Posh Food

I agree on that. Go to any 'Gastropub' and you end up paying £12-15 for a pretty standard burger (infact a trip to a shitty GBK costs close to that). Go to Hawksmoor and the lunchtime special is £15 for the best burger around with some pretty awesome posh triple dingdonged chips. For once, its well worth it.

£15 I my mind is fucking good value (in London terms). I couldn't even finish all the food, the beef dripping chips are epic! I would pay that again and again, and again...

Which Hakkasan did you go to? I went to the Mayfair one last week and was distinctly underwhelmed. The place was pitch black, the food was... well it was alright but it wasn't 'oh wow this is great'. Then after we'd finished eating the staff came up to us and said "yeah we need to give your table to somebody else so if you could just leave now that'd be great". Then half an hour after leaving I had the most epic case of Explosive Shits I've ever had in my life and had to stop off at the bogs in Waterloo station to regain control of my bowels. Will not be returning. And I won't be going back to Hakkasan Mayfair either.

We went to the Mayfair restaurant. Pretty much everything I had was superb! It was full of Chinese people too...

the notion of high end chinese food is trenchant bullshit. most asian food, especially chinese (canton) is predicated on a society where food was pretty scarce at the best of times and as such is cobbled together from some pretty unpleasant (to western palates at least), not to mention cheap bits of an animal. gussying up and in many cases, dumbing down food which in its purest form is simple and unfussy by its sheer nature, so as to slap a whopping great price tag on it is pretentious and insulting.

if you want awesome chinese food, go to any of the hundreds of quality, reasonably priced chinese restaurants london has to offer with chinese folks eating in them.

No cheap cuts in Hakkasan...this is food firmly designed for the Western palate.

Oh man, my going to Hakkasan wasn't even my fault. I've got a bunch of Chinese friends and they all insisted I had to go. I seemed to be the only person there who didn't really enjoy it (and not because I don't like Chinese food)

There's no way I'm taking the blame for pretentiousness on this one :p

Did your friends like it?