Gourmet San in Tower Hamlets

It took the restaurant almost 2 hours to deliver the food. When I called them, they simply said to wait with no explanation or apologies. The driver called me before he even arrived saying I am at your main gate. Let alone the fact that he refused to deliver to my flat, he was also NOT at my main gate when I went down. I had to wait another 10mins before he finally arrived. Needless to say I won't order from them again.

It took the restaurant almost 2 hours to deliver the food. When I called them, they simply said to wait with no explanation or apologies. The driver called me before he even arrived saying I am at your main gate. Let alone the fact that he refused to deliver to my flat, he was also NOT at my main gate when I went down. I had to wait another 10mins before he finally arrived. Needless to say I won't order from them again.

It took the restaurant almost 2 hours to deliver the food. When I called them, they simply said to wait with no explanation or apologies. The driver called me before he even arrived saying I am at your main gate. Let alone the fact that he refused to deliver to my flat, he was also NOT at my main gate when I went down. I had to wait another 10mins before he finally arrived. Needless to say I won't order from them again.

It took the restaurant almost 2 hours to deliver the food. When I called them, they simply said to wait with no explanation or apologies. The driver called me before he even arrived saying I am at your main gate. Let alone the fact that he refused to deliver to my flat, he was also NOT at my main gate when I went down. I had to wait another 10mins before he finally arrived. Needless to say I won't order from them again.

I ordered Green Pepper Black Bean Sauce Beef, Peking Dumplings, Roast Pork Fried Rice, and Pork in Oyster Sauce. The main dishes and the rice were good. The dumplings just average. Overall, it was a pleasant dinne. I would probably order here again.

Sweet & Sour Chicken was weird, inedible. Never again

I ordered Green Pepper Black Bean Sauce Beef, Peking Dumplings, Roast Pork Fried Rice, and Pork in Oyster Sauce. The main dishes and the rice were good. The dumplings just average. Overall, it was a pleasant dinne. I would probably order here again.

Sweet & Sour Chicken was weird, inedible. Never again

Most of the food was cold. They didn't include one of the sauces. And it was half an hour late. Should have ordered pizza.

Most of the food was cold. They didn't include one of the sauces. And it was half an hour late. Should have ordered pizza.

I always like the food, but the delivery is too slow.

I always like the food, but the delivery is too slow.

Arrived late, cold and soggy. Food very poor quality, couldn't even eat it. Then couldn't get in contact to complain. AVOID AT ALL COSTS

Arrived late, cold and soggy. Food very poor quality, couldn't even eat it. Then couldn't get in contact to complain. AVOID AT ALL COSTS

Very average meal from Gourmet San, food was cold and had little flavour. Spring rolls were limp and had very minimal filling. Meal arrived over 40minutes late and when I rang they kept saying on their way, no apologies

Very average meal from Gourmet San, food was cold and had little flavour. Spring rolls were limp and had very minimal filling. Meal arrived over 40minutes late and when I rang they kept saying on their way, no apologies

We loved the food, very pleasantly surprised by the quality and how tasty it was. Can recommend the sweet and sour chicken. The delivery took a while to arrive but it was Saturday evening and we're not exactly around the corner.

It could of been a bit hotter.

Sweet and sour had no sauce in it. And the spring rolls cold.. And I only live just behind the restaurant. Disappointed unfortunatly. Beef and black bean was good though.

Sweet and sour had no sauce in it. And the spring rolls cold.. And I only live just behind the restaurant. Disappointed unfortunatly. Beef and black bean was good though.

Intestines had an awkward smell. And I had loads of different intestine dishes before. Beans are really good. Tripe was mediocre.

Intestines had an awkward smell. And I had loads of different intestine dishes before. Beans are really good. Tripe was mediocre.

It says the food was delivered, but I didnt recieved anything.

Nice food, great selection, good portion size, arrived relatively quickly and all warm through, but the order for muddled up and we didn't get our drink. Wouldn't mind if there wasn't a three quid delivery charge when most places don't charge and they still didn't get it right. And a high minimum order value. Wouldn't order a delivery again but would consider take away.

