Yi-Ban

The dim sim is one of its kind.

Ignore reviews of terrible service, staff come across rude but that is because of the language and cultural barrier. They always have good intentions! Food here is just delightful and would most certainly recommend the Dim Sum menu at lunch time.

I took my girlfriend and her kids to this restaurant as it was recommended by a friend. The service was ok, food was not to the standard expected. Their sesame chicken was rubbery however I have to say spare ribs was delicious. My main concern was at the end. We paid £85 for the meal which included 1 bottle beer( 3 adults if you include 18 yr old and 1 ). I felt this was a bit pricey. However the main reason I am writing this review is that I told several waiters that tonight was a special evening as it was my gf daughter's 18th. I said to them is there any chance of doing something special. They said we will bring a cake with candle. At the end of the evening we paid for the meal and after several attempts to remind about birthday cake the waiter bought it in & left leaving us to say happy birthday. However this didn't bother me either. What bothered me was as we left we were told to pay for this little small cake & on top of that we then paid further service charge for this. What happen to goodwill in this world!

The chicken satay starter didnt look like chicken, it was very spongey and looked like hand cut chips. The seaweed had too much sugar and the vegetable spring rolls were overcooked and not fresh- i.e. not prepared to order and maybe hanging around in the kitchen. The main course arrived very quickly – I think the Square Meal review must be old – as the service was very fast. My cocktail wasnt cold enough, but tasted nice. They did serve large portions but it was more quantity over quality.

Yi Ban is the restaurant nearest our work so we have been there a couple of times. The food (dim sum) is ok if a little greasy but the service is always slow and a bit rude. Today we went with a vegetarian and someone who had a nut allergy. We ordered veggie dim sum (turnip cakes, prawn stuff as she eats fish) and while we were tucking in, one of our party suddenly got a weird look on her face and said there was meat in the Turnip Cakes. We queried this and they told us yes, there was meat in the Turnip Cakes, despite there being no mention of this on the menu, and even the prawn dim sum had pork in it. My veggie friend was disgusted, and we were more alarmed when one of the prawn dumplings turned out to have peanuts in it despite no nuts warning on the menu either! Anyone with a severe nut allergy could have had a serious attack if they'd eaten that – thankfully our friend with a nut allergy hadn't touched it. They were very rude when we pointed this out and told us it was usual in dim sum – but I have never seen it before at any dim sum place in London. They gave us a 10% discount but we didn't want to pay the service charge. They argued with us and told us we couldn't have both. I'm afraid they got four women strongly arguing back as service charge is always discretionary. They finally took three dishes off the bill and we paid, but we won't be going back.