Chinese Gourmet
The noodle list runs five ways in one small kitchen, Chongqing, rice, wheat, glass and hand-pulled Xi'an biang biang, from a shed on an Isle of Dogs business park.
Why go
The menu spans Xi'an, Sichuan, Hunan and Xinjiang. That is a wide brief for a room this size, and the chilli work is the throughline. Biang biang noodles in special chilli sauce run 12 pounds plain and 13.50 with chunky beef, appetizers start at 5.80, and most people leave having spent between 10 and 20 pounds. Service is over a counter, so the food arrives fast and the seating is a handful of wipe-clean tables plus a bench outside. David Ellis put it in his Evening Standard restaurants of the year for 2024, which is unusual company for a unit in Skylines Village.
Order this / avoid
- Order: the Xi'an biang biang with chunky beef, then the prawn wontons in Sichuan sauce, which Ellis rated
powerfully flavoursome
in noodle form.2 - Avoid: the midday window. Office queues run out the door and the delivery riders take the rest of the capacity.
What locals & experts say
- Evening Standard (David Ellis, restaurants of the year 2024):
The place is not a looker: it is the sort of wooden shed that B&Q sells, with a logo more usually found on a backpackers' trail. But it is reassuring, sometimes, to know all the money must have gone into the food.
3 - Harden's (Review of the Reviews, 17 Dec 2024): digesting Ellis,
Restaurants like this, that go unnoticed, feel like gifts,
possiblythe most memorable present of 2024.
2 - Tower Hamlets Slice (Eleanor Thomson, 24 Apr 2025): the local read on it, hand-pulled noodles with beef slices in broth and a Xi'an beef burger sauced with sesame, ginger and pepper, at 10 to 20 pounds a head.4
- Local rec: Palate, per Jeff's list.
Good to know
- Timing: roughly 11.15am to 10pm. Lunch is the crush; late afternoon and early evening are calm.
- Booking: walk-in only, counter service. A group of more than four will struggle for a table.
- Getting there: Unit 60 Skylines Village, Limeharbour E14 9TS, a short walk from South Quay DLR and about fifteen minutes on foot from Canary Wharf.
- Hygiene: Tower Hamlets inspected on 20 May 2026 and recorded good hygienic food handling with the other two categories generally satisfactory.5
- Dietary: the venue publishes no allergen, vegan or gluten-free statement. Ask at the counter.
Jeff's take (his words)
- Rec via: Palate.
- Note: "Palate recommendation." REAL.
Verdict
should-visit — Five noodle formats made by hand, Chongqing through Xi'an biang biang, in a shed on an Isle of Dogs business park, at 13.50 for the beef version. David Ellis put it in his Evening Standard restaurants of the year for 2024 and wrote that places like this feel like gifts, and he is right: the money went into the kitchen and none of it into the room. Worth the DLR ride if hand-pulled noodles are the point, and worth going before or after the office lunch rush.