Fui allí para la cena ayer con un amigo, creo que este lugar ha sido rebautizado como mi viejo lugar.El menú le faltaba descripción así que me pareció difícil elegir un plato para comer. La señora que nos sirvió parecía un poco molesto cuando me estaba preguntando preguntas sobre el menú.No nos preguntó si queríamos bebidas lo que era extraño.Pedimos comida vegetariana rollos de primavera, chili langostinos, plato de carne, arroz frito con huevos, y fideos fritos con verduras. Las raciones eran enormes, así que me habría agradecido si nos informó acerca de esto. La comida era suficiente para 3 personas aquejadas por el hambre si no 4.La comida era deliciosa pero no fantástico, un poco en el lado grasienta. Nuestro pedido llegó rápidamente y no en un orden concreto que supongo que no me importó.En general, el restaurante le faltaba ambiente y el personal parecía un poco desinteresado. Probablemente no volveremos de nuevo, hay mejores restaurantes chinos.

I have eaten at the restaurant many times before and the food is usually very good. However my first delivery took 2 hours last night and it was stone cold once I had received, having to reheat in the microwave which wasn't great for the type of dish ordered.I would appreciate a call back or email to address the situation please.

这家是附近的中餐外卖里算很好吃的了。比较正宗的中餐，不像其他很多老外做的中餐，难吃的要命。就是贵了点，不过还是推荐！

I had a spicy but tasty kung pao pork intestines with peanut sauce. If you never tried intestine before, come here to try it!

Especially good tonight. Fast delivery, everything very fresh, delicious. Thanks! :-)

Duck Fried Rice missing. Late delivery. Sauce come out to the plastic bag everywhere that I have to clean it up before I can eat them

i asked for a receipt. you didn't provide it

Regretfully really terrible service the food was cold when it arrived. May'be my small order wasn't important enough.

Los más gente va con los platos más puedes pedir y por lo tanto más variedad.Algunos de los platos son un poco impredecible. Ser consciente de la pimienta Sezchuan! El plato de pepino es increíble y los moros y cordero grillada son tan sabroso.Sin lujos pero el servicio es siempre rápido. No hay calle alta y auténtica como tener restaurante chino en este país.

Too many onions, kind of took away from the meal .

I was extremely disappointed by the amount of time it took for this meal to arrive and eventually after phoning the restaurant to find out were the it was, five minutes later the delivery driver phoned me to say he couldn't find my address. Eventually the driver arrived and when I asked him why it had taken so long he informed me that I was the last person in a long line of deliverys. Taking the meal to my hunger guest we found the Hot & Sour Soup,Sauteed Chinese Broccoli with Chopped Garlic & Stir Fried Squid with Chilli Sauce were shone cold. If that the kind of service you offering I have absolutly NO intention off using you again. Mark Croxford

Best Chinese restaurant in London, not the usual starchy Cantonese style food (not that there's anything wrong with that) but great Szechuan style food.

Poor food quality, had to throw away 30 quid worth of food due to the way the food was looking and tasting. Worst restaurant i ever ordered from

Cada vez que voy a este lugar, me sorprende por su cocina auténtica, que sabe muy bien y te hace descubrir deliciosos platos del plato típico chino. Los precios son muy razonables. La decoración no es sorprendente y sencillo, pero usted quiere comer aquí, ¿verdad? Aunque no educados camareros. Es propiedad de la misma gente que dirige mi viejo lugar en Middlesex Street, que tiene exactamente el mismo nivel de calidad, pero el antiguo lugar tiene más espacio, por lo que es conveniente para grupos. Sin duda alta para degustar y bajos por el precio.

Aunque estoy de acuerdo con las críticas que describen este restaurante como básico en la decoración y el servicio, tuve una gran experiencia con la comida. Disfrutamos de los cordero grillada, platos de verduras y calamares picante. La comida era muy buena, mucho mejor que cualquier comida china normalmente encontrar en los Estados Unidos. Este restaurante solía ser gourmet San pero la señal dice ahora mi viejo lugar, aunque las tarjetas de negocios tienen ambos restaurantes y aún así llamadas esta uno gourmet San. Quizás bajo nueva dirección?

