Most of the larger cities in the world have some high building that has a observation deck offering great views of the city. New York as ‘Top of the Rock’ and London has The Shard. This new tower is located walking distance from Tower Bridge and has multiple observation decks around the 70th floor. My problem with this observation deck is its price, which at approx. GBP 30 (EUR35/USD40) is on the expensive side.

The good thing that there are alternatives. Although somewhat lower in the tower, on the 33rd floor, you will find a few restaurants. One of them is Hutong Restaurant, which is a Northern Chinese restaurant operated by the Aqua Group. As you walk inn to the spacious restaurant, you will notice the Asian-inspired interior. From Chinese lanterns on some of the walls and tables to carved wooden room dividers to a (fake) bamboo fountain to wash your hands in the bathroom. Because of the way the restaurant is set-up, you will not immediately notice the size (it is huge). This layout does mean that most of the tables can enjoy the great views. The staff is friendly and waiting for you at the entrance to take your coat and bring you to your table. Tables are small to make most of the space and later we would find out that the plates only just fit on the table.

For lunch we chose the set lunch menu. This menu starts with a lamb broth with sea bass. The first dish was also my least favourite of the meal.If it weren’t for the fact that the waiter told us that it was lamb, I would not have noticed.  It was lacking flavour and could have used some more salt as well. The sea bass was in the soup in very small pieces, where I would have preferred larger chunks. Not the best start, but the view makes up for a lot.

Next were four dumplings; three see food dumplings and one vegetarian one. This restaurant is not in the same league as HKK, but then again, I don’t think they aspire to be. Considering this and the price of the lunch, these dumplings were better than any I have had before in the Netherlands: One after one absolutely delicious. The vegetarian one, mushroom and cabbage, was my least favourite (but even that one nice). The rose champagne shrimp one was the one that I could have eaten many more of, with the other two being simply good dim sums.

For main course the waiter brought us chicken with Szechuan pepper, fried rice, choy (cabbage) and baby cuttle fish. This is the course that I could not eat for a part. Unfortunately, a set menu really means set menu, even when guests have allergies. Here you notice that this is a little less personal and a little more ‘mass production’ following fixed procedures and recipes. Despite this, I have has some delicious chicken that was cooked well. Crispy chicken bits that were spicy, but not to the point that you burn your mouth and not taste anything for the rest of the day. Don’t be alarmed by the amount of chilli peppers you see, as it is really not as hot as you may think. Try it and you’ll like it.

Now we only had a mango pudding for dessert to go. With the view we did not really mind that this took a little bit of time to be served. Even tough I am not a big fan of mango, I did enjoy this. Could be because it had a very subtle mango flavour, but it definitely was there. Simply a nice dessert.

Where the observation deck in The Shard is quite a bit higher up in the building, the good thing is that for nearly the same price you can enjoy some food while having pretty similar views. What I liked about it is that it isn’t like the traditional Chinese food that you will get in the Chinese restaurants in Holland. The food is not Michelin star quality, but for GBP 35 (EUR 40/USD 45) excluding drinks you will have a nice meal with great views.  Would I go here again? Sure, they serve good food for a fair price. On the other hand, there are a couple of other restaurants here (some offer also afternoon tea) that might be worth trying but these are considerably more expensive…

Restaurant location: View on Google Maps
Restaurant website: http://www.hutong.co.uk