More London eats: East Street

I was walking to Tottenham Court Road station the other day (which, before I moved to London, thought was a fictional name from Harry Potter) and chanced upon this big, open space that reminded me a bit of the street markets in Singapore.

Lo and behold, that is exactly what East Street is going for.

As usual, I was hungry, so I went in and sat down. It was a bit empty (it was around 4pm, before dinner and well after a normal lunch hour), but they had a few people sitting there on laptops, using the Wifi.

In addition to a menu that includes traditional dishes from Indonesia, the Philippines, Vietnam, Thailand, Korea, Singapore, and Malaysia, they have a shelf near the front displaying a few essential ingredients, too.

I was glad to see that these weren't exorbitantly priced. I bought a very large bottle of sweet chili sauce. Yum!

A blurry photo of a corner of my placemat.

A shot of my super delicious chap chae. 

East Street has an "Eastern Express" lunchtime menu where, for £7.95, you get:


A choice of: 

• Korean chap chae, sesame-scented fried glass noodles with shiitake, cucumber, carrot, chili, and optional chicken
• Thai tom yum soup with prawns, straw mushrooms, and glass noodles
• Japanese "gomoku yakisoba", which are noodles fried with prawns, chicken, red pepper, carrot, and bean sprouts
• Indonesian nasi goreng, which is a spicy fried rice (we eat this in Singapore, too)!

AND a choice of:

• 3 pork gyoza
• 3 "tod man khao pod" (Thai corn fritters)
• "goi cuon" (Vietnamese rice paper rolls, or "summer rolls" as they seem to say here)
• miso soup

I don't know how authentic the chap chae was, as it was only the third time I've ever had it, but the servings were enormous and I thought everything was delicious. Next time, I'll try the Singaporean spicy chow mein off the regular menu and let you know how similar it is to the dishes you get in hawker centers.

3-5 Rathbone Place

London

W1T 1HJ

+44 (0)207 323 0860