The food was delicious as always, but delivery time was over 2 hours.

They forgot my drink,but sayid they will bring it next time order:)))

We received our delivery after 2 hours waiting, while it says 40-60 min maximum. And plus we received the wrong food! Instead of an expensive beef meal we got potatoes&aubergine LOL !! We immediately contacted them (while eating!!) and after they realised they hang up and didn't pick up the phone few times later. At the end they offered us a refund of £4 (the beef meal was more than the double) as the difference between what I ordered and what I received! Thank you for letting me pay for something they I did'n want and actually I didn't like at all!! We finally got the meal money back after all the dinner was ruined!! Thank you for making my Sunday evening terrible.

Food is good but the delivery is service is not. delivery took 1 hour 45 min to arrive and driver won't come to the door so I have to wander around the street looking for the driver to collect my order. the food is often cold by the time we get it. shame really because the food is very good.

So glad to have this place on Just Eat. I have been eating at the actual restaurant for ca. 7 yrs and this is a God send.

Wow. Really delicious proper Chinese food. They don't normally deliver to my postcode but made an exception tonight. I'll have no problem driving to get food in the future. Really polite service and lots of food. Very highly recommended.

Not what I expected and wasn't as good as other Szechuan places in terms of taste

Excellent, spicy, fresh food with good balance of flavour.

Teníamos el almuerzo de domingo allí hoy, cinco de nosotros, en el momento de la llegada, estaba bastante nervioso ya que había leído los comentarios negativos. El restaurante no parece muy atractivo y había pocas otros comensales allí, así que mi ansiedad aumentó, pero cuando la comida llegamos me quedé muy aliviado. Fue muy bueno! La camarera era bastante amable y la comida era sirve muy rápidamente, generosas porciones, sabrosos platos, a un precio razonable. Todos estuvimos de acuerdo en que volveríamos de nuevo si en el este de Londres y buscando un restaurante chino decente.

Probablemente uno de los peores restaurantes chinos que he visitado. Soy un fan de la comida Szechuan, pero hay poco a recomendar la comida aquí. excesivamente grasiento, sobrecargado con cebollas, muy poco carne y cara. El servicio es desabrida demasiado.Fue clasificado altamente por Jay Rayner (que no les gusta particularmente) en 2008, pero debe de haber sido en Freefall desde entonces. No te molestes.

As usual, superb. Even better to eat in the restaurant!

Esto era tan decepcionante. Yo solía visitar este restaurante a menudo cuando vivía en Bethnal Green alrededor hace cuatro años y he estado recomendando incluso ya que me he trasladado. Mi novio y yo decidimos darnos un capricho para un domingo por la noche llevar. Pedimos que antes de las 8 pm y que aparezca después de las 10:00 pm.Después de recibir un correo electrónico a 'ajustar el tiempo de entrega" de entre 8 pm-9 pm a 9,20 pensamos que era molesto, pero bien. Las cosas pasan.Venga y 9,20, todavía no aparezca. Nos llamó justo después de la 'última hora de llegada' y nos dijeron que lo estaba en su camino. Cuando todavía no había mostrado hasta otros 10 minutos más tarde nos llamaran y me dijeron lo mismo. Otros 10 minutos y aún nada.En este punto, estamos hambrientos, frustrados y subrayó - sin que suene más dramático, que casi arruinó la relajante domingo noche habíamos planeado, y lo siento, pero por 40 libras, que se espera un poco más.Esta vez mi novio teléfonos, él dijo que está en su camino, pero les decimos no estamos dispuestos a pagar 40 libras para esperar cerca de una hora más de lo originalmente cotizado. Dice que llamarán volver. Ella no.Nos llamar 15 minutos más tarde y ella dice que va a golpear (nuestro pedido precio) de 10 libras de la ley pero en este momento no sólo tuvimos que perseguir ella otra vez, pero la comida es todavía no hay ningún sitio para ser visto. Finalmente ella accede a 25 libras y la comida llega dos horas después de que inicialmente habíamos pedido, un puñado de llamadas telefónicas y lo habéis adivinado, piedra fría.Intentamos comer y comenzó diciendo "No está mal ... " antes darse cuenta que estaban tratando de ser educado a otro en el riesgo de intentar salvar. Celebró el grasienta entero, mucho frío en la papelera. Es una pena.Nunca, nunca jamás volver aquí. Realmente, no tengo nada más que decir, pero estoy decepcionado. Me habría probablemente algo a mi dinero en fuego que estaría sentado aquí le sensación repugnante grasienta y la pura insatisfacción en tener que esperar más de dos horas por algo que deberíamos haber rechazaron en la puerta. En realidad me trastocó por comida china por un largo tiempo.Sí, está bien, así que ... Jay Rayner elogió este lugar hace ocho años, pero parece que han ido bien pasado el vender por fechas. Evita este lugar en todos los gastos. No malgastes tu dinero, su comida, su noche o su tiempo, por tener que escribir una crítica como esta.

