing stalwart of Upper Street mediocrity, Le Mercury. (I feel no guilt writing this since the place seems to be permanently packed regardless of anyone's opinion, so they don't need any help from me.)

There is the underrated and under-promoted Ye’s on St Paul’s Road, which does deserve at least a mention in a survey of Chinese food around these parts. The owners of Ye’s are from Dong Bei in North Eastern China, which from what I can make out is part of Guangzhou (correct me if this is wrong). They have that most maddening of things, a Chinese menu, which is given to Chinese customers but not Western-looking customers unless they specifically ask for it. The English menu is full of the standard Cantonese/British takeaway stuff with pineapples in it and whatnot. The Chinese menu has Dong Bei dishes and Szechuan dishes. So if you know what you are doing and probe the owners you can have stuff like whelks & cucumber, tofu skin salad, twice-cooked pork, morning glory with fermented tofu, and so on, but they don’t make it easy for you. There are often groups of young Chinese eating those steamboat things, but the place is not nearly as full as it could be. Foodies walk by on the street outside, on their way to Trullo a couple of doors down. If this place was promoted as what it really is, rather than what they seem to think people want, it would surely be packed out.

Anyway. The Hunanese restaurant Yipin China has turned up on Liverpool Road and is not nearly so shy about promoting its specialities. It really is a good restaurant, with an interesting menu unashamedly announcing and illustrating the duck’s tongue and pig’s intestine dishes in English and with pictures, alongside more standard offerings involving pork (Chairman Mao’s red-braised pork), chicken, fish and so on. I really like the slightly bizarre touches as well, like the TV screen facing the street advertising the dishes on offer.

Peanuts and pickled radish are brought as soon as you sit down. I may have said this before but I love places that give you something to eat right away, while you read the menu, to reduce risk of starvation. The menu has Hunanese, Szechuan, and Cantonese sections, and it is mainly the Hunanese selections which distinguish it from other menus. Cold dishes such as smacked cucumbers, ‘man and wife’ offal slices and spiced snails make a nice start to a meal for me. Cold meats always seem healthier somehow, even if they are swimming in chilli oil. Everything I have eaten here has been nice, and interesting – pork spare ribs on glutionous rice, preserved sea bass in liquor, which has a very concentrated fishy taste. I also like the Chinese approach to vegetable dishes, which is to put pork in them. Sometimes they seem more like pork dishes with vegetable additions. The best dish I have eaten here is dry-wok tofu, which naturally includes pork and is served in one of those things with a flame which keeps it hot, possibly to mask a certain fatty quality. Absolutely delicious.

Yipin China is by far the best Chinese restaurant in Islington that I know of, and the authentic Hunanese menu gives it a distinctive quality that would, finally, make me point people away from the tube station and down the street. May it stay as long as Young’s.

 

 

 

Yipin China
70-72 Liverpool Road
London N1 OQD
http://www.yipinchina.co.uk