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The Review - THE GOOD LIFE - RESTAURANT REVIEW
 



Waiter Goran Lilucevski at the Yellow River

Start the Chinese New Year in style

THIS Sunday sees the end of the Chinese New Year celebrations – 4,704 in the Chinese calendar — the Year of the Dog for those of you who were born in 1934, 1946 1958, 1970, 1982, 1994 and 2006.
The Yellow River Café is named after a yellow river in China and this is shown in their logo in bright yellow on a red background. Red is considered a happy colour which symbolises a sunny and bright future. So I had that in my mind when I drove up and down Upper Street and wondered why I could not find it – the corner building is actually black with yellow lettering!
The restaurant is spacious with the bar and exhibition kitchen on the left-hand side and glass walls overlooking the street. Two booths with large red lanterns complete the elongated room – this area is reserved for non-smokers.
We were greeted by Sam, Tim and Yusa with a complimentary glass of Lindauer Montana, sparkling wine from New Zealand in celebration of the New Year.
Ken Hom is chef consultant to Yellow River. A leading authority on Chinese food and author of Simple Thai Cookery, Ken explains that there are special meanings to the different courses in a Chinese New Year banquet as certain colours and foods are associated with prosperity such as sesame prawn toast and spare ribs. Duck is for fidelity, chicken for fortune, fish for togetherness, noodles served uncut, for longevity, rice for abundance and dessert for luck. This way you can plan your future by choosing those dishes considered to bring prosperity, health and fortune. As white foods are thought to be unlucky at Chinese New Year time no bean curd or tofu are offered on this occasion.
The hot and sour Tom Yum soup was very spicy and delicious with succulent prawns, lemongrass, lime leaves and chilli. The Wonton soup was one of the best we have had and so was the Cantonese sweet corn and chicken soup (£3.95).
You can make a whole meal afterwards just by ordering their superb starters: The Vietnamese prawn cakes (£5.95) were wrapped around a delicious sugar cane skewer and served accompanied by a sweet chilli sauce. The five spice and chilli chicken wings (£4.75) were very good and served with a BBQ sauce. The crispy aromatic duck (£ 9.95 a quarter) was perfectly cooked and served with delicious thin pancakes.
Yellow River seem to specialise in prawns which were juicy and tasty. We enjoyed the udon thin rice round noodles with prawns and a light soy sauce (£6.95) and the monk’s delight (£3.95) a good selection of broccoli, spring greens, shitake mushrooms, chopped garlic, ginger and soy sauce.
You must not miss the lotus pancake (£4.25). Delicate in taste it is sprinkled with maple syrup and served with vanilla ice cream.
The fresh lemongrass and ginger tea (£1.90) accompanied the food very well. The presentation of the dishes was attractive with emphasis on green coriander leaves and slices of red chillies as the main decoration.
Several menus are on offer as well as the oriental (£12.95) and children’s (£5.00) bento boxes containing a choice of one starter, two main dishes, rice or wok-fried noodles and prawn crackers, as well as an extensive takeaway menu.
Gong Xi Fat Choy! – wishing you the best of fortunes!

Yellow River Café
206 Upper Street Islington , N1 1RQ
020 7354 8833

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