En realidad, yo solía gourmet San pero después de esta experiencia nunca más. Después de que el pedido inicial estaba situado, 2 horas pasaba por allí con ninguna manera de saber dónde estaba nuestra comida. Después de numerosas tentativas de llamar dijeron que el conductor le 10-15 minutos al final sólo nos ofrecen 10% de descuento en la factura. Esto es después cambiar nuestro tiempo inicial de entrega dos veces, una hora de retraso, y la comida fría (sólo después que abrimos las cajas) trabajo en la industria del restaurante y sé que estas cosas, pero esto no fue resuelto correctamente. La comida estaba fría. Leer algunas de las críticas aquí, un patrón está comenzando a surgir. Necesitamos menos de esos espantosos restaurantes. No pidas aquí.

The quality of the food is not consistent, sometime the food arrived early but the food is not cook properly! If they are good, they are really good 5 stars quality. So I guess it really depends on your luck and who's the chef

The food was good and tasty and was delivered in good time. Shame they forgot the fried rice! Will still use again.

One of the items in my order was not right. After calling them up - they completely refused to acknowledge their mistake and told me that Just Eat sent them a different order - I can still see it through my order history! Definitely not ordering from here again.

If you want a bog standard Chinese takeaway Cantonese style, no not order from here. This is a brilliant lip smacking Shechuan place which means chilli, chilli, garlic and more chill. Granted the delivery is sometimes a bit hit and miss but when you taste the dry fried green beans, the cold beef tongue in chilli oil and the fabulous lamb cumin skewers, the wait will soon be forgotten.

Gourmet San used to be wonderful excellent food and service. When down hill with some poor staffing but food made it still worth visiting. Always used to be packed now an empty restaurant with silly idiots trying to make your experience the worst night of your week.My advice is find somewhere else this place has had its day!

Very basic canteen/cafe style decor. Probably best a to come if you're adventurous with meats. Very worrying when you could hear the microwave going constantly in the kitchen. (Visit - 04/10/2014 Lunch Service)

Finally! A decent takeaway! Good and authentic chinese food, polite delivery person, arrived in a reasonable amount of time (just over an hour) given we live quite far away from the restaurant. Only drawback is that it is quite pricey. After all the mediocre to bad takeaways we've had though, this place is brilliant!

Took over an hour to get to my door. Spring rolls were soggy and cold and there seemed to be no filling inside them. I've had meals from this take away before which were 1,000,000 times better. Very poor.

I had a very disappointing experience with delivery from Gourmet San. They said it would take an hour and 20 minutes. When it hadn´t shown after an hour and 40 I called the restaurant. They said they would find out what had happened and call me.They didn´t call, so i had to call them back 15 mins later, nearly 2 hours after making the order. They said the driver was ´round the corner´ but they would check and call me back.Surprise surprise they didn´t. I called back, waited on the line for several minutes at which point the restaurant hung up on me. The food finally arrived 1 hour and 40 minutes late, 3 hours after I initially placed the order. The restaurant is only a 5 minute drive away from my flat.I sent the driver away as I could feel the food was stone cold. Terrible service from staff who couldn´t have cared less.

