"Ma La is one of London’s lesser talked about Chinese restaurants, and focuses its resources on one region: Sichuan province, home to the spicy, fragrant dishes of the country’s south west. The menu, long and ranging, includes cold starters of pig’s ear in Sichuan oil and whelks in chilli sauce, a sea bass main served ‘drifting and fragrant’, and dumplings — folded crescent moons doused in heat — that are perhaps a little more like the momos of Nepal than the delicate dim sum of Hong Kong. The accessible £9.50 set lunch menu, which includes a soup of the day, ‘silken’ spring rolls, and an impressive main course such as dan dan mian (wheat noodles with minced pork and vegetables in broth) is the ideal introduction." - Josh Barrie
