Kai Mayfair

Mr Oil & Mr Vinegar yearned for the flavours of the Orient, so travelled to Kai Mayfair, one of only three Chinese restaurants in Britain to hold a Michelin Star...

MrV: That was not what I wanted at all.
MrO: I did warn you that Kai is not like the average high street Chinese restaurant.
MrV: No, it’s at least ten times the price. And for what?
MrO: The decor is very smart.
MrV: Not my idea of Chinese. All grey minimalist with odd flashes of opulence. Standard Mayfair decor. These Chineses are too assimilated in my opinion. I like all the bamboo bridges and lampshade hats but there was no sign of them here.
MrO: No doubt the owners of Kai would be delighted to hear you say so.
MrV: The problem is, the food isn’t particularly impressive. I think those Michelin inspectors only know how to judge French food and anyone else who puts on enough of a show and doesn’t actually make them sick will probably win a star or two.
MrO: They might take issue with that. Anyway, the starters were very good indeed. I loved the lamb shank.
MrV: It was very good but what was Chinese about it? You can get that anywhere. Some European peasant-style slow cooked lamb, but served in a martini glass to give it an exotic twist. I can just imagine the half-witted inspectors tasting it and thinking, Ah, these Chinese can cook European food after all, but how sweet that they don’t know what crockery to put it in. Let’s show we’re not racists and give them a star.
MrO: Well, the spare ribs were absolutely perfect.
MrV: They were, but the soft shell crab was very disappointing. The batter stuff on the outside was soggy, which is pretty cheeky when they are charging £14 per crab. And where was the seasoning? Not a hint of garlic or chilli, either. It was as if they’d tried to take the Chinese influence out of the dish. There’s a theme here. They’ve gone native.
MrO: I think you are over-egging the pudding. The main courses were classically Chinese, at least to my uneducated taste. I loved the seafood rice side dish. And the Chang Sah prawns seemed very Chinese.
MrV: The menu says they were cooked according to “a tightly kept secret recipe” but to my mind they were prawns in sweet and sour sauce, and £22 to boot. I hope the tightly kept secret doesn’t involve a jar from the local supermarket.
MrO: Perhaps we should have tried one of their weird specialities.
MrV: What, like Buddha Jumps Over The Wall? Ginseng and shark’s fin and bit of gold leaf and other stuff boiled up in a soup? If you want it you have to give five days’ notice and it costs £108 per portion. No wonder Buddha jumps over the wall – anybody would to avoid those prices.
MrO: The Wagyu beef was very enjoyable.
MrV: You are an idiot. Wagyu is the collective term for a number of breeds which produce very intensive fat marbling within the meat. I couldn’t see or taste this effect, leading me to the feeling that our portion had somehow lost its marbling. I also felt that we had lost our marbles paying £75 for one small steak – seven measly ounces.
MrO: You are very hard to please on this occasion. What about the wine?
MrV: Fully priced, I’d say, at £58 per bottle of Verdicchio di Matelica Riserva Mirum 2006. The problem with this place is, you can’t help feeling that you are paying through the nose for their increased status but there’s not enough coming back in return. I’d be looking for some sort of shift in that position before I’d go back in.

Mr Oil and Mr Vinegar, accompanied by their friend Fruity Parker, consumed six first courses, three main courses, two bottles of wine, two bottles of water and three cups of coffee, at a total cost of £408.94.

Kai Mayfair
65 South Audley Street
London, W1K 2QU

+44 (0) 20 7493 8988

reservations@kaimayfair.co.uk
www.kaimayfair.co.uk