Great authentic food, but the delivery 'service' is atrocious. Took just over two hours and was cold, so had to microwave it. They also put the phone down on me three times until I gave up and hung up. I won't ever order again, just go in where I can get the brusk service without all the waiting.

I ordered the Duck and it was.... well... "Fine" would be a compliment. I ordered at 9:45ish pm and it arrived at 12:15am!! That's 2.5 hours!!!!! The only real compliment I'd give is that their containers kept the food reasonably hot. But that would be complimenting the manufacturers and their ability to choose a good container. I wouldn't recommend it, choose somewhere else for your midnight munchies.

A wonderful lamb dish that is delicious served with beer! the food there is valued for money. we ordered the oil fried fresh beans (spicy and juicy)! but i didn't like the cold noodle, too soggy and too soft (not sure if they are overcooked).

the food quality is good but with a long long delivery time. And the attitude of drivers are not good.

Having lived in northern China for 5 years I know this cuisine. Their are 2 options; eat in or takeaway. I have eaten in the restaurant twice. It is uninviting, service is non-existent. The food is reasonable and quantities are good.Take-way dishes are surprisingly small considering what you get to eat in and at the same price.Chinese food is very quick to cook but I have waited 2 hours for delivery!!!! And when I was told it would be quick and a maximum of 1 hour I just see there is little care for take-away deliveries.I wish I could find a good non Cantonese restaurant and take-away that produces good food and delivers good service in East London

The food is really bad cooked, oily dishes, maybe the cook would need clases. The best dish was the plain rice. So we'll never come back again.

Arrived after about 90 mins. When we called they said they were very busy and would give us free drinks next time. We pointed out we'd much rather have been given an accurate delivery time when we ordered than an offer of drinks in the future when we were starving …

It was slow.... Took over an hour to be delivered and when we finally started eating, the food delivered was tasteless and not what we had ordered. Never again

SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO SLOW

Gourmet San used to be great...but it's now pretty poor. Maybe the chef or management has changed but we were really disappointed with our last visit...it's cheap, underachieved and kind of ordinary Chinese food - what a shame!

Took an hour and 10 minutes to arrive!

Terrible delivery time. Had to cancel after waiting 2hours

Delivery time is ridiculous. 1 hour 50 and had to call the restaurant three times only to be told the driver was on his way. Food arrived cold. I would strongly recommend using another restaurant.

Very good! I'll come back again

I've been to the resturant a lot. Very traditional Chinese taste!

6 items ordered, took over 1:35mins to get 1.3miles I'll try again in a few weeks but is not looking good

Shame that a potentially decent meal was completely over shadowed by a ridiculous delivery time. Over two hour after ordering there was no sight of the food, despite being promised on multiple occasions that it was just round the corner. Ruined my Friday night, and no doubt I will still be cheesed off into the week-end.

Food had hardly any taste, plus delivery took over a hour to arrive and when it finally did the delivery driver was very rude.

All decent food including an unbelievably good hunan sea spice beef, and arrived pretty quickly. Only downside was that it was a bit dear. I would heartily recommend without hesitation

If you're looking for some of the best Chinese food in London then this is it. If you're looking for good service in a clean and pleasant environment then go somewhere else. It is quick, cheap and dirty with service to match. You come here for the food only.

This place has been my favourite Chinese restaurant in London. I feel it used to be better, but it still well worth a visit. The portions are generous, the food is tasty and the prices are good. The barbecued lamb skewers are excellent. Good for delivery/ take away too!

I have had enough.. I have ordered from Gourmet San over 30 times and it's either brilliant or terrible.. If it was not for those lamb skewers I had would have given up years ago! Well that's it, enough… Another cold, vile, jellyfied dinner arrived.. Small & not crispy aromatic duck, fried into non existence burnt chilli beef, and hideous Malaysian style satay prawns.. And very wobbly chicken in black bean sauce, the egg fired rice was nice and the lamb skewers passable .. But all stone cold.. After...

