RESTAURANT REVIEW: Cha Cha Moon (Soho)

The first impression I got when setting foot in Cha Cha Moon was that it reminded me a bit of Busaba Eathai, in that tables for each individual party weren’t segregated, and instead, you were seated as part of a long table. Whilst the restaurants favour this seating arrangement because it means they’ll get more customers, and thus, revenue, as with the Thai restaurant, it makes the place have a bit of an impersonal vibe, which doesn’t put it in my best books to begin with.

Redemption came almost immediately, however. I visited this place using a voucher I bought off Groupon, which entitled me to £40 worth of food there. The deal cost £20, so it was the same as using Tastecard (which I don’t have). However, I was pleasantly surprised when the waiter told me that the deal didn’t just extend to food, but encompassed drink too. This worked out fantastically, because after getting drinks, we had exactly enough for a starter and main each, and thus, didn’t have to over-stuff ourselves just to meet the quota of forty quid.

The cocktails, though not remotely alcoholic, tasted very nice. I had a lime concoction in honour of my e-mail address, and Jake had this cool dragon drink. It’s also a testament to the strength of the cooking at Cha Cha Moon, and the chefs not relying heavily on sauces, that aside from the cocktails, I didn’t require any liquids throughout my meal. I say this because from my extensive experience of Chinese restaurants, I usually need like a gallon of water just to hydrate my body from the copious amounts of soy sauce they bung into the meals.

For starters, we had steamed broccoli (nothing special in my opinion, and if you were paying full-price for that, it was literally £4.50 for a couple of veg, there’s your rip off), and chicken-and-prawn dumplings, which I loved but there was barely any of, and thus only left one for the other guy :p I also enjoyed my main – seafood ho fun. Ho fun is my go-to dish in Chinese restaurants, and it was cooked passably at Cha Cha Moon, without being the finest of the dish I’ve ever had. The scallops went down a treat but the prawns could have done with being de-scaled, and my other main gripe was that there wasn’t enough seafood, and a bit too much ho fun and peppers, the latter of which I would have been happy to see none.



Fortunately, due to Cha Cha Moon’s generosity in letting my voucher include drinks in it meant that I left the place feeling merrily tipsy, and thus I will return the favour by artificially bumping their grade up a few notches, given that my extensive experience with Chinese restaurants rendered this place really quite unremarkable.

Grade: B