I have had enough.. I have ordered from Gourmet San over 30 times and it's either brilliant or terrible.. If it was not for those lamb skewers I had would have given up years ago! Well that's it, enough… Another cold, vile, jellyfied dinner arrived.. Small & not crispy aromatic duck, fried into non existence burnt chilli beef, and hideous Malaysian style satay prawns.. And very wobbly chicken in black bean sauce, the egg fired rice was nice and the lamb skewers passable .. But all stone cold.. After...

This place does great, authentic Sichuan food. It's very tasty and well priced. But don't expect good service. It's slow, the waitresses seem to forget something everytime we visit and they're quite rude. But the BBQ lamb skewers make up for it alone!

I've been going here for years and it's my favourite Chinese in London. The menu has some really strange things on it like jellyfish and tripe which I've never tried or BBQ rabbit legs, sea hares, pig feet or frogs legs, all of which I have tried and are delicious. The sweet and sour ribs are great too as is the crab.The food is exciting and the place is populAr with the Chinese community so it must be good right? On the downside, the staff don't speak English that well which can make ordering on the phone tricky. I highly recommend gourmet San though

This tiny place is in the middle of Bethnal green road, hidden between chicken shops and cheap Bangladeshi curry houses. I walked in on my own Sunday 5pm there was a Chinese family on one table and a white couple on another. I asked for a table for one please and young waitress looked at me as thou I was Billy no mates. She sat me right by the door which I didn't mind at the time. The place looked clean (didn't use toilets) but the decor is very dated. The menu is quite different to what I'm used to as I tend to go Cantonese normally, so I asked for the waitress recommendation, we chose sizzling beef with pepper, Chinese broccoli with garlic and chilli, deep fried squid with salt and chilli and some steamed rice. The food started to arrive quite quickly suddenly a van pulled up outside with a delivery for the Resturant (fresh meats and boxes of grocery) and the doors started opening and closing. I asked if I could move to another table as it was very drafty by the door, they seemed cool with that and moved me a bit away from the door. The dishes were large portions, a bit greasy but they had good flavour. My bill came to £27 and it came written in Chinese. Would I go back? Maybe if I lived in the area but its not anywhere near good enough for me to trek in from Essex.

Steer clear of this dreadful place. We ordered a takeaway and after an hour and a half and a phone call we eventually received only part of our order - they 'didn't have BBQ' so decided not to deliver 2 dishes but didn't think to call and ask if we would like something else instead. What we did receive was a cold, salty and soggy excuse for 'crispy chicken' and cold greasy spring rolls that didn't actually appear to have much of a filling at all. All in all it was a terrible waste of money and shocking customer service. No apology was made for the food being late either. Avoid!!!!

Solid authentic Chinese food. I was taken here by some friends who live in London over the weekend. The dishes were all nicely prepared and tasted good. The one stand out for me were their BBQ Lamb skewers. Some of the best I've ever had. Perfectly cooked and nicely seasoned. Fairly spicy but the heat doesn't over power the flavour.

Really good food at affordable prices- nothing pretentious about the place, but it was packed with people enjoying the food and having a good time. We were a large group and had a fairly extensive selection, none of which disappointed. Would definitely go back.

I have eaten in and ordered take aways from here, and it has never disappointed. There are many dishes on the menu, some of which may not be to the western palate. However the staff are happy to make recommendations. The wild garlic shoots with pork and chili is very good.The interior is certainly not flashy, very much like a caff, but I have always found it to be clean and welcoming. Certainly some of the best chinese food I have eaten in London.

This is an appalling, dirty restaurant. Our food arrived in dribs and drabs - rice half an hour before one main course - which was cold. We decided to leave after waiting half an hour for any sign of second and third main course. paid for what we had eaten/drunk and left. What was most annoying was customers who arrived after we had ordered received their food and had finished before even one part of our meal arrived.

I ordered seafood noodles to get delivered and received duck. The vegetable spring rolls are extremely geasy.And after I complained it took them more than an hour to deliver the food although I live less than a mile away.

One of the few places in London where authentic Chinese food is available. For the quality of food, the prices are incredible and for the excitement of having some favourite Sirchuan dishes, unbeatable. Service was so so when i was therr, the atmosphere is very much like a restaurant in china, with a tv blaring on the wall and lots of noise from the patrons. This all of course adds to it! Do yourself a favour and go explore this place!

This place is always busy and for a very good reason! I love Sichuan food and this is the place to be! Despite the abundance of Sichuan pepper in EVERYTHING, nothing is overpowered by spice. However, I'm a spice fiend so this could be a step too far for many people! I would always start with the lamb skewers. They are to die for! Always order off the specials board There are some very interesting items on special and well worth trying! All in all, it's maximum taste and minimum bill. Wish I was still in the area!

Gourmet San has the ambience of a hole in the wall but it does absolutely fantastic food at reasonable prices. One of the best.

Walk along Bethnal Green Road, having turned right out of Shoreditch High Street station, and some little way after the Post Office, you'll come to San Gourmet. A nice play on the name of the considerably grander Trois Gourmet french restaurant along the street, the restaurant is actually named Lao Difang, or Old Place in Chinese. It's part of a very small chain and worth seeking out for tasty, pretty authentic renditions of classics as produced in downhome restaurants in China. If you think Chinese food is all about chow mein and prawn balls, think again and give your taste buds a wakeup call by coming to San Gourmet and be prepared for new tastes and textures. If you've been to China and have long given up hope of finding 'Boiling Water Fish' (an amazing dish for sharing, in which a whole fish cooked and brought to the table in a huge bowl of oil, brim full of jostling red chillies and fiery peppercorns) in the UK, prepare to be delighted. You'll find it here, along with other regional dishes. Whilst primarily Sichuanese, other cuisines slip in too. The cloud ear mushrooms are pretty good, simply prepared in a glistening black mound. The pig's ear is good and toothsome, and the jellyfish is worth trying if you long for a touch of textural crunch to your seafood, (even if it's not quite up there with that found in Hong Kong). The Ma Po Dou fu (Old Grandmother's pock marked beancurd) certainly satisfies cravings for moist, chillied mince with creamy tofu. How many places can you find Flower Exploded Kidneys in England? Everything's served up in a generous platterfuls, designed, as in China, for groups of friends and family splashing out on a meal together. Thinking of how much one would pay in China for such a meal, the prices seem incredible, but San Gourmet isn't in China. It's in the East End where sourcing ingredients to produce the zinging notes of sichuanese cooking takes some doing. The restaurant gets busy so book. At least you can. In China you'd be queuing out of the door and round the corner to get into such a popular spot. Service is fast and the decor is suitably basic for a restaurant that lures expat Chinese from across London with the promise of being an authentic, no fuss, no frills place with tasty food. Come early and the place will be buzzing with Mandarin as traditionally people like to eat early. Come later you'll have more chance of getting a table. Come in a group and order lots of dishes. Try to eat a whole dish yourself and you'll quickly be sated, but prices average out if you are in a crowd, letting you order a banquet-like spread to share and get the proper experience of balancing the mild with the spicy, the crisp with the smooth. Simple but slick.

For a great cheap eat with real szchuan taste. If you come after 6pm expect to queue up. A real popular eatry with the locals this place is worth visiting if you are in the neighbourhood. The lamb skewers are their speciality and the cold beef always sells our early.

It would be easy to concentrate on the surly service (which is a bit lacking in smiles) but you won't hear a word more about it from me. This was my best Chinese meal in my bit of town ever - 14 years. Salt and pepper squid (could have been crispier, huge portion) followed by spicy lamb chops cooked on the BBQ and served up with about 100 dried chillies (not too hot) with peanuts; delicious. We also had beef with black pepper, a sizzling plate of tastiness; not a floppy sauce in sight all night. Portions were too large so weover ordered but we took home another meal i've just eaten. Fab. Of course Gourmet San gave us the boxes to fill for our doggy-bags ourselves. Not quite 5 star service but great food. We left a big tip; I hopemthe chef got some. Lots of people with Chinese backgrounds eating there which was a good sign. I'll definitely going back. Yum.

Oh yes. A dive with excellent Sichuan, perfect for a group meal. The highlights were the cold cucumber salad, the braised fish with cumin, the sichuan lamb skewers, and the softshell crabs. The chicken neck stew and roast squid were less exciting, though.